I was on my Amazon.com purchased Highpi SUP, aka an inflatable Stand Up Paddleboard, in the middle of a mangrove forest on the Gulf Coast of Florida. I was paddling hard, and I could feel a slight onset of panic as I churned each stroke of my paddle, weaving through Mangrove mazes and islands in the salt water. It was early evening, and I knew I still had some time before the sun would set. Still, I couldn’t help but to hyper-focus on my paddle stroke, and my singular objective, to get to the kayak dock at Weedon Island State Park before my SUP sank. To make matters worse, I just got the SUP, and I was already in a situation where I had to repair it.
I was fishing about two hours before, and I’d caught a hardhead catfish. It’s a ubiquitous, and commonly caught trash fish in these waters. I was aiming to catch either speckled trout or redfish. Still, I wasn’t one to waste a good size fish, and over the course of two years, I’d learned how to filet and flavor saltwater catfish to taste
reasonably well.
When I caught the catfish, I carefully disgorged the hook, which I had baited with some salted squid. Then I tossed the fish into a blue Lowe’s bucket that doubled as a seat with a fishing tackle lid on top. I didn’t think much of it, and continued fishing.
About two hours later, I wrapped up my fishing session, and started getting my SUP in order for the paddle back. I lifted the five gallon bucket to reposition it, and that’s when I heard a strange, hissing noise. I looked around me. That was weird. There was just incoming wavelets from the tide lapping the shores and tree’s of the mangroves. A slight wind blew on the tree tops. But that hissing sound, it sounded like it was right next to me.
I looked around while I pulled up my anchor, and then I put my ear to the SUP. I heard the hissing sound a lot louder with my ear on the board. So I lifted up the bucket, and saw a lot of bubbles coming from a hole on the SUP.
“What the f—.” I muttered, and then I saw a single, organic looking, spiny barb protruding from the five gallon bucket’s bottom.
“You gotta be kidding me…” I said, and in a panic, I opened up the lid, and saw my catfish, embedded into the bucket, it’s spine clearly poking out the other side. The spine went through a hard bottom, plastic, Lowe’s five gallon bucket, and in the process, it punctured my SUP!
I quickly pulled the catfish out, and strung it to the fish stringer. After attaching the stringer to the stern of the SUP, I got on board, and started my frenzied and panicked paddle through about 3.5 miles of mangrove mazes back to the kayak dock.
I texted my friend Derek along the way, and let him know there was a chance I could get stranded on my way back to the dock. Luckily that didn’t happen, as the air leak was too slow to even start softening the board.
Derek met me back at the dock, and we loaded up the gear and deflated the paddle board, and I was grateful that I made it back in relatively good order. But the incident did shake me a little. I originally got the SUP as a portable tender for my sailboat, the Blockley Privateer 20.
Finding the Materials for SUP Repairs
The next day we went to a local SUP and surf shop to see if they had a patch or a basic SUP repair kit for Standup Paddle Boards near Clearwater Beach. They didn’t.
Instead they referred us to a surfboard shop in the middle of downtown Clearwater. They also didn’t have anything that could repair the board.
Finally, after a few more unsuccessful shots in the dark, we stopped by Lowe’s, and went to the pool section. Most inflatable standup paddle boards are made of a type of vinyl. So with that material in mind, we picked up a standing pool repair kit. The kit had rubber cement and patches. I also ordered some vinyl rubber cement from Amazon for the repair, after doing some further research into it. I also picked up some plastic blades and scrapers for the finer peeling and detailing work.
Once all the materials arrived, we got to work. If you want to do your own SUP repair, you need acetone, a vinyl pool repair kit that you can get from any Lowe’s or Home Depot outlet, a heat gun, and plastic scraper/peeler assortment which you can probably get from Hopeless Freight… I mean Harbor Freight!
First, we needed to inflate the SUP. It’s hard to work on it deflated because the air provides some rigidity for the work, which makes it a lot easier to work on.
We had to peel off the grip material, carefully, since we wanted to reuse that material. That required a heat gun, a plastic scraper, and some patience. Since this is Inflatable SUP Repair, and a cheap Amazon Inflatable SUP, you have to have a delicate touch with the heat gun. No overheating, since the heat gun can melt all the way through the vinyl.
Once we had the grip material peeled off, the next step was sanding and removing the old adhesive material with sandpaper and acetone. We wanted to have a clean, roughed surface for the adhesive.
We then cut out a vinyl patch, and with the rubber cement, painted both the area on the board and the patch with the cement. Then we put the patch on, and put a wood block with some weights on top to hold it down. After that, it was a matter of waiting for the cement to cure with the patch. We left it in my friend’s garage for the week.
The next weekend, we took the weight and wood off, and noticed that the patch was bonded to the board. Then we inflated it, saw there were no leaks, and with some vinyl cement, we sanded the surface of both the board and the grip pad clean, before gluing the old grip pad over top of the board. Once that was done, we put a wooden board and weights on top, and waited another week for the bond to set and hold
After a week, I took the board with my friend out fishing, and we’ve been heading out into the water with it ever since. No more leaks! Not bad for a first time repair job.
