Stand-Up Paddle

Standing up with one paddle, on lakes, rivers, waves and channels

158 boards · 7 brands · 496 sizes

Stand-up paddling (SUP) means standing on a large board and driving it with a single-bladed paddle. It covers a calm lake tour, 200 m sprints, 32-mile ocean crossings and riding surf. It is one of the easiest board sports to start, because a wide board floats you before you have any technique.

A typical stand-up paddle board, 3353 by 762 mm
the typical outline: every board’s shape averaged at the median length and width

The typical board

The typical stand-up paddle board is 3150 × 760 mm, 190 L, with a rounded pin tail and its wide point ahead of centre.

2337–4267mm long · median 3150

622–838mm wide · median 760

92–342litres · median 190

4.1length over width, median · derived

Ranges hold the middle 80 % of every size listed · tails: rounded pin tail 81, square tail 33, round tail 25, pin tail 15, swallow tail 4

How It Rides

What moves it

The paddler is the engine: the blade is planted ahead and the board is pulled up to it, switching sides to hold a line. On flat water a touring or race hull cuts through the water rather than skimming over it, so length and a fine entry matter more than lift. Downwind and in surf, the board borrows energy from moving swells, and the paddle is used to catch each bump.

Reading the shape

SUPs come in two hull families. Planing hulls are wide and flat, ride on top of the water, turn easily and suit all-round use and surfing. Displacement hulls have a pointed, V-shaped nose that parts the water and tracks straight, so touring boards (often 11'6"–12'6") and race boards are long and narrow. The ISA caps race boards at 14 ft and sets no length limit for SUP surfing (but bans foot straps), which is why surf SUPs in the drawings look like stretched, very thick surfboards, mostly under 10 ft. Starboard's rule of thumb is that beginners want volume in litres of at least twice their body weight in kg, dropping toward 1.3–1.5× as balance improves; wider boards add stability and narrower ones add speed.

How to read any board: length and width, wide point, tails, rails, rocker

Wind

little or none for flat water; a steady tailwind for downwind runs

Water

flat water, rivers, open-ocean swell or surf

Worth knowing

Headwind is the main limit; downwinders plan a one-way route with the wind at their back.

The Rack

Every stand-up paddle board, shortest to longest, one scale · from the Gong SUP Karmen FSP Pro 2023 (2083 mm) to the Gong SUP Inflatable I-SUP Race Flat Water 18’ 2026 (5486 mm)

All 158 in the catalogue

Good To Know

  1. The Moloka'i-2-O'ahu race, first held in 1997, crosses 32 miles of the Ka'iwi Channel from Kaluakoi Beach to Maunalua Bay. In 2017 Australia's Travis Grant became the first stand-up paddler to finish in under four hours: 3:59:52 on an unlimited board. [1]

  2. Chris Bertish left Agadir, Morocco, on 6 December 2016 and reached English Harbour, Antigua, on 9 March 2017: the first solo, unassisted stand-up paddle crossing of the Atlantic, about 4,600 miles in 93 days. His 20 ft board carried a small cabin at the front for shelter. [2][3]

  3. The 24-hour flat-water records are 193.8 km for men, set by Bart de Zwart on Lake Biel, Switzerland, on 30 May 2017, and 177.79 km for women, set by Seychelle Hattingh in Sarasota, Florida, on 5–6 December 2015. Both work out to more than 7 km/h for a full day. [4][5]

  4. The longest recorded SUP journey is 2,677.34 km: Australia's Peter Charlesworth paddled the length of the Murray River between 4 March and 11 June 2023, camping each night. [6]

  5. Racing rules shape the boards. Under the ISA rulebook a SUP race board may be at most 14 ft with fixed fins and no rudder, and races run from 200 m sprints to 10–12 km distance courses. SUP surfing has no length limit, but foot straps are banned. [7]

Watch And Read

Who Makes Them

Where And When

Where to watch it

  • Waikiki, O'ahuWhere Waikiki beach boys first stood on big boards with canoe paddles to teach surfing.
  • Ka'iwi Channel, Hawai'iThe 32-mile Moloka'i-to-O'ahu crossing, the benchmark open-ocean downwind race since 1997.
  • Maliko run, MauiThe classic north-shore downwind run, where Kai Lenny's 2016 paddle-foil clip was filmed.

Where it came from

The direct ancestor is 1940s Waikiki 'beach boy surfing': instructors such as the Ah Choy family and Duke Kahanamoku stood on big boards with canoe paddles to watch students and spot sets. Long-distance paddleboarding goes back further, to Tom Blake's hollow boards and the 1932 Catalina race, but that was done lying down or kneeling. In the early 2000s Laird Hamilton, Dave Kalama, Brian Keaulana, Archie Kalepa and other Hawaiian watermen revived standing up. A SUP division at the 2004 Buffalo Big Board contest and the first production boards from about 2005 then turned it into a sport of its own.

More disciplines

Sources

  1. [1]

    Aussies dominate world-record year at 2017 Moloka'i-2-O'ahu Paddleboard World Championships

    Moloka'i-2-O'ahu (race organiser), 2017-07-31 · tier 1 · article

  2. [2]

    Surfer becomes first to cross the Atlantic on a paddleboard

    National Geographic, 2017-03 · tier 1 · article

  3. [3]

    Chris Bertish

    Wikipedia · tier 4 · reference

  4. [4]

    Greatest distance by stand up paddleboard (SUP) on flat water in 24 hours (male)

    Guinness World Records, 2017-05-30 · tier 1 · record

  5. [5]
  6. [6]

    Longest journey by stand up paddleboard (SUP)

    Guinness World Records, 2023-06-11 · tier 1 · record

  7. [7]

    ISA Rulebook & Contest Administration Manual (December 2024)

    International Surfing Association, 2024-12 · tier 1 · federation

  8. [8]

    2026 PB/SUP World Championships

    Moloka'i-2-O'ahu (race organiser), 2026-07-29 · tier 1 · article

  9. [9]

    Hard & composite paddleboards

    Starboard · tier 3 · manufacturer

  10. [10]