A million-plus reasons to rethink how we reach beginners and build the next generation of paddlesports influencers
By Andrea White // Cross Currents Leadership
I’ve been incredibly fortunate this year to work with the talented team at the Water Sports Foundation (WSF), helping expand paddlesports safety outreach through several U.S. Coast Guard-funded initiatives. It’s given me an opportunity to combine two things I’m passionate about: Helping more people discover the joy of paddling and finding better ways to help them enjoy it safely. Along the way, we’ve experimented with new approaches, built relationships with some remarkable people, and learned a few things about reaching an audience that’s traditionally been difficult to engage.
The paddlers who matter most are the hardest to reach
Beginners are driving participation and equipment sales, but many haven’t joined clubs or discovered the instructors, competitors, and paddlesports media that experienced paddlers follow. They may not even think of themselves as paddlers yet. They’re still figuring out where to go, what they need, and who to go with. In a sense, they’re still wandering in the paddlesports wilderness.
And they’re among the people we most urgently need to reach.
Preliminary U.S. Coast Guard figures show that 568 people died in recreational boating accidents ion the United States in 2025. Kayaks (90), canoes (28), and standup paddleboards (23) accounted for 141 deaths, nearly one in four. At a recent webinar, U.S. Coast Guard Recreational Boating Safety Specialist Scott Szczepaniak noted that including rowboats and inflatables such as rafts and packrafts brings the broader human-powered craft share of recreational boating fatalities to approximately one-in-three.
The 2023–2025 period recorded the lowest cumulative recreational boating fatality total since federal recordkeeping began in 1962. Earlier WSF research found that approximately 70% of paddlers who died in boating accidents in 2022 had fewer than 100 hours of experience, and nearly 40% had less than 10 hours experience.
A little practical knowledge can improve a paddler’s first experience, encourage them to come back, and potentially save their lives.
This audience represents one of our greatest opportunities for growth and one of our greatest challenges for safety education.
What if we’re talking to the wrong paddlers?
Specialty retailers, instructors, clubs, paddlesports organizations, and traditional media have worked hard to share safety information. But much of it reaches people who already know why paddling education and life jackets matter.
Meanwhile, the beginner who just bought a kayak at a big box retailer may be watching a fishing video. The family planning a vacation may be following a travel creator. Someone considering their first paddleboard is finding their inspiration on Instagram.
They’re not necessarily looking for paddling advice. They’re looking for an adventure that resonates with their life, their goals, and their fears.
Earlier this year, I shared a U.S. Coast Guard Proceedings article by Tom Dardis of the Coast Guard’s Recreational Boating Safety Diviision and Jeff Moag of the WSF examining effective social media outreach. The research they highlighted found that compelling rescue stories with a happy ending and a teachable moment attracted more engagement than traditional educational posts, with video performing particularly well. The lesson? Lead with a relatable story, and make reasonable precautions part of the adventure.
Someone might scroll past a life jacket message but will stop to watch a kayak fishing adventure or to scope out a beautiful paddling destination. What if that same video also showed properly fitted life jackets, checking conditions, and making smart decisions on the water?
We don’t have to choose between inspiring people to paddle and helping them paddle safely. We can do both. And influencers already know how to create content their audiences want to watch.
Building a different kind of influencer network
This year, WSF expanded its Coast Guard-funded New Media Outreach for Boating Safety initiative to include paddlesports and kayak fishing influencers for the first time. I was excited to lead this new direction, developing a three-part strategy to reach recreational paddlers through voices they already know and trust:
Amplify what’s already working. A modest $1,000 investment helped extend the reach of volunteer-led National Safe Boating Week activities, including the Kayaking 101 Partnership and Oregon Fit to Float® campaigns.
Examples of Influencer Videos Amplifying the Messages:
Learn from kayak fishing. Kayak fishing has a more established influencer community than recreational paddling. Creators have built loyal audiences around fishing techniques, equipment, destinations, and shared experiences. Those relationships provide opportunities to introduce safety messages through trusted voices.
Examples of Influencer Videos in Kayak Fishing:
- Re-boarding with Jeff Little
- Safety Tips from ATypical Outdoors: “Life Jacket should feel like the hug of a small child”
- Reboarding with Die. Hard. Fishing
- Kayak Fishing Safety (Long form) with Chad Hoover
Look beyond traditional paddlesports influencers. We sought out recreational kayaking, standup paddleboarding, travel, and outdoor lifestyle creators whose followers are interested in getting outside, not necessarily becoming expert paddlers.
Examples of lifestyle and recreational influencers sharing safety messages:
- The Hive Drive: Hidden Gems
- SUP Safety Tips with WalkandPaddle
- SUP with Black Adventure Crew: What I would do Differently Now
Through September 2026, this outreach generated more than one million combined reported video views and social media engagements.
That’s an encouraging result. But what excites me even more is the opportunity to build relationships that continue delivering value long after an individual campaign ends.
When influencers cross-pollinate, everybody has an opportunity to grow
A social media collaboration allows creators to share content with their respective audiences. On Instagram, for example, an accepted collaboration can appear on both accounts as one jointly published post or reel. That introduces each creator to people who might never have encountered their work otherwise. We’ve encouraged collaborations among creators with complementary audiences. Alternatively, creators can appear in each other’s videos or share screen time in the same video and publish to multiple audiences.
A few examples illustrate the potential.
Cameos and Collabs in Kayak Fishing. The family-friendly kayak fishing tournament series, Kayak Adventure Series, launched this video with a cameo from well known kayak fishing influencer Jeff Little to help drive traffic.
Kayak fishing meets Level 50 education. Connections from the influencer initiative helped bring kayak fishing leader Chad Hoover and ACA Paddlesports Fishing Committee Chair and Instructor Trainer Geoff Luckett together to support WSF’s separate Level 50 Buoyancy Aid Education initiative. The collaboration put an emerging product category in front of trusted kayak fishing audiences.
Connecting grassroots paddlesports communities across state lines. We also connected Ahmad Williams and Zenovia Stephens, ACA entry-level instructors in their respective disciplines, around shared commitments to paddlesports education, diversity, and inclusion in Alabama and Georgia. By introducing their audiences to one another, regional creators can help more people discover welcoming opportunities to paddle.
For regional influencers, strong local relationships can matter more than national follower counts. Collaboration helps connect those communities and gives future safety messages more places to travel.
From a first adventure to a lifelong paddler
If we want more people to become lifelong paddlers, we need to help them have good experiences from the beginning. The same influencer who inspires someone to buy a kayak, try paddleboarding, or explore a new destination can also introduce basic skills, responsible decisions, and connections to local instructors, outfitters, clubs, and community programs.
We have an opportunity to build a community of trusted voices who make responsible paddling a natural part of the experiences their followers want to have. Because what we see online influences what we do on the water.
The goal is to make safe paddling part of the adventures they already follow.
This article first appeared in Andrea White’s Cross Currents Leadership substack. To receive new posts and support her work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
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