Testimonial and Photos – October 2013

Brian’s 12′ sup is made with reclaimed old growth cedar. About 300 years old, from the West Kootenay’s Duhamel Creek Basin. we were lucky to have found this precious cedar and happy to have passed it along to Brian.

DSC_0860OK, so once you get past the badly matched shirt & trunks, you can’t help but notice the stunning Kerr Board which I received as a wedding gift. I’d searched for months to find a classic SUP, ideally in wood (not a decal).

Our first contact w Steve was via this web page. We emailed questions several times, and his responses and information sent back were great. So much so that we purchased the board sight unseen! Steve went to great lengths to personally deliver the board to us in Kelowna for our wedding, a “mere” 340km from Nelson.

The board is MORE BEAUTIFUL than we imagined! Everyone commented on it, most saying it’s a work of art (which it is). The board is incredibly stable (at times I carried two children!) and true in the water. Several wedding guests who’d never SUP’d before were up & about immediately, with HUGE grins. Steve was very patient and took the time to educate me about the board, care & maintenance, fins, waxing, etc.

To top it off, Steve is a great guy and very personable. He even customized the board for us (we’ll send a pic). We invited him to have a bite with us at our post wedding BBQ.

Our Kerr board is definitely considered “one of the family” now, and we consider ourselves very fortunate to own such a masterpiece.

– Brian Pohl (the guy in the uncoordinated shorts & shirt) 🙂

 

Custom Logo

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Brian and Steve – installing the fin

KOOTENAY MOUNTAIN CULTURE MAGAZINE -SUMMER 2012

With origins in 1960’s Hawaiian surf culture, stand up paddle-boarding or SUP’ing isn’t exactly new, but it’s been a slow and steady sell for Canadians.  And there’s a good explanation: we have rather limited access to coastline.

Still, SUPing – standing on a wider, thicker, more buoyant version of a surf longboard and paddling with an oar – has experienced a swell in popularity because, as Nelsonite Steve Kerr points out, you don’t necessarily need waves; you can SUP in any body of water, like lakes and rivers.  The sport is also easy to learn and reasonably priced, costing as little as $ 1,000 for a beginner board and paddle.

Kerr, a Quebec native drawn to the Kootenays in 1994, is banking on SUP’s growth.  In 2011, he left his job as a mason and started Kerr Boards, dedicating himself to being a full-time custom stand-up paddleboard shaper.  The 38-year-old father of two creates handmade, hollowed wood boards from sustainably harvested cedar planks from Harrop-Proctor, 30 kilometres north of Nelson, and coats them in vegetable-derived epoxy resin.  Birch and maple veneer from the Blewett hills overlooking his home form the board’s frame ribs, reminiscent of a whale’s backbone.

It’s all part of his plan to marry sustainability, style and sport.  ” I wanted to be creative and responsible in this passion, so I created an environmentally respectful product…and a piece of art you can hang on your wall in the off season.”

– Bobbi Barbarich