At 13 years old, Sage Donnelly of Carson City, Nevada, already has more than a decade of whitewater experience. She’s beating adult women in freestyle, C1 and K1 slalom. Off the competi­tion circuit, she runs waterfalls and class V rivers.

You wouldn’t have seen a phemon this young 10 years ago, before Jackson Kayak introduced the Fun series of whitewater kayaks for kids under nine and as small as 30 pounds. Or before youngsters like EJ’s daughter Emily and son Dane, who ran his first class IV at age four, entered the spotlight to inspire kids and parents alike.

Since the Fun came out in 2005, designer Eric “EJ” Jackson says the average age of entry into whitewater kayaking has been cut in half, to around age eight. Youth participation statistics from the Outdoor Industry Association report that the number of whitewater kayakers aged six to 17 has more than doubled in the last five years. The number of youth participating in rec and touring is also up, though not as dramatically.

It’s the recent bounty of kid-friendly boats that has allowed paddling schools and local clubs to structure their programs for ever-younger participants and, in some lucky towns, make kaya­king just another option, like little league or minor hockey. It’s a scene you wouldn’t have come across a few years ago, confirms Jackson Kayak’s marketing director James McBeath. “It used to be the age-old excuse that, ‘I gave up kayaking because I had kids.’ Now, with smaller boats, you can really bring them with you,” he says.

NEW PRIORITIES

Thanks in part to an aging Boomer population, kids have be­come a priority across the whole outdoor industry. Companies are heeding the warning of Richard Louv, whose 2005 book Last Child in the Woods coined the term Nature Deficit Disorder, and fighting for their future pay checks in the age of iPhone.

Confluence Watersports, the parent company of Dagger and WaveSport, is now at the forefront of the industry’s youth drive, recognizing that today’s boomer-driven boat sales won’t last. At the 2013 Outdoor Retailer Summer Market, getting a new gen­eration outside was identified as the most pressing issue facing the industry today. Confluence was also a platinum sponsor of the Outsider’s Ball, a fundraiser for youth outdoor programs. It’s no surprise that 2014 features an explosion of kids-specific equipment across the paddlesports market, including all manners of kayaks, paddleboards and accessories.

Companies are tackling the kids’ market in a couple of ways, says Mark Kelly, paddlesports buyer for outdoor retailer MEC.

SWALLOWING MARGINS

For one, many are swallowing their profit to offer premium kids products. High-end kids equipment includes the nine-foot NRS Jester paddleboard, the composite Raven touring kayak by Current Designs and Nova Craft’s 29-pound Teddy, a 12-foot tandem canoe for kids. Competing in the whitewater market, Pyranha makes the TG Lite and the Rebel, which fits pad­dlers 25 pounds and up. WaveSport, Dag­ger and others offer kayaks for those 60 pounds and up. All these products serve the small market of enthusiast parents, who’ll pay to outfit future champions with bantam versions of their own equip­ment, or institutions, including schools and clubs.  

At the same time, technology trickle-down is enabling decent kids’ products to be offered at a lower price point.

“Companies are identifying kids as a robust market but most parents aren’t in­terested in higher-quality, higher-priced products that their kids are just going to grow out of, so the market has reacted,” says Kelly. One of MEC’s hottest sellers this year is a barebones kids’ sit-on-top that sells for $100. A small step up are true rec touring kayaks in the $300 range, like the Old Town Heron Jr., the Perception Prodigy XS or the Jackson Mini Tripper. The Vibe 80 by Pelican has filled the same niche (affordable, lightweight and inde­structible) in paddleboarding.

Jackson Kayak’s success notwithstanding, bringing kids designs to fruition isn’t seen as a moneymaker, according to Confluence sales rep Paul Brittain. It’s about playing the long game. “We’ve made a commitment that, short of losing money, kids’ boating stays a priority. It’s the right thing to do. This is our future, we should invest in it.”

Manufacturers are betting their invest­ment will pay off down the road. With kids-friendly boats now in every disci­pline, each type of paddling may soon have its Sage Donnelly.

Tim Shuff is a former editor and regular contributor to Adventure Kayak magazine.

This article originally appeared in the 2014 Paddling Buyer’s Guide. Download our free iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch App or Android App or read it on your desktop here. 

Don’t let the images of sun, sand and surf fool you. As the fastest growing watersport in North America, standup pad­dleboards are being used to push limits and defy what the flatwater paddler thought possible. If you’ve only seen them in calm water and yoga sessions, it’ll surprise you what else SUPs are up to.

On Your Mark

For a sport popularized by images of relaxing days on the water, paddleboarding has a fiercely competitive side. Competitions have taken place everywhere from the foot of glaciers in Chile to the Middle East for the Abu Dhabi All Stars. The Super Bowl of the SUP race world is the Battle of the Paddle, which attracts the best paddlers from around the world. In 2013, more than 1,000 participants competed for $25,000 worth of prize money, traversing five miles of Californian coast.

That distance is nothing compared to the longest pad­dleboard race, the SUP 11 City Tour, which covers nearly 140 miles in stages, Tour de France style. This year, long-distance legend Bart de Zwart completed it nonstop in 28 hours and 21 minutes.

Big Water

A $13,000 purse prize in the SUP category—the biggest yet for a whitewater SUP race—at the Payette River Games this past summer proved that paddleboards have found a permanent home on the river. Pushing whitewater limits is Dan Gavere. He’s challenged American classics like the White Salmon River and the Hood, is responsible for many SUP first descents and is the go-to source for neophytes looking to take their river game to the next level.

No one’s river stunts are more impressive than Erik Boomer’s. Boomer launched himself off a 60-foot waterfall in Mexico last year. The trick is not to land on the rocks or board, he said after. Big water paddling isn’t limited to just the river, as ocean boarders continue to paddle 50- to 60-foot waves.

The Coldest Journey

Distance-king de Zwart was set to embark on one of his biggest challenges in July—a 280-mile crossing from Can­ada to Greenland, dubbed The Arctic Crossing. Unfortu­nately, sea ice conditions forced him to change his route and he instead paddled 250 miles along the coast of Greenland—still no easy feat.

Putting it in Miles

With the increasing popularity of SUP, the records associ­ated with it are a murky, ever-changing business. However, just this past summer, British adventurer Dave Cornthwaite completed a self-supported source-to-sea journey of the Mississippi River. Starting from Lake Itasca, Minnesota, he completed his 2,400-mile journey 82 days later in Louisi­ana. His paddle was the fourth of 25 planned trips in Expe­dition 1000, a project in which he travels long distances us­ing non-motorized transportation raising money for charity.

As for paddling at top speed, in 2012 Ben Friberg set out on the Yukon River in Canada’s Yukon Territory to paddle as far as he could in 24 hours. He set a distance record for 238 miles.

Not to be outdone by either man, this December Chris Bertish will take on what most thought impossible—a crossing of the Atlantic Ocean y SUP. Bertish estimates that his supported journey will take 65 to 70 days, paddling a marathon a day. 

This article originally appeared in the 2014 Paddling Buyer’s Guide. Download our free iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch App or Android App or read it on your desktop here.