AquaPaddle Torbay at the ICF’s
Friday 03 Jul 2026 | by Marc Wade
On the 26th of June, 2026, Torbay hosted a round of the ICF SUP World Cup; this is the first time this event has been held on UK shores.
With such a busy schedule, we were lucky enough to be allocated a spot to run a pop-up AquaPaddle as part of the whole event.
After setting up our first AquaPaddle in Exeter and having some local knowledge, I was really pleased to be asked to look after the Event.
An “on the sea” AquaPaddle was going to have its own set of challenges. Tide, wind and sea state can certainly make a paddler a little more nervous, and as a Captain, I had everything crossed and was praying to the weather gods 🙏
Friday saw the ICF sprints take place in a very challenging SW wind, causing paddlers to fall in and drift off course, making it challenging, to say the least.
As I was watching the wind forecast, we had to decide to change our course. We were very lucky to have had the River to Reef Water Safety team stay to help look after us. This was true paddlesport community spirit shown by the rescue team. Not only did they bolster our on-the-water crew, they very kindly helped set up our new course, a 1km rectangular course at Torre Abbey Sands!
With the course set and my prayers being answered the wind and chop was settling. This wasn’t completely perfect but at 7pm we counted down from 5 and saw 33 paddlers start to make their way around 5 (and a bit!!) laps of our course as the sun set on the first day of what was an epic weekend.
Everything came together and the smiles from all the paddlers as they finished is what its all about! Lets do it again!
Check out these further pix of the great event
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