Another day at the lake.  The sun is shin­ning and the SUPs are in full-effect… This time behind the boat.

With a Stand Up Pad­dle­board, the fun never stops!

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Hey Guys,

What a week­end. The Gore Canyon fes­ti­val was a huge hit once again and the turnout was great. So was the response to stand up pad­dling! I arrived Fri­day and within an hour had five peo­ple out on boards run­ning the class II stretch from our camp spot to about three miles down­stream. One of the pad­dlers had done it before and the other four were first timers, and they all did great. If I had 10 boards they would have been used too. I had to turn peo­ple away as I had five boards total. We ended up doing a cou­ple runs so every­one got a chance.

On Sat­ur­day I vol­un­teered for the race as the head fin­ish line timer. I could have raced but wanted to give my shoul­der some rest from kayak­ing to make sure it’s strong. Stand up pad­dling puts lit­tle to no stress on it com­pared to kayak­ing so I’ve been super stoked on being able to run rivers on my board. I decided to hike up from the bot­tom and pad­dle up the flat-water to the fin­ish line so I could pad­dle the mile down to the camp ground when the race was over. We even used the Black­tip and Surftech pad­dle to mark the fin­ish line for the rac­ers. Wrapped it in pink rib­bon and stuck it out next to the river so pad­dlers knew where the race ended.

Typ­i­cal of the race every­one gath­ered at the fin­ish line for a bit of par­ty­ing before pad­dling down­stream to the camp ground and race head­quar­ters. You should have heard the hoot­ing and cheers when I jumped on my board and ran the first rapid in front of every­one! They were so fired up. I pad­dled the remain­ing class III rapids with a few dozen kayak­ers /rafters and sev­eral of them asked when they could try it out. “Back at camp” I told them and sure enough a bunch showed up. Some rac­ers, a few rafters with their fam­i­lies and oth­ers all did a down river with me. Must have had 25 peo­ple in our group. We switched out boards and rafts and just made our way down. We had kids as young as 4 on them to new pad­dlers as old as 55 on the same sec­tion of river. I even had Bill Mat­ti­son, cap­tain of Team Vail (they won the Eco chal­lenge a few years back) He was so into it. Asked where to get a board also. Talk about a diverse crowd of river run­ners. Every­one picked up SUP fast and many asked ques­tions about what board to buy and where can they get them. A total suc­cess with even more folks com­ing up to me at the awards cer­e­mony and party ask­ing about boards and where to get them to try.

So thanks to Surftech for hav­ing boards out here for pad­dlers to try out. All we have to do is get peo­ple on the boards and the rest takes care of itself. The river was full of stand up stoke this week­end. Stand up pad­dling is going to BOOM out here by next sum­mer, watch.

Pad­dle,
hobie

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Vol­ley­ball fans got to expe­ri­ence walk­ing on water at the Corona Wide Open Vol­ley­ball Tour stop in Santa Cruz, Ca. this week­end. In record hot tem­per­a­tures, com­peti­tors and fans got to cool off while try­ing out Surftech’s stand up pad­dle­boards. Out on the water many par­tic­i­pants pad­dled through the Santa Cruz Wharf and got up close and per­sonal with the local sea lions who were bask­ing in the hot sum­mer air on the docks below the wharf.

While back on the beach the vol­ley­ball action was intense as com­peti­tors from all over the coun­try bat­tled it out in the sand for the Corona Wide Open title. To help beat the heat after test­ing out the SUPs, those with access to the Corona VIP area were greeted with the infa­mous Corona “Octo­bong” which made the after­noon enter­tain­ing to say the least…

Be sure to check the next Corona Wide Open Tour stop and Surftech demo in Santa Mon­ica July 11^th-12^th

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Lake San Anto­nio, Ca. – Blis­ter­ing heat together with tor­ren­tial down­pours greeted the more than 7,000 triath­letes at the 2009 Avia Wild­flower Triathlon the first week­end of May. The Wildflower’s fes­ti­val like atmos­phere and out­door camp­ing accom­mo­da­tions are why it’s become known as the “Wood­stock” of triathlons. But make no mis­take, the hilly bike course and on and off road run legs are con­sid­ered some of the most chal­leng­ing courses in North America.

Surftech was there pro­vid­ing water safety, stand up pad­dle demos for ath­letes and spec­ta­tors and uti­lized Surftech Triath­lete team mem­ber Meghan Browne (2009 Iron­man World Cham­pi­onship qual­i­fier) to lead the pro men’s wave and Surftech pad­dle­sports man­ager, George Phiripes to lead the pro women’s waves of the swim course. “This year’s event marked the first time that we’ve had Surftech’s stand up pad­dlers lead­ing the swim legs of the race,” said triathlon Hall-of-Famer & lead Wild­flower announcer, Julie Moss. “Meghan looked so regal stand­ing tall on her Surftech board out in front of our pro ath­letes. It was a huge ben­e­fit to the swim­mers hav­ing the abil­ity to site off of the Surftech paddlers.”

This year’s Wild­flower race kicked off a full cal­en­dar of mul­ti­sport events that Surftech will be par­tic­i­pat­ing in this sum­mer. Not only will they be hold­ing on water demos, staffing expo booths, lend­ing water sup­port and lead­ing the swim legs of var­i­ous races through­out the coun­try, but they’ll also be par­tic­i­pat­ing in the events as competitors.

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Elite endurance ath­letes from the Olympic ranks are always look­ing for ways to add some fla­vor to their train­ing reg­i­ment. So our good friend Brent Allen USA Triathlon Expert level Coach helped coor­di­nate an out­ing on Mis­sion Bay (San Diego, CA). We sent Sales Man­ager Ty Zulim down in our Super-Surftech-Sprinter loaded to the roof with SUPs. Surftech Endurance Ath­lete, Roch Frey, head coach at www.multisports.com; took time out of his busy sched­ule to take part and clinic the ath­letes about the phys­i­cal ben­e­fits of stand up pad­dling and proper stand up pad­dle technique.

We ended up hav­ing an impres­sive group from the Olympic Train­ing Cen­ter in Chula Vista, CA  which included: Olympic Row­ers Dan Walsh, Sam Stitt, Wes Tier­mani, Mag­gie Hogan, for­mer pro-cyclist Saul Raisin, Elite triath­letes Jen Spielden­ner, Matt Chrabot, and Ethan Brown. It was a great break for all of the ath­letes to learn some­thing new that gave them a GREAT core work-out and time on the water.

When triath­letes head to the open water it is usu­ally for the first part of their triathlon swim-bike-run. When row­ers head to the water it is nor­mally to take a seat in one of the many row­ing boats. This was a great oppor­tu­nity for all of them to have a new per­spec­tive on the water and to work on dif­fer­ent mus­cle groups that they don’t nor­mally tar­get in their usual training.

Many triathlon coaches are now find­ing  Surftech stand up pad­dle boards are the per­fect piece of equip­ment to teach open water swim­ming from. “It is like a mov­ing pool deck. It cre­ates an opti­mal van­tage point to com­mu­ni­cate with the ath­letes while they’re in the water and a give them direc­tion”. All the Olympic ath­letes and Olympic hope­fuls for the 2012 games where stoked and are look­ing for­ward to get­ting back out on the Surftech stand up boards for more training.

For more on the Olympic Train­ing Cen­ter SUP clinic visit; www.usatriathlon.org

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Don’t have any plans yet for Memo­r­ial Week­end?  Join us Sat­ur­day, May 23^rd at Don­ner Lake for the Memo­r­ial Week­end Pad­dle­board and SUP race.  Pro­ceeds ben­e­fit the Truc­kee High “Tor­pe­dos” Swim Team.

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Fresh off of knee surgery, for­mer World Cham­pion, Sunny Gar­cia stopped by the ware­house the other day to add another board to his quiver.  Sunny’s 11’6 Laird SUP will be a major fac­tor in his knee reha­bil­i­ta­tion and help­ing him get back on top.

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WATERMANS:  APPLIED SCIENCE PRESENTS, “THE SURFAID PADDLE FOR HUMANITY”

A Two and 6-mile Pad­dle­board and SUP race.

Doheny State Park (May 2, 2009)  – Atten­tion all Surfers, Pad­dlers, and Water­sports Enthu­si­asts.  May 2^nd, Water­mans: Applied Sci­ence will host the first annual “Sur­fAid Pad­dle for Human­ity” at Doheny State Park located in beau­ti­ful Dana Point, Cal­i­for­nia. All pro­ceeds from this event will go directly to Sur­fAid Inter­na­tional to help sup­port their efforts in bring­ing Malaria edu­ca­tion and pre­ven­tion, sus­tain­able clean water projects, and san­i­ta­tion to parts of the world con­nected to us through surf­ing.  Please join us in our effort to raise $10,000 for such a wor­thy cause.

Whether you are a sea­soned racer or a first time par­tic­i­pant there is a race for you.  The Sur­fAid Pad­dle will include a 2-mile recre­ational pad­dle and a 6-mile com­pet­i­tive course.  Both pad­dles will include Men and Women’s SUP and pad­dle board divi­sions with prizes going to the top fin­ish­ers in each divi­sion.  Join us for a morn­ing of fun in the sun, includ­ing a huge raf­fle and silent auc­tion that will include cloth­ing, acces­sories, art­work, and boards from some of the top brands in the industry.

One great addi­tion to this race will be a demo pro­gram made pos­si­ble through the gen­er­ous help of Joe Bark Pad­dle­boards and Surftech.  Demos are lim­ited and will be assigned on a first come first serve basis.  Poten­tial pad­dlers must pre-register for a demo prior to reg­is­tra­tion to reserve their board.  If you haven’t pad­dled in the past and always wanted to give it a try this is a great oppor­tu­nity to test out a board from one of the great­est pad­dle­board shapers of all time, com­pete in the recre­ational pad­dle, and watch the best of the best bat­tle it out dur­ing the com­pet­i­tive event.  Regard­less of your level of par­tic­i­pa­tion this promises to be a fun day for all.

For more infor­ma­tion visit www.watermansappliedscience.com and click on the Sur­fAid Pad­dle icon located at the bot­tom of the home page.

For event reg­is­tra­tion visit http://www.surfaidinternational.org/paddle09. To reg­is­ter to use a Surftech demo board dur­ing the event please con­tact Pete Stir­ling at pstirling@tankfarmmfg.com or by phone: 949.596.0082

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