SUPAH Distance Paddling with Wet Feet

Back on April 18th, I was one of abut 15 or so folks who all joined up at Wet Feet, for a SUPAH down-wind clinic. We talked about paddles, boards, fins, technique, traction and other accessories too. Karen, Jeff, and Doug did most of the talking and demonstrating, but there were a ton of good questions from the attendees! We asked about carbon vs fiberglass, planing hulls vs displacement hulls, paddle length, fin size and materials, Kevlar in paddles, hollow vs foam core boards...you get the idea. Jeff had his Joe Bark 18 footer on display, and we were all drooling! That thing was awesome! I got a chance to paddle the C4 Vortice, and was all set to hit the water. I was on a loner paddle, I was still waiting to hear back from C4(next post I'll give ya the scoop). I wasn't sure how hard it was going to be out there with a longer paddle and toothpick of a board, but it was actually alot better than I thought. We met up in Hawaii Kai, and paddled out to sea. The Vortice is really well behaved in calm and low to moderate chop, but when we had lots of wind chop and the swells were rebounding of off the cliffs I started to have a hard time. I have never really done any down-wind paddling, so this was really fun and hard at the same time. I was a little to unbalanced on the Vortice, I'm used to my big wide 11'6, not the 14 foot narrow race board. Don't get me wrong, I do like the Vortice, but I think I would like it a little wider. I am weighing in at about 200 lbs now so it was that bad. A few months ago at 220 I would have had a really tough time! I think next time I want to try a Jimmy Lewis 12'6, that I'm going to try out next time. I really like JL board, the few I have ridden in the past were all very stable and fast. So after 5 miles and lots of paddling I was pretty tired and HUNGRY!!! I chowed down on some sushi rolls, a power bar, some Gatorade , water, coffee, red velvet cupcakes, and headed home for a well deserved nap...and another cupcake!