By Shelby Stanger I’m scared out of my mind. The waves in the Mentawais are bigger, thicker, faster and hairier than anything I’ve ever seen. I’m the lone girl on a surf odyssey with a dozen of the world’s best watermen, and though the guys are respectful of my ‘wahine’ status, they charge hard, every [...]

STANDUP PADDLING ON THE YELLOWSTONE RIVER “So, is the surf up today, boys?” the old cowboy asks as he ambles up to the stoop of Mark’s In & Out Drive-in, where we’re feasting on cheeseburgers, onion rings, and huckleberry milkshakes. He’s wearing a 10-gallon hat, starched jeans and a sun-creased smile. I swallow a huge [...]

With Kekoa Auwae Photo: Dana Edmunds Oahu’s Kekoa Auwae is a professional longboarder, an accomplished waterman and a ridiculously sick surfer. Here, the 25-year-old walks us through one of the most fundamental yet difficult-to-master maneuvers in the standup surfing game. — As told to Joe Carberry The board is so big, the turn all comes [...]

With Rob Rojas Three years ago, Rob Rojas paid $400 for a 12’3” standup board a friend shaped in his garage and entered the Dana Point Ocean Challenge, winning the stock class and a sponsorship from Ohana Paddleboards. The 37-year-old Californian combines a big motor—he’s a former NCAA D-I swimmer who once finished a 241-mile [...]

Grandmaster board shaper and legendary waterman Mickey Muñoz has been surfing and designing boards since the late 1940s. A Waimea Bay pioneer, his iconic Quasimodo surf stance has been branded on T-shirts and posters. Muñoz has reinvented himself as a standup paddler and designer. With crystal-clear, ocean-green eyes, and a smile brimming with young curiosity, [...]

This spring in Malibu, Calif., nearly a century of wave-riding mastery came together when surf style icon Gerry Lopez and standup paddling innovator Laird Hamilton sat down for the SUP magazine interview. The exchange ranged from the origins of standup paddleboarding to the spiritual force of the ocean and the future of the standup game. [...]

IS REDEFINING THE TERM ‘WATERMAN’ Candice Appleby is a waterwoman to the bone. After leading her California high school surf team to three national titles, she moved to Hawaii to further her education and chase a surfing career. Things worked out well. The 24-year-old finished third in the longboard division at the 2007 Pipeline Pro, [...]

Paddler, surfer, stuntman, waterman – Oahu’s Brian Keaulana is beyond definition. Deeply rooted in the Hawaiian ocean tradition, the stunt double, who has played himself in Baywatch and done scenes for movies like Waterworld and Blue Crush, explains why standup paddling is here to stay and why beginners should ease their way into the surf. [...]

We couldn’t help it. Austrian Mickey Eskimo–a Hawaiian transplant– and his team recently released this trailer for SUPCONCIOUS, The Movie highlighting their SUP aerial antics. Eskimo uses foot straps to help launch his standup board. He never actually makes a section-and the wake of the jetski he used to tow at the wave is fairly [...]

Photos by Chuck Graham Standup surfing as a sport knows no bounds, as was evident last weekend in Ventura, Calif. where 60-odd athletes met at C-Street for the Ventura Paddle Surfing Championships, part of the U.S. Waveski Nationals. Vertical turns off the lip, ridiculous rail-to-rail cutbacks and even some good old fashioned nose-riding proved that [...]