Every year the coastguard carries out many thousands of rescues around New Zealand, at a cost of literally hundreds of thousands of volunteer hours. Thousands of people are rescued - but sadly not everyone gets home safe. Don’t be one of those people. Over the last 5 days we’ve worked through the five essential safety [...]
This is such an easy thing to do - but it’s so often overlooked. If you’re going out for a paddle, just let someone onshore know - with a return time. If you do get in to trouble, no-one is going to be looking for you if they don’t even know you’ve gone out onto [...]
New start time 10am to coincide with High Tide At the moment the wind is looking northerly, so the course will change accordingly: paddlers will paddle up the coast, completing an upwind/downwind course. However we all know how hard it is to predict this far in advance in Auckland. We’ll know more a few [...]
What will you do if you are out on your paddleboard and you get into difficulties - or you find someone else in difficulties? Can you communicate? It’s an essential part of SUP safety. Last summer there were several high profile rescues of paddlecraft (including paddleboards) where the paddlers had been caught out by a [...]
There’s absolutely no excuse for not knowing the weather/water condition before you go paddleboarding - it’s all right there on your phone. KNOW what strength and direction the wind is going to be. If it’s blowing offshore and strengthening, maybe consider paddling somewhere else (or not at all!). KNOW if there's any significant change in [...]
Day two of Safer Boating Week, and today it’s time to turn our SUP Safety focus to the PFD. New Zealand law says you have to have one when you are stand up paddleboarding, unless you are sup surfing. Yes folks, it’s the law. The situation is slightly complicated by the fact that some regions [...]
It’s New Zealand Safer Boating Week, and each day we’re going to be looking at an aspect of SUP safety. Today - the most important safety item of all for us paddlers: leashes. The problem with leashes is that there is no one type which is right for all conditions. The wrong type of leash [...]
Two and a half weeks to go until the big competition! We hope you’re looking forward to it as much as we are. With Auckland alert levels dropping to level one we are pleased to announce we now have no limit on gatherings. So round up all the people you know and bring them along [...]
Only three weeks left till the SUP Distance nationals, we hope you’ve been training hard and are ready to compete on the 31st of October at Takapuna beach. Don’t forget to invite your friends and family along to watch you take part, or to compete against you. Online registrations close on the 27th of October, [...]
Please take a few moments to assist us in our study into stand-up paddleboarders' understanding and approach to safety and safety equipment by completing our safety survey. You may end up winning yourself a Hutchwilco beltpack PFD, perfect for paddleboarding! Hutchwilco have very kindly donated a box of these great PFDs as prizes to be [...]
