AXOPAR 37XC

One of the more positive byproducts of the restrictions on travel we’ve experienced in 2020 has been a boom in watersports. People, hamstrung by not being able to enjoy their usual foreign holidays, have taken to the waterways and shorelines of the UK like never before and a pastime that has experienced a particular boom is stand-up paddle boarding. It is the hobby of the moment, so much so that back in July you’d have had more chance of happening upon some rocking-horse excrement than you would a paddle board in stock.

MBY editor Hugo, being a finger on the pulse sort of chap, thought it a good idea that I join the masses and see what all the fuss is about. I agreed, naturally, because how hard can it be? Okay, this journalist’s physique may be more suited to rugby scrums than SUPs but if my 63-year-old father can make it look so easy, surely I’d be able to master it?

With a plan in place to break my paddleboarding duck we needed the right boat for the