Christian Meunier (French shaper of the "Kriss" sailboards) found an old vid he filmed of two guys fooling around with strange boards with paddles in November 2005 at Hookipa, and just posted it on YouTube:
(The humoristic French music may reflect how he saw SUPing at the time :-) )
This might be a dumb question, but I have always wondered. ?Did they start SUPing because it was fun, or because they saw a business opportunity?
I reckon its fun. I don't want to go back. But there is often an attitude that we only SUP because we can't surf - age, injury, or we just can't. Laird obviously could, and did, and no doubt still can.
Laird tells it all: www.mensjournal.com/adventure/gerry-lopez-goes-inside-the-mind-of-laird-hamilton
Basically, SUP has been rampant in Hawaii forever, so Laird was already aware of the concept, and "it started with having my first daughter and wanting to tandem surf with her. I thought, ‘If I’m gonna be surfing with the kid, I wanna get used to riding the board.’ I’d kick out of a wave, and Maui’s windy, so I’d just stand there on that big board and the wind would blow me back out. And [Dave] Kalama and I were out at Maalaea one day when it was one foot and I had the tandem board in the car and Dave had a couple outrigger paddles."
Thanks Colas - that is a great discussion. Shows the pure passion he felt when surfing a SUP. Must be frustrating seeing "Blame Laird" bumper stickers...
