Sebastjan Sitar had been thinking a lot about electric bicycles by the time his wife and daughters ran into trouble on the water. They were in a calm lagoon aboard stand-up paddleboards, having a great time, but they got tired and struggled to get back to shore. “If you are going uphill with a bike, you can say, ‘Enough! I don’t want to do this anymore,’ and you can get back,” Sitar says. “I thought there should be the same thing for the water, a safety motor assist.”

He created the company SipaBoards, which he launched with a Kickstarter campaign in 2015. Since then, more than 5,000 SipaBoards have been sold in 26 countries. A few months ago, the SipaBoards Drive Collection was unveiled with three updated board-and-power combos: the Neo ($3,255), Tourer ($3,900) and Allrounder ($3,900). Each has a new modular power-pack system that allows for quicker charging, in addition to a self-inflate system to ease the task of getting the boards ready to use.

“It’s so difficult to inflate the board if you are not super strong,” he says. “With this, you press two or three buttons, and the board is ready. It assists you.”

The whole system is controlled through a smartphone app or a Bluetooth-enabled remote. The newest boards, Sitar says, are 48 percent lighter than the original ones. And, he adds, the newest motor is a lot quieter.

“We work a lot on being as quiet as possible,” he says. “If you want to go on an early-morning paddle, you don’t want to hear the noise of starting up an engine.”

The most common question he receives from yacht owners is whether the battery technology is safe. SipaBoards locate the battery in a fire-resistant housing to prevent problems, he says, adding that other safety considerations have also been top of mind during the product development: “We did a lot to be as harmless as possible for water life, nature,” Sitar says. “We have a small jet that cannot hurt you, that doesn’t damage the environment.”

It all gives yacht owners and guests the option of adding a power-assist to their daily paddle. “You can still do a good workout if you want to,” he says, “but you also have this.”

The post SipaBoards Easy-to-Use Paddleboards appeared first on Yachting.

It has happened to me countless times, in cruising destinations from the Bahamas to the South Pacific. The yacht is at anchor, and I have ventured off from the swim platform to explore the harbor on a stand-up paddleboard. I’m looking down through the aquamarine water as the sun pierces the surface and spotlights the underwater scene. I see staghorn, brain and other coral shapes, along with fish of every imaginable yellow, red and other hue swimming around the reefs.

And then, the board blocks my view directly below.

Until now, this paddleboard design limitation seemed like a given. Europe-based Loeva is showing that there is another way.

Loeva’s board, called Le StandUp, is made in France from a carbon frame and a nano-structured acrylic glass called Altuglas ShieldUp. The material is meshed and structured at the scale of one-billionth of a meter, allowing it to be used in everything from bulletproof laminates to solar-thermal-energy applications. It is reportedly 50 percent lighter than glass and naturally resistant to ultraviolet light, making it a material that can handle the environments yachtsmen typically cruise.

Loeva’s concept of using this material to see all around and below extends to nighttime paddling too. Each board has a double row of ultra-white LEDs that, according to the company, can let riders see about 50 feet in all directions in clear waters. The experience is kind of like being able to remove a lighted swim platform from a yacht and head out to see even more fish. The battery that powers the LEDs can last as long as three hours before needing a recharge.

Le StandUp weighs 44 pounds, which is heavier than many other boards, but is still light enough for one-person stowage and launching. The board also has a fin that twists with every paddle stroke and then returns to its original position. Loeva says the fin’s design increases the board’s performance by giving it twice the propulsion and about one and a half times the speed of traditional paddleboard designs.

Loeva uses some of its income from Le StandUp to partner with Reefscapers, a consultancy that has worked to restore coral reefs since 2005. So, riders can not only enjoy the view below but also help to protect it.

The post Loeva’s See-Through Paddleboard appeared first on Yachting.

Jim czarnowski was in Mission Bay, San Diego, trying to figure out how to help his family. His wife and children were on stand-up paddleboards, too far away to reach, when the wind kicked up. He watched as they each dropped to their knees and tried to stay upright while paddling to shore. As he recalls, “It goes from something that should be fun to a challenge to survive.”

As the director of engineering at Hobie Cat, he couldn’t help but think there must be a better way. He knew paddleboards had become popular in the past five or 10 years, a trend he attributes in part to “a cool factor; it’s kind of like you’re walking on water.”

That got him and his team thinking about Hobie Mirage kayaks, which let you pedal instead of paddle. They believed combining the paddleboard with the pedals could open up the sport of paddleboarding to far more people, including those who find a regular paddle-board too challenging to use. They started with a regular paddleboard as the base but had to redesign it because the pedals made it go so much faster — up to about 7 knots — that the bow dived. They also scrapped the idea of a handlebar that turned like a bicycle’s; tests showed people wanted something steady. “We took what would normally be the brakes on a bike, the levers on the handlebar, and we made it so that if you squeeze the caliper on the right, you go to the right,” he says. “If you squeeze the one on the left, you go to the left. If you let them go, you automatically go straight. It was intuitive. People just naturally do it.”

They tested the resulting Mirage Eclipse in strong winds and a 2-foot chop. It stayed upright. They also tested it off yachts in Oceanside Harbor, California, where they realized the handlebar made it easier than a traditional paddleboard when it comes to stepping on and off a swim platform.

This past April, Hobie Cat introduced the Mirage Eclipse at a dealer meeting. Even they were surprised by the response.

“The reaction was incredibly positive,” he says. “It went viral on social media. We got about 60 million views. It was through the roof. The royal family of Dubai called and said, ‘We want 10, right now.’ People have said, ‘We will fly to your factory, whatever it costs, and pick it up.’ It’s been completely mind-boggling.”

Built For Yacht Stowage

“The assembly is about 30 seconds,” Czarnowski says. “The pedal system, the Mirage Drive, has two levers that unclick, and it pulls out. It’s the size of a pair of snow boots. The handlebar disconnects with a turn knob. It pulls out of the board. It’s about 3 feet long by about 2 feet wide. It can fit into most lazarettes on a yacht. The rudder can come off if you want to stow the board flat. It’s basically a bungee cord that comes off.”

The post Standing Ovation appeared first on Yachting.