29
Summer 2013
Escarpment Magazine
The most commonly recognized version of stand up
paddling are the gondoliers of Venice, Italy, who ac-
tually use a paddle, not a pole, to propel their gondo-
las. This has some local history too—friends I know
used to wrap their windsurfing sails around their masts
on ’no wind days’, and, ‘gondolier’ as they called it,
using their masts as paddles. Just ask any old school
windsurfer like Henry Haiduk or Bill Ford, about their
early boardsailing days at Northwinds Beach!
Lifeguards in Tel Aviv have been using a stand up
board called a hassakeh since the early twentieth cen-
tury, an idea borrowed from fishermen dating back
hundreds of years. Standing up on a board gives a
much better vantage point and the ability to paddle
quickly to a distressed person.
SUP as we know it today, began in the Hawaiian Islands. The early 1960s brought out
the ‘Beach Boys ofWaikiki’, whowould stand on their long boards and paddle out with
outrigger (canoewith an ‘ama’ or outrigger beam) paddles to take pictures of the tourists
learning to surf. This is where the term "Beach Boy Surfing" originates, another name for
Stand Up Paddle Surfing.
In the early 2000s Hawaiian surfers such as Dave Kalama, Archie Kalepa, LairdHamil-
ton and others, started SUP as away to trainwhile the surf was down. Later, they entered
events such as the Moloka'i to O'ahu Paddleboard Race, lending support to the sport.
TheMoloka’i Hoe has been a classic outrigger canoe race for years, and is, by theway,
a 70 km, open ocean crossing. As testament to human ability to do this, you may recall
the crossing of Georgian Bay by SUP, just last year. You will also find StandUp Paddlers
in many of the Outrigger races, having created a whole new division of racing.
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Quanting the Marsh Hay | Peter Henry Emerson
Maui to Moloka’i to O
‘
ahu 2011
Anne Baker and class near Northwinds Beach
