Stand Up Paddleboarding (SUP) the Klip River in Gauteng, South Africa.

On 8 March 2015, I took the 14′ Elite from Red Paddle Co to run this stretch that includes flat water stretches with some nice whitewater rapids. Thanks for the invite Philip.

I even got to river surf the 14′ Elite. Something it was not really designed to do, but did surprisingly well for a board of that length. Normally I would river surf with the 9’6″ Flow from Red Paddle Co.

I was standing through some nice rapids on the 14′ Elite. It has lots of speed that offsets for the narrow width. The Flow is very stable in rapids, but the Elite makes up for stability with sheer speed for punching holes and waves. The one thing I learned though is to pick lines early as changing lines and turning is a lot slower with the Elite compared to the Flow. The Elite is built for straight line speed and the Flow for stability and manoeuvrability.

Protection by G-Form.

Paddlers:
Bertrand van der Berg
Philip Claassens
Daniel Barnard
Hannes Pienaar

Video footage and editing:
Bertrand van der Berg

Music – “Learn To Fly” by Josh Woodward. Free download: http://joshwoodward.com/song/LearnToFly