These are due to be replaced very soon. When my
husband George is not on the water I pinch his
Fanatic Fly Wood Edition to go and catch waves off
the SUPer Bank at Beachlands. I am lucky enough to
have quite a collection of Fanatic windsurfing kit
and North Sails. And I live in ION apparel and
wetsuits – as you can imagine.
I have some favourite kit from back in the day. My
Falcon Open Ocean 12'6 x 24" race board was a
gem! Alex Mullaney has it now. We've both won
Battle of The Thames on it, so it's still a great
board, despite its age.
Part time I work with Nik Baker helping to run UK
sales for Fanatic, North Sails and ION. Part of my
role involves keeping our team riders across SUP,
windsurfing, wake boarding, surfing and kitesurfing
happy. The business is based in Worthing, but I now
work mostly from home on Hayling Island, or any
coffee house within 10 miles. This frees me up for
teaching SUP, plus teaching a bit of spinning and
looking after our two girls – Holly (16) and Carla
(13). Nik and I are talking about me increasing my
responsibilities. I love working with Nik. I know he
wants me to move to Worthing where K66 is based,
but I'm not leaving Hayling. Sorry Nik! I think
there's so much more I can do to help with the
business and we're working on that.
As a lawyer I worked in the legal profession for 25
years – UK and Australia. I really thought I'd
never escape. Encouraged by George I took the
plunge to give the security of that job up and got
a life in 2011, promptly taking up sport full time! I
retrained as a SUP, gym and spinning instructor in
autumn 2012, having no real plan as to what I
was going to do with any of it!.
Frustration and a very supportive husband made
me finally realise I needed to quit the rat race. I
was totally over unit based charging and every
minute of the working day having to be
accounted for. I worked the last 14 years
defending the NHS in medical negligence. A truly
depressing experience. You could never really say
that you'd done a good job.
Stand up paddling has so many great
attributes. It's not too challenging to
learn and this is its huge appeal. Unlike
other sports that I've been involved
with, there's no steep learning curve.
It's fun to progress and once you've
mastered the basics you realise its
depth and all the different aspects it
offers. You might want to train to race,
master SUP surfing, just catch your
first wave, tour or simply enjoy getting
your feet wet and the whole Zen feeling
it offers. It's relatively cheap to get into
and once you've got some kit the water
is free. The SUP community is so
friendly too, it's easy to meet people
who are all out there basically enjoying
themselves and having fun.
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Stand up
paddling has so
many great
attributes. It's
not too
challenging to
learn and this is
its huge appeal