Evolutionary Steps
Unlike the evolutionary morphing of windsurfing, which wriggled it's way out of a primal-ooze stretching over some thirty years, stand up paddleboarding (SUP) is by comparison a relative no-brainer. The homogenous melding of all that is known of paddleboard, surfboard and windsurfing design together with outrigger canoe paddle design and the biomechanical skills required of each sport, are being exploited and cross-plat-formed, jettisoning the evolution of SUP`boards, paddles and participants, on an out of control sleigh-ride of unprecedented speed to a point where evolution and the notion of the pioneering spirit have all but been obliterated; no disrespect to those contemporaries involved.
(Co-incidently, Hayling Island's Peter Chilvers is credited with the invention of windsurfing)
Here's a friend of mine, Ryan, paddling a SUB complete with an outrigger. He made the entire board in the same way ancient paddleboards were made with ply and nails. He's paddling in Mooloolaba Australia, my home town for 25 years. He likes to think outside the square - a true pioneer which makes you think maybe this was what ancient types of this paddle craft could have looked like.
Whereas windsurfing, paddleboarding and surfing evolved gracefully in the hands of pioneers who invested intellectual visionary effort, while beating out a chronology of historical precedents, SUP has effectively leap-frogged years of evolutionary pain, so much so, that to serve the sport up as a done-deal is almost uninteresting and dull by comparison.
Those responsible for marketing the sport, from manufacturer to sponsored participant, and more especially the media and those producing glossy equipment brochures and burgeoning websites, should perhaps show caution in avoiding pushing this as a surf sport as a primary basis for its raison d’etre. A singular image of a surfer with a paddle in hand, riding an overhead high wave, may titilate, but in truth repeated promotion of the sport on this singular level, may nulify the heart and soul of the sport, being that of the paddle as a means of propulsion, to take you wherever you are free to explore and cover distance.
Restraint in promoting the extreme ends of the sport is I believe crucial so as to avoid the same mistake as when windsurfing morphed into an extreme sport and magazines lost the plot in their responsibility to continue the promotion and nurturing of the sport across all disciplines; this I say with some experience as a lifelong ocean sports writer and photographer.
Preaching to the converted will I believe drastically limit the growth of this sport. If you are already a surfer, then you are effectively of that religion, you are by association in the loop, part of a sub-culture, who may or may not warm to the notion of the inclusion of a paddle to your sport. But enticing the surfer is something of a cheap shot in the context of marketing, defeating the point of expansionism. The sport first and foremost, must be made appealing to those who have no association with surfing or perhaps any water sport in order for it to truly grow and find its niche.
Coming back to the premise that SUP is in fact, first and foremost, a paddle sport, maybe this simple, clear distinction would help anyone attempting to market the sport to the world. By giving it a definitive identity, that of a paddle sport in the same way as windsurfing was a sailing sport first and foremost, then just maybe the collective masses may begin to tune in and warm to the fundamental principals of the sport and a more moderate pace of evolution could be embraced.