Touring Paddle Board
A touring paddle board is designed for, well, touring. It is the perfect vehicle for paddling around your local lake, exploring that sheltered lagoon at the ocean’s edge, and taking your gear and retreating to an area far, far away from the madding crowd. It is slimmer and has a more pointed front than an all-purpose standup paddle board, but is built to carry a lot of gear, or perhaps a kid or dog or two. Cats have even been known to join their owner when touring on a paddle board.
Best Offers Touring Paddle Boards
Touring Stand Up Paddle Board
There are variations on the touring stand up paddle board. A few are just a trifle wider than the standard board. You would not think that two or three inches would make that much difference, but it allows for added gear but makes the board a little more difficult to manage. There are also folding boards, inflatable boards, plastic, and even kayak boards.
Best Touring Paddle Board
Selecting the best touring paddle board begins with taking a close look at what you want to do with your board, and the kind of water you will be paddling on. You might want to camp on an island in a lake or in a protected inlet of ocean. You might want to use your touring paddle board as a racing board, or you might even plan to go paddling on a river. Each water type and area works differently with a SUP board. You want to have the right board for the water type.
Another consideration is how far you will travel to your water-of-choice. For example, if you are flying to an event or guided tour, an inflatable board is going to be a lot easier to pack than a rigid hard paddle board.
Hard Paddle Boards
Hard paddle boards are usually a laminate over a foam core. They require some maintenance, but with good care can last several years. Important points are to dry the boards after each use, check for damage, and to wax the boards to protect their surface.
Hard paddle boards tend to out-perform inflatable touring paddle boards. They can be made narrower with a more pointed nose. This streamlining allows them to cut through the water, displacing it rather than riding on top of it. They are better for surfing and racing than the inflatable paddle boards, although that is not to say that you cannot surf or race an inflatable board. They simply are slightly less efficient in the water.
Inflatable Touring Paddle Board
Minor inefficiencies notwithstanding, an inflatable touring paddle board can have several advantages over a rigid or hard paddle board. First, they are easier to pack. Whether you are driving from the city to a nearby lake or ocean front or bundling up your gear to go on an airplane, inflatables are hands-down the easiest to pack.
Inflatable touring paddle boards are more durable than hard paddle boards. Does this come as a surprise to you? It does to many people. The reason is that inflatable paddle boards are usually made from military grade canvas that has been thoroughly waterproofed. While it can be snagged, the construction is usually in bubbled layers, so that if you lose one layer, you still have another chamber to keep you afloat.
With a good repair kit, you can even make field repairs more easily than you can repair a rigid board. If that were not enough, if you take a tumble and fall on your inflatable board, it is going to be a lot kinder to your head or other parts of your body than a rigid board. In addition, an inflatable is far more likely to survive a series of white-water rapids than a rigid board. It will act much like a white-water inflatable raft, buoyant enough to slip over rocks rather than smacking into them and breaking.
Touring SUP Board
A touring SUP board is not ideal for a beginner. It has a pointed nose and a long narrow shape. It has a displacement hull, making balancing on it a little trickier than balancing on an all-around board. It glides through the water more easily, making it more efficient – you get more out of each paddle stroke. The greater length, however, makes it a little tricky to manage, especially on rough waters. Most touring boards have plenty of tie-downs and other accessories to make it easy to carry gear or young dependents – suitably fitted out with life jackets and other safety equipment, of course.
Touring Kayak Paddle Board
A touring kayak paddle board is a combination board that includes tiedowns that can be used to secure a kayak style seat or that can be used to secure gear for an extended trip. While you can sit, lie, or stand on an all-purpose board, it is a lot more comfortable to have a low seat with back support than to sit cross-legged or kneel on the board for an extended amount of time.
Kayak paddle boards might be rigid, but they are more commonly inflatable or even molded plastic (although these latter are not as durable as their cousins, the inflatable or laminate boards).
It does not take a lot of thought to see that if you are going to be in rough terrain that an inflatable board/kayak combo could be a comfortable camping tour conveyance.
Which Touring SUP board will you choose?
There are a lot of factors that go into selecting a touring SUP boards. Your experience, the location where you will use your board, and (of course) your personal budget all impact your decision. Whether you select a rigid board, an inflatable, one that folds, or a molded board is a personal preference decision.
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