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By: Outdoor Journal

Although Vermont is 5-thousand miles away from Hawaii — the aloha mentality seems a lot closer with the new trend of supping. Stand Up Paddle Boarding is growing even on Lake Champlain and Gina gets a lesson to see how fun and easy this new way of enjoying the lake is.

View the video here!

Record numbers at US Sailing’s Annual National Sailing Programs Symposium recognize some of our very own! Interim Executive Director, Mark Naud, Outgoing Executive Director, Kate Neubauer, and Associate Director, Jen Guimaraes were all recognized for their many accomplishments!

Click HERE to read more (We’re on Page 36)

The Lake Champlain Community Sailing Center is a popular fixture at Burlington’s waterfront. For 18 years it has provided lake access to young and old alike, balancing education with recreation and doing everything they can to connect people to the lake.

After a landlocked summer, Eva gets out on the water in a Carolina Skiff boat with Executive Director Kate Neubaeur, tries to stay vertical on a Stand Up Paddle Board (SUP) and tags along on an adult Keelboat course. Although its summer courses are drawing to a close, the Sailing Center offers programs through October.

View the article and video here

Armchair sprinters have it easy. Usain Bolt’s record-breaking 100-meter sprint in the Olympics ran live on television, and runs still, in loving, slo-mo replays.

Thank NBC’s broadcast barrage.

Anyone plopping into a well-stocked sofa this summer — even serious athletes — can muster vicarious exertions for Olympic gold.

Provided, that is, that the sports are considered in the American mainstream.

Track and field? Prime-time. Hoops? Swimming? No problem.

What about a quartet of Vermont’s summer obsessions: rowing, canoeing, sailing and kayaking?

“I’d say we’re fringe,” said Ryan Ruddy, who works in the canoe-and-kayak department at Outdoor Gear Exchange in Burlington.

He watched a few minutes of Olympic whitewater kayaking — purely by chance — the other day.

“The finesse, the technical skill set they have is just amazing,” Ruddy said.

But, he added, Vermont’s short, erratic whitewater season in the spring isn’t enough to sustain an attendant culture.

“It’s mostly recreational boats here, and sweet, expedition-style kayaks,” Ruddy said. “Perfect for flat water, ponds and lakes or just hugging the coastline at a summer camp.”

Catching the attractions of “New England’s West Coast,” he added, is not something you want to do in front of a television set.

Unless it’s about sailing, and it’s during a lunch break.

Stealing wind
That’s when sailing coach Peter Brewster fires up the broadband and goes online with his four performance sailing students at the Lake Champlain Community Sailing Center.

Semi-circled around a laptop Monday, the class soon was joined by other students and staff who came to admire and critique a recently completed men’s sailing race off Weymouth, England.

The Olympians’ “trapping” (leaning horizontally off the hull in a trapeze harness) elicited approving nods from the audience; shrewd usurpation of “clean air” (wind undisturbed by other sails) drew murmurs.

The center’s teenagers sat, spellbound.

“It’s a routine,” Coach Brewster said of the video sessions. “In the afternoon they’ll be trying to do the exact same thing, out on the water.”

To the untrained eye, the students have much of it figured out already. Mast, sail and rigging snapped together without a hitch, amid light banter.

“It’s painful,” said Jason Field, 16, of Essex, who was helping instruct younger students. Everyone but a first-time visitor knew what Field was talking about.

“The U.S. Sailing Team,” he explained. “It’s getting its butt kicked.”

Indeed, one of Vermont’s four competitors in the London Games — North Pomfret’s Trevor Moore — and teammate Erik Storck wrapped up their Olympic experience by finishing 8th and 17th in Monday’s final two races in the 49er (skiff) class, to finish the Regatta in 15th place overall.

As if in response, Brewster called the performance sailors into the big white tent. On a large whiteboard, he sketched out strategies for in-motion starts, “mark-rounding” (the circling of course buoys) and “stealing wind” from competitors.

The kids seemed to get it; they certainly asked a lot of questions.

Friday they will be racing off the coast of Portland, Maine.

‘Boom-tag’
The class settled into the boats and gave the lines a once-over. Whitecaps moved south and east across Lake Champlain.

“They’re pumped for heavy wind,” Brewster said.

Sure enough, all traces of early teen sleepiness vanished as the students cast off the dock. They skittered the Lasers back and forth close to shore the way some kids spin and skid ATVs.

Were they playing chicken? They didn’t say.

Ben Hunt, 14, of Burlington and Laura Connolly, 15, of Shelburne turned on dimes. Loughlin Neuert, 13, of Richmond gave chase and started a round of “boom-tag” — an off-the-books game with the goal of throwing an unwary opponent’s sail off-kilter.

Burlington sailor Gunnar Bierbaum, 12, circled prudently, and as the least experienced, he kept a hawk-eye out for tricks he could use.

Within seconds, as if by some sign, the four played out their sails and raced due west, toward the Adirondacks.

Brewster indulged them for a few minutes before gunning his motorboat and calling them back through his megaphone.

Like chess
The students flew back, then got down to serious fun.

With each quick whistle blow, they tacked — throwing the tiller, scooting beneath the boom and leaning wide. They plunged into their mark-rounding drills and starts.

They cut corners mighty close; they took calculated risks. They pressed their rights-of-way. But they rarely struck a buoy or another boat.

That, too, is a big-league standard: Penalties cost time, with mandatory “360s” (full circle pivot) or “720s” (twice around).

“It’s kind of like chess: You’re always thinking several moves ahead,” Brewster said.

An unmistakable intensity steered the young sailors as they moved in concert with the wind.

“They have the attitude; they have the drive,” Brewster added. “It’s really up to them if they want to go for the gold, so to speak.”

It’s possible
Once ashore, the students briefly considered the possibility of competitive racing after the two-week class finished.

Gunnar said he is not so inclined.

Laura said she likely would focus on schoolwork instead; she has her heart set on a doctorate in astrobiology.

Ben and Loughlin said they might sign up for the regional high school racing team’s fall season at the sailing center (the spring season is less popular — in part because of much chillier water).

Would either consider a run at collegiate racing, or beyond?

“It’s possible,” Loughlin said. “This is how everybody started.”

Local heroes
The center’s introduction of young Vermonters to Lake Champlain’s wind and water charts a clear course for those who want to compete, said Executive Director Kate Neubauer.

The center is certified by U.S. Sailing, the sport’s national governing body that also oversees collegiate and Olympic trials.

“It connects us,” Neubauer said.

James Lyne, Rachael Miller and Andy Horton are among the center’s hometown heroes, she added — local stars who rose to international prominence, and remain in touch with the Burlington scene.

An up-and-coming sailor, Kelsie Barnes, 13, of South Burlington, pondered joining their ranks.

“I’m not really into racing,” she said. “I’d rather just go out and go really fast.”

But, Kelsie added, she might change her tack.

At the Lake Champlain Community Sailing Center, we don’t have a boat, but we do have some new friends: a gathering tribe of stand-up paddleboarders who, like many, have discovered a whole new view of Vermont. Standing on wide, stable boards with our feet facing forward, paddling on either side to propel ourselves, we aren’t cramped in kayaks or tipping in canoes. We’re gliding across the water, able to see a different perspective while also getting in a darn good workout.

Though stand-up paddleboarding, or SUP, hit the state’s waters several years ago, the flood-free summer of 2012 marks a watershed moment for the sport here, and for a coalescing community. This debut of the Wednesday Night SUP’er Club — a loose affiliation of enthusiasts — is just one sign of the rising tide.

This month, the WND&WVS shop, the only local store dedicated to SUP, opened in Burlington; a June 11 SUP demo at Essex’s Indian Brook Reservoir sold out. The first-ever SUP festival at Waterbury Reservoir is scheduled for June 24, while organizers of September’s Stand Up for the Lake! benefit at the LCCSC are hoping to make it a tourist attraction.

That’s not all: Some of Vermont’s SUP’ers are tackling white water on the Mad River. An Essex entrepreneur has developed a trainer that Hawaiians (who invented the sport) are using to practice their SUP skills indoors. And it’s hard to shake a paddle without hitting a Chittenden County outdoor store that sells stand-up paddleboards — and scrambles to keep them in stock.

“A few years ago, nobody even asked about SUP boards,” says Mike Strojny, general manager at South Burlington’s Canoe Imports. “Last year we couldn’t get them fast enough, and this year we’ve doubled our order — and we’re going to sell out.”

I was bitten by the SUP bug in 2009, when I first wrote about the sport for this paper and bought a board. Back then, I was a pretty lonely soul on the lake, and earned plenty of strange looks from passing motorists when they saw what looked like a surfboard on top of my car. In those days, boards for sale were as scarce in Vermont as palm trees.

Fast-forward to 2012, when landmark outdoor stores EMS and Outdoor Gear Exchange are selling SUPs. Canoe Imports and Stowe’s Umiak Outdoor Outfitters each stock 18 different models; Umiak’s Steve Brownlee expects his SUP business to triple this spring and stummer. High-tech models with displacement hulls make possible long flat-water expeditions (hello, Hudson River and Montréal!), while hybrid boards allow you to paddle Lake Champlain, surf Hampton Beach and windsurf the Dominican Republic. Buy ’em large enough, and you can fit the dog or the kid on the board.

When longtime surfer and SUP’er Russ Scully decided to design an entire Pine Street store around stand-up paddleboarding, he was inspired by those possibilities and a passion for water sports. At WND&WVS, new and used boards are lined up alongside paddles, wet suits and a tiki-bar checkout counter in an 800-square-foot corner of the building that houses New World Tortilla, South End Studio and SoYo. (Scully, who also owns surf-style restaurant the Spot, will move to a new, 1500-square-foot space in the old Meineke Car Care Center building in October.)

While the shop also sells windsurfing gear and kiting equipment, Scully says its heart is SUP. “The growth curve is really steep right now,” he says.

While Scully has imported Hawaiian ambiance to Vermont, Essex ergometer developer Rob Sleamaker, owner of Vasa, is importing a bit of Green Mountain stand-up culture to Oahu. There, surf-shop owner Robert Stehlik has been using the Vasa ergometer to train for SUP; this summer, Sleamaker will begin marketing his SUP-specific Vasa products.

Vermonters may just need some extra training for the latest frontier in SUP: river trips, where white water can add another frisson to the sport. “Rivers are just awesome,” says Colchester’s Jason Starr, who runs Paddlesurf Champlain out of Burlington’s Oakledge Park and has SUP’ed stretches of the Winooski, Lamoille and Mad rivers. “The speed — it’s like you’re on a flume ride, but you’re standing up.”

For far more placid experiences, however, one of the latest hot spots is Waterbury Reservoir, where Umiak has been offering free Thursday-night demos of high-performance boards this month, and hosts other SUP programs all summer. “In most cases, it’s glassy smooth, with mountains dropping all around you,” says Brownlee, who is helping to organize the Vermont Paddleboard Festival at the Waterbury Center State Park day-use area on June 24. An avid paddler, he got hooked on SUP because of the unique vantage point. “It feels new and fresh because I can see deep in the water; I can see fish, I can see the bottom of the lake, and I have become more attentive to the scenery in the woods,” Brownlee says.

It’s a shared sentiment: the feeling of gaining a new perspective, of freedom, of friendship. Though I’ve had many Zen-like experiences on solo SUP outings, it’s more fun paddling alongside someone.

During my first Wednesday night SUP’er club, several of us chat about everything from med school to parenting to CrossFit to real estate as we glide past Splash at the Boathouse, and Breakwater Café & Grill.

What makes it so easy to open up? “SUP puts you in that state of mind where you’re relaxed, and you share things that you might not otherwise if you were on land,” explains Scully. “It’s very rare that somebody comes off the lake and tells you they wish they had spent that time doing something else. There’s no easier access to get out on the water than SUP.”

But there’s one major barrier to that accessibility, as I found when I first tried the sport: cost. A new SUP board can fetch up to $2500 at Canoe Imports; the average price tag is around $1000. While that’s still far less than a boat — and while a well-made board can last for hundreds of outings — the sticker shock can turn some away. That’s why Starr is partnering with local craftspeople to create handmade Vermont boards, why Scully is selling used boards at WND&WVS, and why Paddlesurf, Canoe Imports, Umiak and LCCSC offer free demos, cheap rentals or both.

Want an even more unusual vantage point on Lake Champlain or Waterbury Reservoir? Both the LCCSC and Umiak are offering yoga SUP classes this summer, so you can practice your downward dog while paddling downwind.

“SUP fits really nicely with the skills you need for yoga, such as balance and core strength,” says the LCCSC executive director Kate Neubauer. She’s overseeing preparations for the fourth annual Stand Up for the Lake! paddleboard festival on September 8 and hopes to attract more than 100 paddlers from Burlington and beyond.

“It’s about having people understand that they can positively influence the health of Lake Champlain,” Neubauer says of the event. “We have a right and a responsibility to recreate and keep it healthy. You play on the lake, you fall in love with the lake, and you take care of the things you love.”

Read the article on the Seven Day’s website here.