I want to start paddleboarding, but have no idea where to begin...any suggestions?

Question

I want to start paddleboarding, but have no idea where to begin...any suggestions?

Answer 1

Todd Saunders, 29, of Palos Verdes, Calif., felt he had a clear-cut choice when it came to staying in shape. On the one hand, there was the mental clutter of the gym with its tired ambient music, wall-to-wall TVs and fluorescent lighting, and on the other, the unfettered stillness of the open ocean and a streamlined 18-foot paddleboard.

It was an easy decision. He chose to be outside, stroking his way to a sinewy body.

"I paddle at least two miles before I go to work every morning," said Saunders, a photographer and director. "Before the sun comes up, I’m on the water, away from noise, cars, cell phones and e-mail, watching the coast from far away. There’s nothing out there on the ocean except you and your breathing except for dolphins, birds, wildlife."

Paddleboarders don’t ride waves standing up the way surfers do: They simply paddle. Either lying prone or kneeling on their 12- to 18-foot craft, paddlers move through the water using only their arms for locomotion. The sport conditions not only the arm muscles, but also the back, the abdomen and the legs, which must stay engaged to keep the board from tipping.

Paddling has long been an integral part of surfing. From the 1920s to the ’60s, most surfers paddled to keep themselves in shape for big-wave sessions. But as surfing took off, few of its new fans bothered with paddleboarding, with its meditative but comparatively tedious focus on perseverance. It became a pastime of surfers on days when waves weren’t up to snuff.

Now it is catching on among water-lovers who want to get away from it all while they work out, and surfers interested in the sport’s roots or weary of crowded surfing lineups. It has even snared a few gym refugees.

Sales of paddleboards, which are longer and more streamlined than surfboards and cost from $1,500 to $3,000, have increased in the last few years, makers say. For instance, Joe Bark of Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., a leading paddleboard maker, or shaper, said his production has more than tripled since 2001.

Another indicator of the sport’s growth is the number of entrants in paddleboard races. More than 100 competitors are expected to register for the Quiksilver Molokai to Oahu paddleboard race in Hawaii in July, up from 58 in 2003 — a significant increase considering that each paddler must have an escort boat.

In the last decade, participation in the Catalina Classic, a 32-miler in Southern California, has nearly doubled. Last year, in Hawaii, a popular sprint race from Sunset Beach to Waimea Bay had 265 competitors, up from 125 in 1999.

"There’s been an orders-of-magnitude explosion in nearly all of the waterman disciplines in the last few years," wrote Scott Hulet, the editor of The Surfer’s Journal, in an e-mail message. The explosion he refers to includes paddleboarding, kiteboarding (a windy-day diversion that involves being pulled by a kite while on a board) and, of course, surfing.

"I suspect most of it is attributable to an expanding coastal population," Hulet said. "And maybe the hope that they’ll end up looking like Laird Hamilton."

As people seek respites from the commotion of their lives, paddleboarding clubs are cropping up far from traditional hubs like California and Hawaii.

"For about 10 years there were only a handful of us around," said Jim Arnold, 46, a real estate broker in East Hampton, N.Y., who founded the Hamptons Paddle Club in 2005. "Each of us had lived either in California or someplace else where paddleboarding was prevalent, and brought it back East with us." In its second year, the club doubled in size to 18 members.

"People are finding that it’s a great way to get a workout, and that it’s so much nicer to be on the water than in the gym," said Bark, 46, the paddleboard maker. "I used to build boards mainly for surfers and watermen, but now I’m making a lot of boards for people that are just looking to stay fit, but who’d rather be out in nature."

Others are attracted to paddleboarding because it’s easy on the joints. "I have a knee injury that’s limited the amount of things that I can do, both on a surfboard and for exercise," said Dan Dixon, 31, of Cardiff, Calif., a surfer for 15 years. "Paddling allows me to still stay out on the water."

Whereas surfers’ sessions are punctuated with short bursts of paddling and interminable waits, paddleboarders are engaged in nonstop conditioning. On boards that skim through the water with ease, paddlers often head out when the wind is down, looking for smooth water that allows them to build momentum.

Others go after rougher conditions, paddling into the waves for a set distance, then spinning around and riding a swell toward shore while staying in the paddling position, coasting for hundreds of yards at a time on open-ocean swells.

Either style is great exercise.

Some paddlers never see the ocean at all. "Paddling on the lake puts me at high altitude and in a new environment of trees and mountains that most paddlers don’t see," said Tim Kessler, 50, of Carnelian Bay, Calif., who started working out on Lake Tahoe four years ago after back surgery. He has since worked up to doing eight to 14 miles a day in preparation for a paddle excursion the length of the California coast to raise awareness of environmental issues.

Not everyone likes a marathon paddle. Dozens of more accessible events as short as two miles cater to weekend paddlers. In the summer, there’s a paddleboard contest nearly every weekend in Hawaii and California, and their frequency is increasing on the East Coast. (Go to eatonsurf.com or paddleboards.com for calendars.) :-)

Answer 2

Search the internet for paddleboarding clubs near your area and go from there.

Answer 3

If you can get to Santa Cruz California, check out one of the many surf shops- the people there are very knowledgeable about the sport.

If not, check out these sites:

Overview of the sport:

http://www.santacruzlive.com/ex/content/...

General portal

http://paddleboards.com/main.html