SUP Safety: Never Lose Your Oars

After playing in the water for a long time, you will realize that safety is the top priority of paddleboarding, and that ensuring safety will allow you to enjoy your next trip to sea (and other waters). With the increase in the number of participants, there have been a series of water safety accidents at home and abroad, including paddleboard accidents, we must jointly improve the safety awareness of ourselves and our surrounding friends and reduce the danger of paddleboarding.

In addition to the two basic requirements of foot rope and life jacket. Remember, the oars in your hand are your lifeline.

Whether it's paddleboarding, whitewater (whitewater) or downwind, or just practicing on the shore, the paddle in hand will always be your best friend, so keep it in your hand.

To ensure this, you need to:

First, train your subconscious

When you wrestle a board, your intuition will make you throw away everything and just focus on protecting your body. It is right to protect the body, but we should try not to throw away the oars. To overcome this subconscious, think of the paddle as an extension of the arm and remind yourself of this often. Over time, not letting go of the oars will slowly become an instinct.

Second, stay calm

Panic is our main enemy in times of danger. Being able to stay calm in tough situations is likely to be the only difference between life and death, and that difference may be manifested in whether you throw away the oars or not.

In addition to panic, people can also lose their cool heads when they are very tired, and my personal experience is an example, on September 9 last year, during the one-day 80-kilometer voyage around Dapeng, at about the 60th kilometer, I lay down to rest and put the oar side by side with my body, probably too excited and too tired to coexist, resulting in a decrease in brain sensitivity, and the oar disappeared after a minute. Fortunately, Liu Nan and Lao Jiang, who were with us, were both capable, and we re-divided our labor and finally arrived safely at our destination on a stormy night. Although he survived, it was a profound lesson. Since then, as soon as the paddle leaves my palm, alarm bells will automatically ring in my head.

Third, there is a style of falling

Wrestling is a skill in itself. To avoid losing oars and getting injured, you should learn to wrestle like a master. When you feel like you're losing your balance, simply jump out of the paddle board, fall flat into the water, grab the paddle with both hands away from your head, stay calm and let your body sink first, so that your hands and paddle can protect your head from being hit by the paddle board. Take a deep breath and calmly retrieve your paddleboard.

Fourth, swim to find back

If you've lost your paddle, unless you're fast, it's usually a few meters away from you, in which case swimming catches up with it. In the event of waves, push the paddle board away slightly to avoid collision between the board and the person, but make sure that the foot rope is securely connected. If the paddle distance is far away and the waves are not large, you should climb on the board first and paddle with both hands to chase the oar, which will be faster. Once you get it back, hold tight, stand, paddle and don't lose it again.