INTERVIEW: Will Behenna for inclusive paddleboarding
Is there a way of making paddleboarding more inclusive? Yes, says Will Behenna who is piloting some of his unique seats, kneelers and adventure matting during summer 2024.
It’s not just seats. Will Behenna is developing a paddleboarding project supporting people with disabilities and medical and mental health conditions to get out on the water paddleboarding, using a unique set of seats and kneeling support.
“I want to develop equipment then get more different and diverse people paddling and give that to the paddleboard community.”
Will Behenna from Inclusive Paddleboarding
The challenge for paddleboarding
Two winters ago, when I attended an Emily King paddleboard training on Regent’s Canal in London it was made clear that the “stand-up” bit of paddleboarding locks out many participants. I’d been struggling to find better ways to help make anyone with dodgy knees have a go in my own coaching, when suddenly Will Behenna and his Inclusive Paddleboarding Instagram appeared.
Will Behenna is based in Dorset and knows a huge amount about making sport more inclusive. He’s also a massive paddleboard fan.
“I’m all about trying to challenge, and at the same time make things more inclusive and more accessible based on my own personal experience,” he says over the phone.
Because we’re not in the same room, and have only met via Instagram, Will shares his story. “I grew up in Cornwall and was injured in cycling accident when I was 16. I broke my back and had complete paralysis from the chest down, so I’ve been a wheelchair user since the age of 16. Previous to that, I was a really sporty young man. After my accident no one told me otherwise, so I carried on in that vein,” he says. Within nine months Will, now 52, was back in a kayak on the water in Cornwall. He also tried “loads of other sports”, did a degree at Loughborough University in sports science and then worked on sports development and physical education for professional development across the country. He’s a big fan of outdoor education and a qualified counsellor working with young people, adults and people with disabilities.
But being able to do something you love on the water isn’t the same as being able to do something on your timetable.
“I’ve always loved kayaking and have paddled all over the UK and done some trips abroad. I was always frustrated that as a wheelchair user I was never able to roll a kayak or move a kayak on dry land, and I was always restricted to being a member of a club or needing to go out with someone else.” Will’s outdoor fun would probably have muddled along like this if it hadn’t been for paddleboarding becoming the world’s fastest growing watersport, with a boom in the UK during the lockdown years.
“When I saw paddleboarding in 2021, I thought that’s a wide, flat, stable base that would be brilliant to convert into a kayak. I went out to my shed and built a plywood and foam seat and worked out how to strap it on to a board. I took it out and realised it would work for me,” he explains. To someone with limited DIY skills this is super impressive.
“Whether doing yoga, having your lunch on it, or just a race, a paddleboard is a really beautiful stable thing to be working with.”
Will Behenna from Inclusive Paddleboarding
Own design
Will built the next prototypes over 2022-23. “I did the drawings and design, and worked with a couple of local companies who helped me with the foam. Then it was out doing testing and re-testing to the point where I had a really comfortable, foam seat. I put that on to the paddleboard and paddle it like a kayak with a double blade, because sitting low doesn’t work with a single bladed paddle.”
Spending more time on the water Will saw plenty of people kneeling, or standing and kneeling, and thought it didn’t look comfortable. So, he headed back to his shed to figure out ways to provide a, “decent seat to support their knees and backs and ankles. I thought I’d build something for people that can’t stand, or, have difficulty standing for long times. That’s when the kneeling seat came into mind,” he explains.
In 2023 Will secured a grant from British Canoeing (now Paddle UK) and set about his design-build-test process again. For the past 18 months Will has been paddling, building and promoting his practical approach to get more people on the water with adapted paddleboards.
He set up Inclusive Paddleboarding last year (2023) and since then has created a website with products that people will be able to buy, including the stack for people who want to kneel rather than stand on a paddleboard. “I’m also starting to connect with more and more groups around the country. In my heart I don’t need to make money, but at end of the day it needs to be financially viable if I’m really interested in getting people on the water.”
The good news is that Will has been successful with Awards for All to run a project in Poole supporting people with disabilities and physical and mental health conditions to get on the water. The project will see him creating a referral scheme with community therapists and Mental Health providers as well as working with individuals and organisations across Dorset.
“Having done pretty much all water sports I can see so many characteristics of paddleboarding that highlight the benefits to physical and mental health that I’ve worked on in my career. Paddleboarding also has unique strengths that kayaking, water skiing and sailing doesn’t have because paddleboarding is a fabulous liberating experience. It’s obviously fun to go out with other people but I’ve got a couple of sites local to me where I can rock up and go out on my own. Being on the water is my happy place and a place to recharge.
Why now?
“Having worked on disability development, sport and inclusion for 35 years this is a real passion project getting someone out on something you’ve made and then see the reaction they have – it’s an amazing buzz,” he says explaining his links with Help the Heroes and Surfability UK and how he’s looking to try and “expand my network and keep on driving the agenda that paddleboarding should unpick the stand-up bit.”
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Video by Will Behenna from Inclusive Paddleboarding shows how adventure matting can help wheelchair users move over gravel and gravel slopes (1 min)
Here’s Will talking paddleboard philosophy
BEAUTIFUL: “Paddleboarding is a really beautiful way to get out on the water, safe and compact and gives you so many opportunities to be part of something that feels unique.”
SOUL PADDLER: “In my experience you’ve got the high energy paddlers, but I class myself as a soul paddler, it’s all about the spirit and connecting with everything around you. If you are going too fast, you’re going to miss it all. I’m not interested in distance, times or speeds, it’s about being outside and connected with what’s around me.”
GENTLY: “If you are powering up the rivers around me you are never going to see the kingfishers, otters, or smaller wildlife because it will all have gone. Whereas, if you very gently mosey up the river and give yourself a chance you may hear a splash and see what you get. It’s so different if you are flying along.”
UNPICK: “I want to keep on driving the agenda that paddleboarding should unpick the stand-up bit.”
WHENEVER: “If no one else buys another piece of my equipment, I’ll still have achieved what I wanted, which is to know I can go out paddleboarding independently, and with friends, and take my paddleboard wherever I want to go. That was my number one goal.”
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What next?
Next chapter with the equipment is to start logging and recording people with different challenges noting, “this is how we adapted the kit so other individuals and instructors can look at this person with MSS or a single arm amputee and share how we’ve adapted the equipment for them. It will be like a reference library,” he says practically. “Ultimately I want to create a national network of venues, organisations and coaches who want to embrace inclusive paddleboarding.”He’s also working towards his coaching qualifications, but sees this as more, “about empowering other coaches to take on the inclusive principle.”
“I want to develop equipment that can get different and diverse people paddling and give that to the paddleboard community,” says Will. Already his early kneeling seat designs (which he’s calling a stack and a cone) make it easy for some paddlers to get from kneeling to standing and are being tested in south Wales, London, Manchester and Yorkshire.
Excitingly sup.at.islington – a paddleboard club in Angel, London – is borrowing one of Will’s seats and we look forward to sharing feedback about it. Maybe we’ll get to have Will coaching us on Regent’s Canal too, I feel certain he could conjure up a kingfisher.
Whatever the weather has in store for us this paddleboarding season Will is hopeful that Inclusion Paddleboarding will be a bigger conversation. “By the end of this summer everything will have moved on a few generations of equipment and there will be new ideas,” anticipates Will. Like many people reading this paddleboarding substack I’m particularly looking forward to new ways of bringing improved inclusion into my paddleboarding sessions.
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Will shares favourite paddles on his adapted paddleboard
Dorset has got an amazing river, the Stour, which has several easy access points to get on. My greatest challenge is to get on the water easily and safely.
Christchurch and Poole harbours aren’t massively tidal, so it means it is a bit easier to get on the water, go out for 2-3 hours and not be too far away from where I started.
Rivers have been raging in winter 2023/24. Canals are definitely a really good space to relax and enjoy paddleboarding.
I’ve just found a 10-mile stretch on the Basingstoke canal without any locks, and a spot where I can get on, so I’m looking forward to exploring that. I’m starting to talk to the Canal & River Trust (CRT) about ways to overcome the locks – could a group raft up together?
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Sup.at.Islington would especially like to thank Will Behenna and Inclusive Paddleboarding for the opportunity to test one of his stacks during summer 2024. As I’m a PaddleUK #ShePaddles ambassador with a mission to try and get paddleboarding added to the activities offered by social prescribing, this opportunity to test couldn’t be at a better time.
Find out more
Follow Will’s Instagram @Inclusive Paddleboarding
Facebook @Inclusive Paddleboarding
Will’s email is will@inclusivepaddleboarding.co.uk and contact number 07813 641958