Ben Marcus - The Art of Stand Up Paddling: A Complete Guide to SUP on Lakes, Rivers, and Oceans (How to Paddle Series)

A COMPLETE GUIDE TO SUP ON LAKES, RIVERS, AND OCEANS

Second Edition

Ben Marcus

FALCONGUIDES

GUILFORD, CONNECTICUT

HELENA, MONTANA

An imprint of Rowman & Littlefield

Falcon, FalconGuides, and Outfit Your Mind are registered trademarks of Rowman & Littlefield.

Distributed by NATIONAL BOOK NETWORK

Copyright 2016 by Ben Marcus

A previous edition of this book was published by The Globe Pequot Press in 2012.

Photos by Alexandra Westmore unless otherwise noted.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN 978-1-4930-0832-2 (pbk.: alk. paper)

ISBN 978-1-4930-1466-8 (electronic)

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

The author and Rowman & Littlefield assume no liability for accidents happening to, or injuries sustained by, readers who engage in the activities described in this book.

Dorothy Parker once said: I hate writing, I love having written. Which is true, because finishing a complicated mother of a book is a good feeling. However, the end game of writing a book is always a little traumatic when its time to wade back through months and thousands of e-mails to compile a list of thank-yous and acknowledgments. Traumatic because it brings back to memory how complicated books are to put together and how many people I had to pester with dozens and hundreds of e-mails.

Traumatic to remember many people were kind enough to contribute their experience and photos. A lot of photos. Thousands of dollars worth of photos from individuals and companiesalmost all of them donated by big companies like Surftech, Starboard, and Naish, and from dedicated SUP enthusiasts like Ken Hoeve, Charles MacArthur, Mike Sandusky, Dane Jackson, Caroline Gleich, and David Adams, who donated personal photos and/or affixed GoPros to their boards and paddles and made it all look good.

Traumatic because of the responsibility of remembering to thank everyone who contributedand not leave anyone out.

The first e-mails for this book began around September 13, 2010. If its okay to use a steelhead metaphor in a SUP book: I hand-tied a flashy book proposal and drifted it in front of several publishers. John Burbidge at FalconGuides was the first to take the bait and now here we areexhausted and gasping after a long fight.

This is my fifteenth book, but the first book I ever pitched to a publisher that was accepted. I quote Captain Willard from Apocalypse Now: I wanted a mission, and for my sins, they gave me one.

Books arent easy. They dont write themselves. Nor do they research themselves, interview and transcribe interviews by themselves, or fact-check or copyedit themselves. Books are a lot of work, but they are made easier with input from a lot of people.

Its now July of 2011, ten months after that first cast, and this book is almost finito. It wouldnt have happened without the following people:

First of all thanks to John Burbidge for wrestling this monster into order. Wasnt easy. Its almost overall he has to do now is edit 1,500 words of thank-yous down to something that will fit.

Thanks to instructor Skylar Peak, Beckers Malibu retail dude Mitch Taylor, and students Noam and Michelle Geft and their lovely children, Daniel Dolphin and Evan Eagle, for their time and dedication in laying down the instructional part. The best decision I made in the last year was to ask the Gefts if they wanted to be the models. That part worked out perfectly.

Of course thanks to Alexandra Aflex Westmore for shooting all the instructional stuff, and just for being a righteous babe in general. Thanks to Bill Miller at Malibu Kitchen for the bench space. (Its 12:43 p.m. as I write this and time to clear out!)

Also thanks to Janet Macpherson and Steve Farbus for the tool shedsorry about the water bottles.

And to Sue Peck for the PCH space. And John Ortiz for the peace and quiet on Malibu Road.

Clay Feeter, Steven Sjuggerud, and Glenn Dubock at Standup Journal were stand-up guys in helping this book along from go to whoa. They were a big help in laying down a lot of history, pointing me to a wide range of stand up paddlers from Maui to the Mediterranean, and providing me with contact lists of people in the SUP industry.

In SUP Magazine, Sam George talked about this book as it was still being created and said something to the effect of, The history of SUP is too new to lay down. Au contraire: Laying down history as its happening is important to the future, and the part of this book I like best is the history of SUP. Might not be perfect, but a solid base for others to mutate however they like.

Thanks to Laird Hamilton for dedicating some water time to a couple of long phone calls to lay down his history and philosophy of stand up paddling. I hope I got it right.

And to Jane Kachmer for connecting me to the Coconut Wireless.

Thanks to Jack McCoy and Gravey Davey for taking the time to e-mail that missing link image of Duke on the Australian surf ski circa 1939 and thanks to DeSoto Brown, Sandy Hall, Geoff Cater, Scott Starr, Nick Carroll, and Jack McCoy for unraveling where that board came from, and its significanceif any. If anyone has anything earlier: Send it! Thanks also to Don Love for permission to use the image.

Also to Geoff Cater for the khasake clue-in.

Almost too late, Michael Ah Choy delivered two scoops on the impact of John Pops Ah Choy and his brothers Bobby and Leroy on the history of standing up on a big surfboard and propelling it with a paddle. Almost missed that. Glad we didnt.

Gerry Lopez contributed in ways he was aware of and not aware of. He gave a long interview that didnt make it into the book, and thats a shame, but fifty years from now, some SUP historian will love finding a transcript of Gerrys words.

Many others contributed to the history, including Duke Brouwer and Randy French at Surftech. Thanks to them for the historical input, technical information, and for opening their photo files. And thanks to Ty Zulim and the crew in HB for equipment support, and Steve Cranston in Hawaii for letting Noam and Michelle tour the warehouse and borrow some boards.

Also thanks to Dave Parmenter and Todd Bradley at C4 Waterman/Pohaku Paddles for laying down the west side/Makaha side of the story. Even if we couldnt use all the best stuff.

Cameron Farrer was a big help with his eyewitness account of stand up paddling around Privates in the early 1990s. Sam George supported Camerons accounts with his own of the early days, as did Scott Bass, who laid down an early history of SUP in San Diego County.

Many others contributed to the history, including Felipe Pomar, Marshall Coben, Gerry Lopez, Jay Butki, Loch Eggers, Ambrose Curry, Mike Waltze, Jimmy Lewis, Ken Russell and Marlon Lewis, Mickey Eskimo, Roger Mansfield, Chris Power, Charlie Force, Blane Chambers, Chris Malloy, Gary Lynch, Joe Bark, Ron House, Steve Sjuggerud, Clay Feeter, Mickey Munoz, Don King, and Sam George.