mB Y Simon Gonzalez
PHOTO BY Allison Potter
MEMORIES PRACTICALLY DRIP FROM THE OLD PADDLEBOARD MOUNTED
ON THE WALL IN APRIL ZILG’S LIVING ROOM. It’s her first board, the one she
purchased when she got serious about adopting a healthy, fit lifestyle. She’s taken it around
the world.
“I’ll never get rid of it,” she says.
But it’s no longer seaworthy. It sustained fatal damage on her globe-trotting ventures.
“It has been stabbed by Indian customs, and
broken by people in Indonesia throwing it, and
Hawaiians hating on standup paddlers,” she says.
So while she loves her old board, her new favorite
is one she can actually use, a SUP surfboard custom-made
by her sponsor, Hobie, that she’s had for a
little over a year.
CLAIM TO FAME
Professional Standup
Paddleboarder
“It’s my relaxing, no-pressure board,” she says. “It’s for catching waves and hanging
with friends. And going out when you’re really, really stressed and you just need to float
in the water.”
It’s shorter and wider than
the long, sleek flat-water
racing board that Zilg,
a fixture in the top-10
world rankings in her
sport, paddled when she
won the Surf to Sound
Challenge at Wrightsville
Beach last November.
“That’s kind of my claim to fame, the racing side of it, but surfing is more fun and the
more stress-relieving thing,” she says. “If I had to pick which one if the house was on fire,
I’m going to pick the more fun one.”
Zilg and her favorite board made a cross-country move in the middle of November. Her
husband, Corey Curtis, was offered a job in Santa
Barbara, California. The couple had been talking
about moving to the West Coast so she could train
with and compete against the fastest paddlers year-round,
so he accepted.
FAVORITE THING
Custom-made
9-foot Hobie
SUP Surfboard
“It was a no-brainer, really,” she says.
That doesn’t mean it was easy. She learned to
paddle in the waters in and around Wrightsville
Beach. The 2011 Carolina Cup was her first race. She has developed lifelong friendships.
“All of those friends are not going to be in California,” she says. “Mornings at public
access 2, surfing with the girls, that’s the thing I will miss. Because even if I’m surfing in
California, it’s not going to be access 2, with the sunrises, and it’s not going to be with the
same people.”
That’s another reason why the surfboard is her favorite.
“The board will remind me of them,” she says. “It carries with it all the
memories that I will miss here.”
34
WBM january 2018