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How to carry water and stay hydrated on Inflatable Paddle Board’s
Inflatable Paddle Boards normally come with one choice to carry drinks and other storage items, this is a bungee cord. The Bungee Cord is standard on most blow up boards and has its advantages and disadvantages.
It’s great for larger items such as a big bag or bulky clothing, it’s not so great at holding small items like water bottles, phones or radios. When in choppy conditions or surf, they are pretty much useless for the smaller items.
Depending on what you are using the paddle board for you have a few choices and some will suit some people and others options will suit other peoples use of their paddle board.
The Deck Bag
A common choice and a good one for carrying lots of items on a big adventure. You can either get a dry bag that will fit under the existing bungee net or you can buy a purpose made Deck Bag as sold by NRS at Escape Water Sports. These range in price from £35 to £115 if you go for the Red Paddle SUP Bag as sold by Wake and Wave.
The only issue with carrying lots of items is the added weight, so make sure you have some weight at both the front and back of the board if you need to maneuver the board in tricky conditions.
If you often carry lots of items on your paddle board let us know your solution.
Hydration Pack
Very popular and a must for SUP paddlers competing in races. Lots of manufactures produce these and some are made specifically for Paddle Boards. Try and avoid ones that have metal zips or other features. These will rust and make your hydration pack hard to use very quickly. If you don’t paddle in salt water this is not a problem.
Prices range from £20 to £130+, Mystic make a good one currently available for £40 from Coast Water Sports. I use the Salmon S LAB Ultra for long distance running and they cost around £130, its amazing for ultra running, but I broke all the zips by using it in the sea. I thought it was washed out properly but all the zips seized up. Don’t make my mistake, maybe buy a cheap one for use in the sea first, until you know what you want.
Dolphin Pack makes some great hydration packs with no metal parts and are super lightweight.
Water Bottle Holder
Until the Hydro Holder was available this would not really have been an option. Existing suction bottle holders as sold by Surf Stow via Amazon don’t suck onto inflatable boards very well. In surf on a hard board they won’t stay on for long either (would you attach a GoPro to a board with only one suction cup?).
The Hydro Holder sticks to any clean surface and adjusts to hold any size bottle tight even in the biggest surf. This means you can now hold multiple water bottle to any board, even if its inflatable. See our video at the bottom of this post attaching a Hydro Holder to an Inflatable Paddle Board.
What about the extra weight?
A good question. We buy the best boards that are light and easy to use so adding extra weight should definitely be a consideration.
Hydro Holder – 36g
Surf Stow (suction cup bottle holder)- 168g
Dolphin Pack (hydration pack) – 363g
Deck Bag 20L – 789g
You will be adding weight with the additional fluids so its ideal to keep any other weight to a minimum. You will drink the fluid but the extra weight of your storage solution will be there for your entire paddle!
