85
However , what if you ’ re new to SUP racing , and don ’ t know the intricacies of the board classes ? We have seen an influx of new recreational paddlers , and that ’ s slowly starting to spill over into the racing scene ( hurray !). Some of the questions new racers asked me last year , “ Why two categories ”, “ do I have to have a 14 ’ board to be competitive ”, and “ who decides the classes ?” Just a few , so I set off to explore the answers and think the best place to start for new racers is with a brief history lesson .
History
So the ' why ' we have two categories , courtesy of the awesome Chris Parker
( aka Sup Racer ). During his recent 10th anniversary podcast , I got a much deeper understanding of the origins of the debate . So let ' s go back to 2008 and an iconic surf race in Californian called Battle of the Paddle ( BOP ). This was the first time any restriction over what board you could use to race on was brought in and was designed to stop people turning up on huge unlimited boards and kicking the butts of those on shorter boards . So why 12 ' 6 ? The short answer is that at the time , the longest stock foam blanks you could get were 12 ' 1 for prone paddling . So they rounded up board categories to 12 ' 6 and under , and so the 12 ' 6 category was born !
Meanwhile , over in Europe , people were starting to use 14 ' boards , as the 12 ' 6 wasn ' t considered as fast on flat water , although it was easier to use in a surf race . The Euro Tour ( a bucket list of SUP races ) took the step that anyone wanting to form part of this series would need to make the board class 14 ' and under to simplify things .
So what was going on in the UK at that time , and why are fewer people racing 12 ' 6 these days ? Looking at race numbers , more people were entering the 14 ' category last year ? What changed here ?