Here you will find some guideline advice for buying an SUP board. This is buy no means exhaustive info. We fully recommend you visit a shop or paddle board school and get some hands on adivce and try some boards out. Just like any sport there is equipment designed for different types of users and different areas of use so consider the type of paddling you want to do before buying a board.

First Board:

There are a few things that will affect your choice for your first board.

Width - On the whole you should be looking for a board with a width not less than 30". If you weigh more than 88 kgs or are not confident with your balance we'd recommend looking for something around 32-36" wide.

Length - This really will depend on the type of paddling you want to do. If you want to do a mix of surfing and flat water cruising then look for something between 10'5" - 14'. If you think you will be doing mainly surfing then look for something between 9'8" - 11'5" long (remember the width guidelines above)

Try Before you Buy

This is the best advice we can give. You don't want to buy a board that you grow out of too quickly. Many shops offer a demo service as well as supervised paddle nights. These are ideal opporunties to try out a range of boards and find out what suits you.

Brands

Starboard - The UK's number one board brand. Great shapes and popular with all levels of riders. Starboard is distributed in the UK by Tushingham and they have SUP website where you can see the equipment available and catch up on their team riders exploits. Click HERE for more info 

Red Paddle Co - The World's most popular inflatable boards. built to withstand high pressures and rough treatment they are the perfect travel boards and also work well if you don't have space to store or transport a normal sized SUP. Red Paddle Co inflatable boards are not cheap beach toys, instead they are built to match the performance of hard boards in general use and are a realistic replacement.

Boardworks - A brand from the US with various shapes from different brands under the Boardworks umbrella. Imported into the UK by Daniel Surf

Surftech

Jimmy Lewis

Liquid Shredder

Naish

Fanatic

Circle One

Loco

Coreban

Gong

Custard point

O'Shea

RRD