How To Deflate and Roll an Inflatable SUP

Learn how to properly deflate and roll an inflatable paddle board from our friends at iRocker SUP.

Today, we're going to show you the proper way to deflate and roll up your board. So what we need to do first is deflate the board. You're never going to use the valve wrench that's in your repair kit to deflate the board as that will void your warranty and is very dangerous. What he's going to do is open the valve cap and push down on the yellow button in the center of the valve. Then give it a slight twist to lock it into the open position. This board is not fully inflated; if it were fully inflated you would hear a very large rush of air escaping from the board. 

There's a few ways to let the board deflate: 

1. If you have an electric pump you can use the electric pump to suck the air out.
2. You can just let the board sit for a couple minutes and a lot of the air will push out on its own.
3. If you would like to speed up the process and you don't have an electric pump, you can just begin rolling and it will push the air out of the valve as long as it's in the open position.

Now John is going to begin rolling up the board. We're always going to do this beginning at the nose of the board first because you need to push the air out of the board as you're rolling. So he's going to begin rolling around the action mount. You're not going to be able to roll certain things of the board up such as the action mount so you're just going to kind of roll over them. As he gets closer to the fins on the back of the board you can see it's going to become a little bit more difficult because he's got to roll those fins up within the role of the board. So as I explained earlier, you're not going to roll the fins up you're just going to roll around them. As you get to the tail of the board you will start to hear the rest of the air push out of the valve. Another good tip: whenever you get to the very tail of the board and all the air, or most of the air, is pushed out of the board you can actually close the inflation valve. That way no air is going to come back into the board. Once he wraps the strap around the board he's going to put the strap through the clip and tighten it back down.

As you can see, if the board is rolled up properly it can very easily fit into the bag. There are two cinching straps on the inside of the bag- you're going to want to make sure that those are not clipped together. That way, once you put the board in the bag you can wrap them around the board and tighten them down. As you can see, deflating the board, rolling it up and putting it in the bag really is a pretty simple process. The most important part of the whole process is going to be get as much air out of the board as you can and roll as tight as you can as well.

Check out all inflatable paddle boards or read inflatable paddle board reviews in the gear guide!