Over the years I use a lot of SUP Starboards and have the great opportunity to use the new models with innovation and performance designs improving all the time. A little over a year ago I had posted a few of my used SUP Starboards on Craigslist. One interested buyer called up and met me at my house on the North Shoreof Maui. Not only did he buy my Starboard 8’0 Pro, but he also became a great friend. That guy was Boyd Jeffrey.
Now that Boyd had a sweet SUP board he wanted some lessons so I started giving him private lessons over the next few weeks. He just got more and more stoked on the sport. In fact, in a very short time Boyd has become a passionate standup paddler. He’s a very smart and curious guy, so it made sense that eventually he’d begin asking questions about how people make money in this sport.
I explained the year-round traveling schedule for doing events, including a world tour going on right at that time. He seemed super interested about the competition side of racing and surfing. He became so interested that he came to me one day with an idea to start his own new tour for SUP.
This was a cool day because it was the very beginning of the Ultimate SUP Tour (UST). Since then we have come a long ways to get the UST up and going. Now I have a super sick contest format to do with all my friends right here in Hawaii – without traveling all over the world. For this year, the first event, called the Ultimate SUP Showdown, will have 32 elite paddlers invited to compete. In 2014 the event will be more open. It will take place on August 20 as part of Duke’s OceanFest this month.
The Ultimate SUP Showdown, and UST that it will eventually form, has already received strong support. The glimmer of an idea from Boyd Jeffrey doesn’t stay a glimmer for long. It’s been great to be a part of his awesome concept from the beginning. Paddlers at the inaugural event will include me, Connor Baxter, along with: Dave Kalama, Jamie Mitchell, Travis Grant, Aaron Napoleon, Chuck Patterson, Zane Schweitzer, Vanina Walsh, Justin Holland, Danny Ching (to be confirmed) among others.
The Ultimate SUP Showdown is sort of an event to showcase the format Boyd Jeffrey has in mind. Once the Ultimate SUP Tour is established next year points from each stop will count towards an overall season ranking. Paddlers will want to race and surf in all four events as the prize money will be heavily loaded on the overall rankings – the 2014 season champion is expected to walk away with the biggest check in the sport’s history.
The Ultimate SUP Showdown has also picked up the support of ASP Hawaii to help run the surfing side of the contest. That’s definitely a big score will make a difference in the growth of Boyd’s concept.
Boyd wanted to create something that’s never been seen before. Basically each event will be split into three parts: a SUP surfing contest, a SUP race, and then a “Showdown” finale, where the top 8 finishers from each side of the event will compete in a surf race for the overall victory.
Despite the final of each event technically being a “race”, the format will favor both the surfing and racing specialists equally, as the waves will come into play at critical parts of the course.
One of the Showdown’s taglines is: “Creating a new SUP athlete that is both surfer and racer.” and that’s pretty exciting. For water athletes with a big quiver of skills and who do a lot of cross training through the year this is a unique opportunity to test what we’ve got.
See you at the event on August 20th.
Aloha,
Connor Baxter