Why an Avid Kayaker Switched to StandUp Paddleboarding

I was once a very very avid kayaker. 

And this is an understatement. Many of you may remember my YouTube videos where I would either paddle my Valley Anas Acuta or my hand made skin on frame kayak which was actually a replica of one owned by an Icelandic hunter from long long ago.

I once had a plethora of rolling videos on YouTube. I took them down for personal reasons, but if you searched “how to roll a kayak” on YouTube, for many years my rolling tutorial was on the first page. 

For at least a decade I would kayak practically every single day without fail, even during the harsh winter months in New England! And oftentimes my day of kayaking would consist of paddling a couple hundred feet off the shore line just so I could roll the kayak over and over again for a couple hours. 

I was a very avid kayaker indeed.

Another one Goes to the Dark Side

I remember being a bit of a kayak snob. Me and my friends would look down upon standup paddleboarding. 

We thought it was just a fad. We wrote them off as being less capable and less seaworthy than our kayaks. And when one of our kayaking buddies would switch to paddleboarding we would say that he went to the dark side.

No joke. We really said that.

So Why Did I Stop Kayaking?

Well.. around 2016 I went back to college and didn’t have time to kayak anymore. It also didn’t help that I moved away from the ocean and no longer found it as easy to get my kayaks to the water. And this is one of the biggest reasons for why I made the switch.

Driving a Car With a Kayak on the Roof

A Must Have For Kayaking

A wheel kit is really a must have for kayaking. Lugging a big, heavy kayak around even from your car to the beach can be too much sometimes.

Get yourself one of these!

Back when I lived near the ocean, I would strap a wheel kit, to my kayak and walk it to the beach. This, as you can imagine, was incredibly convenient. But after moving away I suddenly had to put the kayak on the roof of my car and drive the thing to the launch spot.

Hoisting a big 17 plus foot sea kayak to the roof of the car was a great big pain. And picking the thing up over my head to put it on the roof was the easy part.

Strapping it down in such a way that the roof racks, which were only about 3 feet apart, would hold it reliably was nerve racking. Strap it too tightly and you will damage the hull; don’t strap it tightly enough and it will bounce around too much on the roof.

I was always very nervous driving down the highway with the kayak on the roof, because I was afraid that it might come off during my travels. I ended up building a big ridiculous contraption to effectively extend the length of my roof racks, to hold the kayak more securely, but setting up and then breaking down this contraption every time I went kayaking was too time consuming. It eventually sucked the joy out of kayaking altogether. 

During this period I experimented with numerous methods of car topping my kayak, and no matter how fancy or expensive the method was, I constantly went back to simple foam pads and nylon straps like these.

Kayak Roof Pads

If carrying a kayak on the roof of your car is something that you really need to do then I suggest using these affordable pads. Other contraptions that I’ve tried such as the J-hooks did not hold the kayak to the roof as securely as the simple pads and they also cost way more.

Folding Kayaks to the Rescue!

In hopes of eliminating the need to load the kayak onto the roof of my car, I experimented with a couple folding kayaks. 

These are kayaks that are stored in a big suitcase that you can put together when you’re ready to use them!

They’re a great idea, but I was never satisfied with their performance. The closest that I got to the type of performance that I was after was the Trak folding kayak. It was fairly nimble and I was actually able to roll the thing, but it was still a far cry from my Valley Anas Acuta or my skin on frame. 

The companies that make these market them as being easy to put together. I think that Trak claimed that it could be done in 15 minutes. Maybe with a lot of practice that would be possible, and I’m being generous with the maybe, but I did not have the patience to spend what was taking me upwards of 45 plus minutes to get the kayak ready to paddle.

My disappointment in the folders sealed my fate with kayaking for a long time.

Storing a Kayak Is Not Easy.

If you like kayaking in rivers and your kayak is really short then maybe this isn’t as much of a problem for you, but if you're into sea kayaking then your kayak is going to be at least 14 feet long, and storing something like that is not easy.

Imagine a big sea kayak of 17 feet taking up space in your basement, if you’re even able to get it in through the bulkhead that is. And if it’s a plastic kayak then it’s probably gonna weigh upwards of 65+ pounds, so even if you're able to find enough room to put it somewhere, you're still going to have to carry a lot of weight to get it there. 

Kayak Accessibility 

When I first moved away from the ocean and began looking for new apartments, I needed to find something that was kayak accessible.

I needed something with a big sliding door that I could get the kayak into and out of easily, and I needed a wall that was at least 17.5 feet long so I could hang it up somewhere. 

Either that or I would have needed to find a place with a basement or a garage that I could have used. Though I really didn't want my precious kayak stored in an unheated space.

I compare the need for a kayak accessible place to live in, with that of finding a place that is pet friendly. You have to pay extra and take way more time to look for a place that will accept your dog the same way that you have to look extra hard to find a place that is accessible to your big sea kayak. 

I ended up finding a place, but it was on the second floor, so I actually built a crane out of wood so I could strap the kayak to it and lift it from the parking lot to my balcony and into my second floor sliding door. It was quite the site. I was always afraid that someone would complain and the apartment complex would kick me out for potentially creating a danger by having this great big kayak floating in the air near the entrance to the building while I was lifting it.

In a Nutshell 

I absolutely loved kayaking, but these two big issues, of getting it from point A to point B and storing it somewhere, were such headaches that they put a serious damper on my desire to use them. Eventually I just stopped using them altogether and went years without kayaking . 

Going to the Dark Side!

Stand up paddleboards come in a variety of materials. You can get hardshell paddleboards such as those made from fiberglass or wood, but it seems that the inflatable boards are really taking over of late.

This is the route that I went. I bought my Sea Gods Carta Marina CX Inflatable paddleboard last Winter. Being inflatable, it doesn’t have any of the problems that my kayaks had with transportation and storage.

Save 10% on a Sea Gods Paddleboard

The Sea Gods paddleboards are high quality and good performers. I did a lot of reading on paddleboards before buying one, and due to their quality and artistic nature, I settled on the Sea Gods Carta Marina CX. Click the link and save 10% at checkout on one of these outstanding boards!

My inflatable standup paddleboard folds up into a big backpack. I can store it in the basement or even in my living space with ease, and when I want to go paddleboarding, I just toss it into my trunk. It is super convenient to transport! 

As for using it, it takes a little bit of time to set up, but the setup time and difficulty is nothing compared to that of the folding kayaks that I used in the past. It is as simple as attaching a pump and blowing it up. The setup time for the paddleboard really is 15 minutes or so, unlike the 45+ minutes that my folding kayaks would take.

What About the Performance? 

I’ve never paddled a hardshell Paddleboard, so I can’t speak from personal experience, though from researching the subject, it seems that the hardshells do generally perform better than the inflatables, though the difference is not that great. If you truly want the best performer, whether it be with a Kayak or a Paddleboard, then you need one that is constructed of solid material such as fiberglass, carbon fiber or wood. There is no getting around that.

That being said, from personal experience I know that the drop in performance from a hardshell to an inflatable or folding kayak is immense, but that does not seem to be the case with the inflatable paddleboards. 

According to “What's the Difference Between A Kayak And A Paddleboard” (2022) “SUPs win the battle between inflatable paddleboards vs inflatable kayaks. An inflatable paddleboard is more rigid and performs better than an inflatable kayak. The simpler hull shape of a paddleboard, coupled with technology like dropstitching which allows for higher inflation pressure, allows it to cut more efficiently through the water.” 

You can tell just by looking at an inflatable paddleboard that it will perform well, because they are quite stiff. You almost can’t even tell that it’s an inflatable, and that is something that you cannot say about an inflatable or folding kayak. 

My First Time!

My first adventure with the Sea Gods paddleboard, that I got over the winter of 2024, was not truly my first time on a paddleboard. I sporadically used them a few times over the years, maybe half a dozen times over a decade or more.

But my first run, which can be seen here on YouTube was the first time that I used my own paddleboard and definitely the first time I used one on the ocean or in any harsh conditions.

It was in very early February in Massachusetts, so the water was ice cold and so was the air. 

I tried to stand up on it, but even with my wetsuit on, I was afraid of falling into the frigid water, so I sat back down after feeling a bit shaky.

If you’re curious as to why I was wearing a wetsuit instead of a drysuit for this cold winter’s day on the water then check out this blog. It explains in depth why it is sometimes better to wear a wetsuit over a drysuit.

That being said, the paddleboard glided through the water with ease. I was pleasantly surprised by how fast it was and even more surprised by how maneuverable it was. 

This last point is particularly interesting when you consider that the paddleboard that I got, which is the Carta Marina CX is not advertised as being maneuverable. Though, since coming from the Valley Anas Acuta kayak, which is known for maneuverability, I decided not to put the fins on the bottom of the paddleboard, because I wanted it to be as maneuverable as it could be. I also left it a bit under inflated so I could get more rocker out of it, which also increased its maneuverability.

And this is another great thing about these inflatable paddleboards, you can put the fins on the bottom, which would be called skegs in the kayaking world, to increase its ability to track straight, and you can change the hull shape by inflating it more or less.

If you inflate it to its maximum pressure then the paddleboard will be more rigid and the hull will be flatter. This enables it to track straighter and go faster, but if you under inflate it then the hull will take on more of a banana shape, called rocker, which will decrease its speed but make it more maneuverable.

This ability to customize the ride is something that I have not seen to this extent in the kayaking world. The Trak folding kayaks are the only ones I’ve seen that offer a similar ability to change the amount of rocker in the hull. 

So yes, I brought it out for the first time in the ocean and in the dead of the winter. I almost stood up on it. Had the water been warmer then I would have braved it and put more effort into it, but I really didn’t want to fall into the frigid water so I sat back down, but I almost got it. Again, watch the video.

I paddled it around for a while and then hosed it off and put it back into its backpack and drove home with ease. No awful process of strapping it to the roof of my car!

It was a great time!

Paddleboard Pros and Limitations

I still believe that kayaks are more seaworthy vessels, and one reason for this is wind. 

Kayaks almost always have displacement hulls, which give them a v-shape. This shape gives a kayak a greater draft, which is the amount of the boat that is under water. This gives them one big advantage over a standup paddleboard which is in their ability to handle the wind.

Since more of the kayak is under water, and the center of gravity is lower than that of a standup paddleboard, they do not get pushed around by the wind as much.

And I can attest to this, having battled heavy winds in my kayaks many times, they are fully capable of dealing with some strong winds.

Standup paddleboards, on the other hand, almost always have a planing hull, which means that they skim across the surface of the water rather than digging into it. This gives them the advantage of being more stable and quicker, but the wind really blows them around (“What's the Difference Between A Kayak And A Paddleboard?,” “Design” section, para 1 & 2).

This may be a problem for me, when I’m on the ocean, but we will have to see. Due to the ease of transporting my paddleboard, I do not have to use it in the ocean exclusively anymore, so if it is a problem I can just go to a smaller lake or somewhere else that is less likely to have a lot of wind.

Where Does the Paddleboard Truly Shine?

A kayak may be better for real sea adventures with its ability to store gear in a bulkhead, more protection to your body from the wind or cold water since your lower half is encapsulated in the boat, and it’s ability to handle rough water and wind, but the paddleboard is just flat out more fun to paddle.

I don’t need a truly seaworthy vessel anymore. I’m just paddling to have fun now. There was a time when if the water wasn’t rough I would have thought it was too boring to go kayaking and I wouldn’t have bothered, but those days are long gone. I’m just out to have some leisurely fun now, and the paddleboard is better for that.

If you want to go out into rough, dangerous water then maybe stick with your seaworthy kayak, but if you’re just looking to have some leisurely fun, while avoiding the leg cramps, and back aches that come from being stuck in a tight kayak cockpit for too long, then go with a standup paddleboard.

With a standup paddleboard you can stand, obviously; you can sit with your legs crossed; sit on your knees; or with your legs straight; you can even sit with your legs hanging over the side as if you’re on a dock. You can even lay down on it. 

The fact that you can move around freely really works to increase the enjoyment of using it over a kayak, and for this and all the reasons mentioned above, I am a paddleboarder now!

Going to the Bright Side?

I’m not going to say that I’m completely done with kayaking, but due to the aforementioned reasons, I’m going to gear heavily toward paddleboarding for now on. 

I will occasionally take out the kayak again, but I’m a paddleboarder now!

I no longer call standup paddleboarding the dark side. Now it’s the bright side, and I am on the bright side now!

Here’s your chance to get a brand new Sea Gods standup paddleboard. Buy after clicking this link and save 10% at checkout.

Don’t forget to check out my blog where I compare wetsuits to drysuits and check out the top six things that every kayaker needs but never brings, so you don’t get caught out in the water without some essential gear!

And please don’t forget to share the blog, and let me know what you think in the comments!

References

What's the Difference Between A Kayak And A Paddleboard? Paddling Magazine . (2022, January 31). https://paddlingmag.com/skills/buying-advice/paddleboard-vs-kayak/