Colas.Nahaboo.net - sup

Ear plugs for SUPing

2026-08-28T00:00:00+00:00

10 years ago, I got caught on a late take-off on a hollow wave, planted the rail at the bottom of the wave, and fell violently, slapping the water with the flat of my ear. My eardrum perforated, and I spent 5 minutes totally disoriented, unable to get back on my board. I finally made it back to shore paddling.

For the anecdote, my doctor told me he had also perforated his eardrum on the first day of a bodyboard trip to the Mentawai islands, and had to stay dry for his whole stay.

It healed, but I learned that an eardrum is made of two skins, and only one repairs. So it stays weakened. And as my exostosis was almost at 40%, I decided to always wear ear plugs from then on.

So I have been wearing ear plugs at almost every SUP session for 10 years now, and my exostoses have not progressed. Here is my experience with the three models I tested, and my current verdict.

The three models I tested🔗

EQ Seals (ex Sorky): no adjustment needed, they go deep into the ear canal, where we almost all have the same size, hence a single size... but they only work for 95% of people. You need an easy-to-lose applicator to insert them, so not easy to remove and reinsert on the beach or on the water. Some were bothered by how deep they have to go. But they are perfectly waterproof. Sounds are quite muffled, with a slight plugged-ear feeling that can disturb your balance, but you get used to it fast.

Surf Ears The 2.0 model of 10 years ago was already not bad, but less good than custom-molded plugs. The new 4.0 model is really excellent: very supple, it adapts well and does not seem irritating, and you hear particularly well.

Aquason: custom-molded plugs fitted to your ears by a local audiologist, with a drilled hole covered by a waterproof membrane. Very expensive (180€), and you hear less well than with Surf Ears, but better than with EQ Seals. You need to get the hang of putting them in and taking them out. Their big plus is perfect watertightness and comfort: they press on a large surface, so no hard point or discomfort, and a better protection against slaps on the water surface.

Custom Aquason ear plugs

Aquason

My conclusion then: Surf Ears when the water is not too cold (20 to 16°C) for the hearing, Aquason in colder water for comfort and watertightness, and EQ Seals if I wanted no water at all in my ears (otitis, perforated eardrum).

Ten years later🔗

I wore finally only the Aquason at every session, even in summer, even under the hood in winter:

no progression of my exostoses
you get used to them very well
one plug falls out from time to time (once every 100 sessions I'd say), never both, so a cord between them is enough
but the silicone ages, and they leak, so I lost one that came off its cord
so right now, while waiting for the Aquason, which take 12 days to be made, I wear Surf Ears 4.0, which have really progressed: much softer and smoother, both more comfortable and more watertight, and with even more adjustments. I strongly recommend them if you do not have the budget for custom-molded plugs
I still had new custom Aquason made, now manufactured by Earow Audio, which seem more protective in case of a slap on the water (flat of the ear in a fall) for my healed eardrum

Advice for custom plugs🔗

look up audiologists around you in the yellow pages
contact them (email works well) to ask if they make Aquason, and at what price
prices vary a lot: around me, from 125€ (Vaqué Audition Seignosse) to 180€ for the same plugs
the fitting is now done with a 3D scanner, no more molding paste
clean them after each session: a little water and soap, or an ultrasonic cleaner for glasses from time to time

In short, unless special cases, the SurfEars 4.0 from the Gong shop are really perfect.

Removing water in a paddle shaft

2026-08-19T00:00:00+00:00

Carbon paddle shafts are hollow, and water gets in through a crack or a worn tape at the joint. It sloshes around, adds weight to your stroke, and salty water also prevents any epoxy repair from curing properly. But how to get it out?

Drilling a hole is not enough, the water stays "glued" inside by surface tension, unless you make a hole big enough, that will then compromise the paddle strength.

The trick I use is to drill 2 small holes (~3 mm), one on each side, about 20 cm under the handle. Now, face down, the top hole into your mouth and gently rock the paddle so the water runs toward the bottom hole, then blow in the top hole hole like a flute — the water comes out of the other. Works quite well, no need for bigger holes.

To get every last drop out, let the water flow over one hole back and forth while blowing through the other at the same time.

Dry the shaft before repairing it: epoxy does not like salty water for curing. A hair dryer blowing into the holes does the job. A little residual water is not a problem.

Seal the holes afterwards with a dab of epoxy resin or glue with some microspheres of glass fibers, or UV repair kits like Solarez or DuraRezn, or epoxy paste, or a self-amalgamating tape. Just be sure to tape over it while curing so internal air pressure changes with temperature variations will not blow the repair away.

Note: I first posted this trick on the Gong Galaxy forum, in 2014.

Why use small SUPs? just prone surf a shortboard!

2026-06-08T00:00:00+00:00

When I read "Why use small SUPs? just prone surf a shortboard!",

My reply is : "Just watch how shortboarders say that a 10% volume increase radically change things, and realize how that a tiny SUP is still twice the volume of a shortboard..."

For instance, I stumbled on this example today: "This surfboard, a 5’7 at 31L which is 10% more volume than I used to ride, totally changed my surfing experience"... Duh!

https://youtu.be/wb-yBMG7248

Article also published on seabreeze.

10 minutes full SUP and Surf Warmup video, v9

2026-04-22T00:00:00+00:00

This is my 10 minutes warmup routine before my morning SUP session, version 8. Follow-along, 10 minutes exactly, no intro/outro.

https://youtu.be/4FUwYA6NgWs

Altough I insist on things important for SUPing (calves, trunk twists, burpees) it can be used as a warmup routine for all uses. No commentary nor music track as I do not want to wake up the house on my dawn patrols :-) Add yours if you want to.

As I am 65 yo, and I SUP/surf very early to avoid crowds, I need a full 10 minutes warmup to avoid injuries. I thus do it at home just before driving to the beach, otherwise I could not discipline myself to do it on the beach. If you are younger, or before an afternoon session, just play the video at 2x speed for a 5mn quicker warmup :-)

This 10-minute warmup video provides a series of 30-second exercises designed to activate the muscles and joints. The goal is to lubricate the joints, to warm up, not to reach maximum flexibility. Avoid pushing into full stretches. Use furniture for support if needed to ensure a safe range of motion.

It is a compilation of 30 seconds sections, copied from the Youtube warmup videos below (in order of appearance). Refer to them for details and explanations.

Calves: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Zs4hh4cp98

Lunges front: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79yebGL3NX0

Ankles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRwSyXzVtNk

Trunk Twists: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqdvhvePVFU

Full Body: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VecbXgWY0DI

Hip rotations: https://www.womenshealthmag.com/fitness/g26554730/best-warm-up-exercises/

Lunge Twists: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jy4HYOhRmI

Burpees: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yewKJShD1EU

New in this v9:

The countdown timers were missing in all sections!
This v9 replaces the v8 version at: https://youtu.be/Bwe6kBA-sPc

Mastering lateral balance on a small SUP board

2026-03-25T00:00:00+00:00

After some experiments, I think I have found an easy way to have a good lateral balance on a small board. A small board being one with little lateral stability, be it because it is narrow, have thin rails, low volume, ...

Your front foot must be parallel to the stringer, and:

the less the board is stable laterally, the less distance it must have from the stringer.

The back foot will naturally position itself symmetrically wrt the stringer, so you actually only have to focus on the front foot.

To find this magic position, look at the following diagram:

top row: if your feet are too close together, when you lean on one side, the leverage on the board will be not strong enough to make it roll at the same angle as your body: you feel the urge to widen your stance to keep balance
middle row: if your feet are too wide apart (the problem of most people), when you lean on one side, the leverage on the board will make it roll faster than your body and you will be thrown overboard and your low foot will slip.
bottom row: the perfect position: you will wobble as if your board and you was a solid culbuto toy. You want to be one with your board, as for banking in turns on a bike. Balance suddenly becomes super natural and smooth. It still needs a lot of concentration and it is still tiring, but it is definitively easier.

And once you experience this feeling, it is easy to re-find this perfect foot position by feeling how your board react to your wobbles. It will not feel natural at all at first, but you must resist the urge to widen your stance, you will get quickly used to it.

It is especially useful if your rails are underwater. If your board has too much volume, it will not roll smoothly on its side (it resistance to rolling will vary with the angle), and the foot position is less critical. But for small and/or narrow boards, it is a very convenient rule of thumb to find the quickest way to feel at ease.

In practice this means that your feet are quite close to the stringer:

The semi surf stance (front foot aligned with the stringer, rear foot slightly open) is mandatory on small boards, both for paddling balance and early take offs, as I often stress.

By having the front foot parallel to the stringer there is no difference in lateral balance when your weight moves between your toes and your heel, something that happens a lot unconsciously as you keep your balance. In my experience having your heel closer to the rail than your toes is the recipe for unexpected disaster.

When I advise people I even make it a mandatory condition to get on boards shorter than 8'. You will not benefit from a short board if you do not want to force yourself to stop paddling with parallel feet. A surprising number of people keep paddling parallel on small boards and thus take off really late and miss a lot of waves, or take off too late and a get the wave close on them.

I made a dedicated post for the lateral balance issue because at 59 [at the time I wrote this post], after 10 years SUPing, I felt that the lateral balance was the main thing what I felt worse than when I was younger: I am slower to react. I was thinking that (relatively) narrow boards were not for me anymore. Younger people will be able to put their feet about anywhere, but for most people, I think looking for this lateral balance point will be very useful, as the board moving with you let you more time to react before things need correcting.

This post was originally made at seabreeze on 2019-04-02. You can read the discussions it generated there.

Wetsuits chest zip direction: reverse!

2026-03-24T00:00:00+00:00

I used to buy mostly Rip Curl wetsuit, and when they decided to reverse the chest zips, I was puzzled, but after the first session, I was convinced:

Chest zippers must open towards the inside

Normal direction: Bad!

Reverse direction: Good!

Why?

Reduced stress: The natural tension on the wetsuit doesn't pull the zipper open. This eliminates the need for a cumbersome stopper or a snap button, as it cannot come undone on its own in the water.
Greater range of motion: The "inside" end of the zip is free from the bulk of the starting mechanism, allowing for a wider opening. This makes getting in and out of the suit noticeably easier.
Durability: The stress of entry and exit is concentrated at the "open" end of the zipper, where it is less likely to cause damage.

The picture on the right is of my Feral wetsuit. It’s an excellent Yamamoto neoprene suit, but it is cut a bit smaller in the chest than other brands. Because of this, I actually blew out the zipper during only my second session—something that has never happened to me before.

I had it reversed by a local repair shop (the excellent All-In repairs), and the difference is staggering. The wetsuit feels noticeably looser and more comfortable in the chest!

My advice:

Prioritize wetsuits with reverse zippers.
Standard zippers can be reversed by your local wetsuit repair specialist.

Repairing a broken leash on the water

2020-12-28T00:00:00+00:00

I have found a simple to do and easy to remember method to repair a broken leash cord on the water. Just grab the broken bits parallel in the hand and do a simple overhand bend knot, one of the simplest knots around. The trick is just to pull the knot really, really tight hard before resuming the surfing session.

Of course this not a permanent repair, as the knot will add drag to the leash, but it is enough to finish the session securely.

Image courtesy of netknots:

See the full animation at netknots

Here is the result on a leash broken leash during my session:

Note: I first posted this article on seabreeze

The Donaldson trailing edge, no more fin hum!

2020-07-07T00:00:00+00:00

At last, I have found a good video explaining how to suppress the vibration of fins and foils, and giving the name of this technique : the Donaldson trailing edge, described in 1956 by ... Donaldson

Up to now, I had only seen the diagrams for symmetrical foils (just sand only one side, not both) but this video goes into the details and show that you must sand the inner face of asymmetrical foil (flat one), not the curved one.

Thanks to Mario Legenstein from Levitaz for the video:

I thus also learned that the effect causing the humming is "Vortex Shedding", aka the "Von Kármán effect". On thick trailing edges, vortexes are created alternatively on the two sides of the trailing edge, and they push and pull on it at a frequency depending of the speed and the edge geometry. These alternating forces make the foil or fin vibrate and hum.

You can google "Donaldson trailing edge" to find many detailed references. For instance:

Boundary layer effects on the vortex shedding in a Donaldson-type hydrofoil
Vortex shedding from blunt and oblique trailing edge hydrofoils

And these wind tinnel images show the alternating vortexes creating the vibrations on a blunt edge on the left, and how the Donaldson edge locks the vortex in place on the right:

Here is a comparison of the amount of vibrations for different shapes of the trailing edge:

This von Kármán effect is what makes ropes whistle in the wind, can destroy underwater pipelines, and can destroy bridges when they vibrate in sync with the wind, such as the famous Tacoma bridge: https://aerospaceengineeringblog.com/the-von-karman-vortex-street-and-tacoma-narrows-disaster/

Spiral ridges are added to chimneys to prevent the effect: https://web.archive.org/web/20190824084241/https://spartaengineering.com/vortex-shedding-and-tall-structures/

And it happens also at wide scale, and can be seen from space:

Note: I first posted this article on: https://www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/Stand-Up-Paddle/SUP/The-definitive-solution-to-fins-and-foils-whistling-humming--The--Donaldson-trailing-edge-\