For paddlers without a roll, it is easier to get back on a SUP board than either a canoe or a kayak. It can easily be done unassisted. Other than that, I’d rather paddle in my canoe. My wife likes SUP’ing, but will rarely come out in the canoe.
The kayaking manufacturers seem to be making rec boats that are very cheap and sold at big box stores. I just got back from a trip to my boyhood home in Utah and saw zero seakayaks and was amazed at how many plastic rec kayaks I saw paddling at the campground at Bear Lake or on the roof tops of cars while driving around. The sporting good stores are overflowing with $299 kayak deals. Kayaks by the hundreds, but most of them just used as beach toys paddling out several yards from shore with the kids. Lots of SUP too, very cheap models that are either way too large of volume for the paddlers or way too low of volume, not useful for real paddling. I got challenged to a race by two teenage girls paddling some nice light weight rec boats; the boats were narrow and sleek and looked fairly decent for messing around on a lake. I was paddling a very large rental SUP and of course smoked them by a long long way over about a 1/4 of a mile. Of course I have been paddling about 40 years longer than them, and both their boats and my rental SUP were not the greatest, so not much to compare SUP vs Kayak.
- Yoga…only my wife can get me to do yoga or dance…anywhere. Don’t hold your breath waiting for that to happen.
- . Long Distance…Most kayakers and SUP’ers don’t do long distance… However, when we were paddling the lower 100 miles of the St Johns River in Fl we heard of three women paddle boarding the length of the St Johns, 310 miles, from some of the river people. Why not…?
- SUPs racing and long distance… There was one entered in the Everglades Challenge 2016 or 2017. Why or why not?