Careful: we need new blood

[PonoBill]

I was always surprised that so many people wanted to race. It's hard, it takes a lot of practice and training, and if you work really hard at it you might be able to keep the leaders in sight. If you want to be competitive you have to be on a competitive board, and they are ridiculously expensive. And you have to be the right size. Do all that, train, get paddle coaching, put the hours in and you never go faster than a brisk jog unless you're in a bump--and then only for a very short time.

I still race, but I race whatever I want, and don't care about where I finish.

As far as racing being at a plateau--if only. It's on the steep side of the downward curve. There is no combination of incentives, opportunities, or organizer efforts that will l change that.

[Califoilia]

So really, why more kids? Because WE need more blood into any given sport. The health of a sport can be arguably judged by the number of younger participants - in a race / or strictly as recreational.

From this above, it seems to me that you're attempting to look through the keyhole of the front door to "judge" what's inside the entire house.

SUPing is a lot more than just racing, and thankfully so. Because if we judged one's SUP participation simply by how much they raced...I'd have absolutely zero SUP experience with all the years I've participated in it otherwise by surfing, open water paddling, flat water paddling, and now foiling on one if that were the case.

[SaMoSUP]

The SUP industry could have followed in the footsteps of the skateboard industry. I don't remember any skateboard races in the beginning. I don't believe they sold any skateboards for more than a thousand dollars. Did Tony Hawk popularize the industry or was it the industry that made him popular?

It's pretty telling when Kai Lenny has pretty much shun SUP racing for big wave surfing and foiling. Who is the next Kai that the kids can look up to?

[photofr]

Needing new blood doesn't necessarily mean that we must have kids racing.

Did you miss the part where you take kids on a SUP for snorkelling ventures? Was that a race???
Did you miss the part where you take kids down a river? Was that a race???
Did you also miss the part of the 100's of other possibilities we can all come up with?

The end result would perhaps be more kids at races... but the point is that this would just be the end result. Getting there would require getting kids and younger paddlers MORE involved in the sport.

Simplified thought:
Get kids involved on the recreational level = eventually more kids at races
(not the other way around)

[Bean]

SUP racing = $thousands in equipment to lumber along at potato-sack race speeds. Yet, there is no better way to meet and spend time outdoors with some pretty terrific people.   

[stoneaxe]

Stats with only 33 don't mean much anyway.

Especially if you consider that 100.03 percent of the population do not really understand statistics...

Have you been hanging around with PDX lately....

Photo...your 1st post was about the number of kids at a race and fearing for racing. It's the death of racing (or near death anyway) not the death of SUP. I'm all for getting more people out there. I've always been an evangelist for the sport and I love showing kids but I don't think any focus is necessary. If the parents don't SUP it's very unlikely that their kids will. Those that are interested will find/try it when they have the $$ and time to do so. The demographic is what it is. It's not a question of if you build it they will come. That's been done....they didn't come.....unless Mom/Dad are into it too.

[PonoBill]

The only company that has made kids SUP boards in any quantity and actually actively sold them is...  ...Wavestorm. Let the outrage begin.

[yugi]

^ awesome

Kids stuff always has to be cheap.

The secret to cheap ski beanies (and skateboard helmuts) is to buy in the kids section. Kids have almost the same size head as us.

I know, I know, you're going to tell us the exceptions to that rule...

[TallDude]

  Not surprising that kids aren't really much into the worlds slowest sport.

Ahh, the truth, hiding in plain sight...

I used to love SUP racing. I'll still probably participate in a few this year. I have to admit though, I was in Tahiti for the past week and I got my first chance to paddle an OC1 and WOW. The difference in speed was instantly addicting. It was also humbling when I realized I had no idea how to recover from a huli and I was in the middle of the south Pacific 

Is there a sitdownzone.com Sign me up...

+1  But having a custom Pueo 'Foot Forward' built to fit me and shipped to the mainland is around $6K. I think about it.....

[headmount]

There is only one god and that is downwinding.  People will always do it in whatever works for them.  I love it at 68 (started prone paddleboarding in 1979) and my grandson loves it at 15.  The foil thing has exploded here on Maui and a race, like we had yesterday in zero wind, was dominated in numbers by OC-1s, in speed by surfskis, and yet there were still a fair number of SUPs willing to slug it out.  If there had been sufficient wind there would have been foilers.   I did OC-2 with a 26 yr old Canadian kid, maybe 130 lbs and strong with great endurance.  Hot and muggy usually does me in but being with youth was uplifting enough enough to allow us a sprint the last mile to the finish.  I was stoked.  But I freakin love the surfski.  The guy that posted the fastest time, did a time in the ski we all do on the windiest days.  Mind blowing.

My grandson is coming out this summer and wants to do it all.  But he lives in Truckee where the kids are like Maui kids.

[PonoBill]

  Not surprising that kids aren't really much into the worlds slowest sport.

Ahh, the truth, hiding in plain sight...

I used to love SUP racing. I'll still probably participate in a few this year. I have to admit though, I was in Tahiti for the past week and I got my first chance to paddle an OC1 and WOW. The difference in speed was instantly addicting. It was also humbling when I realized I had no idea how to recover from a huli and I was in the middle of the south Pacific 

Is there a sitdownzone.com Sign me up...

+1  But having a custom Pueo 'Foot Forward' built to fit me and shipped to the mainland is around $6K. I think about it.....

At your size and weight I expect you'd be better off in a Scorpius, and I'd looks for a used one. They've been replaced by the Antares, which is not as good for heavy guys IMNSHO, but all the racers and serious folks have switched, which put a fair number of Scorpiae on the market. Don't get the XM or XS, you want the basic Scorpius, built for Mooses. The footwell is long and the seat has room for more foam removal, but you might be able to find an extended footwell version. More common in the XM and XS because they had a shorter well to begin with.

[surf4food]

As I've stated several times on previous threads, it's AMAZING it ever got to the point that it has when compared to other paddle sports.  Surfski , OC1/OC2, and prone paddling will never be anything but niche sports and relegated to coastal areas (and even by that only a small few).   In most of the country things like canoe and kayak paddling in flat water lakes is simply a weekend fun thing to do in the Summer and that's probably what SUP is and will remain to most people. 

[surf4food]

Plus there are just some sports where people don't get attracted to them later in life.