[Life Style] How paddleboarding conquered Britain: the delights and dangers of the nation’s fastest-growing sport

[GL HERO SHIMA]

amela Muirhead had been looking forward to her first paddleboarding session, but the enjoyment lasted all of seven minutes. “Then, pure terror,” she says. She had won a competition for a free session at Maidens beach in Ayrshire, and set off cautiously while her two teenage children and the instructor watched from the shore. After about five minutes, she was attempting to stand up on the board. A few minutes later, “the weather changed very fast”, she says. “The wind really picked up – and the rain.” She found herself quickly drifting out to sea.

Muirhead was swept three miles out, in winds that got up to about 46mph. She tried frantically to paddle back, but didn’t get anywhere. When she stopped, she could feel herself being blown away faster. “The waves were horrific,” she says. The board rocked violently, but she managed to stay seated. “I thought: ‘This is getting really bad.’ I just had to keep myself centred on the board and stay upright. It was my main focus and very draining.”

She was terrified, but kept calm. “I think my prayers were answered and somebody was looking over me, because I was very lucky. I was like: ‘You’re not dying today. My kids need their mum.’ That kept me focused.” Also, she adds with a laugh, “I hadn’t seen the last Line of Duty and I really wanted to watch that, so in my head I was like: ‘You’re not going before that.’”

The instructor had alerted the Coastguard; Muirhead heard a helicopter approach, then a lifeboat operated by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) appeared. She was freezing cold, exhausted and emotional at the sight of help after 40 minutes out at sea. “I didn’t realise they were voluntary. I’m for ever in their debt for saving my life and for ever grateful.” (Later, she raised more than £1,000 for the charity.) Safely back on land and unharmed except for blisters on her hands from paddling so hard, Muirhead felt “amazing”: “Just knowing that you’re alive and that was not my day to go.”

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/article/2024/aug/21/how-paddleboarding-conquered-britain-delights-dangers-nations-fastest-growing-sport