Electric Pump for Paddle Board

amazon thurso surf battery powered inflator pump in action

Thurso Surf Rechargeable SUP Inflator Pump in Action

Let us help you find the perfect electric pump for paddle board.

If you stand up paddle board, having an electric pump for inflating your board is essential. Why? Because you need to fill your board to between 12-15psi for a good paddling experience.

When we sit down paddle board with our folding chairs, we routinely only inflate our board to around 5psi. This takes around 5 minutes and is super easy, even with s single action pump.

However, stand up paddle boarding requires a very rigid board to help with balance and because your feet cover much less surface area than a folding chair. If you don’t inflate it enough, the board will feel mushy below your feet and it will be harder to balance on. It also won’t respond to changes in your weight as you work to control your board in the surf, when there are waves and when there is wind.

This brings us back to the all important topic you are searching for, the best electric pump for paddle board. So what do you need to consider?

Important considerations when purchasing an electric pump for paddle board

amazon outdoormaster dolphinII 12vDC sup pump power station

OutdoorMaster 12vDC Inflator Pump in Action

First, think about how you plan to use your paddle board. Do you plan to drive up to a lake or river, inflate your board at your car and then carry it down to the water?

Do you think there will be times when you want to keep your paddle board in a backpack and hike a few miles in to a nice lake where you plan to fish?

If it is the latter, you will want to consider a pump that works off of a rechargeable battery. If it is the former, then you likely can get away with spending a lot less on a pump that runs off of a 12 volt cigarette adapter.

We have found that we often prefer filling up our paddle boards at the car with our quick and reliable 12 volt electric inflator. But with how crowded some lakes and rivers get, we often have a quarter mile or half mile walk to get down to the water with our board and gear.

For this reason, we purchased an electric pump that is easily rechargeable but will also inflate 3 large paddle boards at once before needing to be recharged. For situations where the trail down to the river is crowded, rocky, involves lots of traffic or has steep stairs where wheeling our boards down doesn’t make sense. That way we have the option to carry everything down to the river in it.

John wheeling our Aqua Marina Monster paddle boards along with our folding chairs down the the water.

That is because we do have another option when we have to park a little ways away. That is our wheeled paddle board cart. See the picture on the right for our SUP-Wheels in action!

With the wheels, we can inflate our boards at the car without 12-volt inflator. Attach the wheels onto the largest board we are using, pile on the rest of the inflated boards along with our paddles, life jackets, seats, etc. and wheel the whole thing down to the water.

This is the method we typically use when we are at a reservoir and putting in at a public boat launch. Typically, you have to park your car a little ways away, but there is a nice, paved road from where you park, down to the ramp where a paddle board dolly works great. This also works at a lot of the lakes and rivers we go to in national parks. National parks can be pretty crowded, especially in California and on weekends. But the parking lots are often paved because they have disabled access. So again, we can inflate at the car, van or RV and then wheel everything down and back using our dolly.

On the other hand, at some popular lakes they have a semi “secret” boat launch just for kayaks and other water craft without engines. These launches are often unpaved and you may have to park a little ways away. In these situations we will take everything down to the water and inflate it using our battery powered electric pump.

We have an easy way to figure out what to do even when we are traveling in our RV and visiting new places. Do a drive by! If we can’t do it in our RV, we will drive close and then hop on our bicycles and ride by to scope out the best place for us to park and the best places to put our paddle boards into the water.

So, because we like to keep our options open, we have both an electric rechargeable paddle board pump and a 12-volt pump. AND because the adults prefer sit down paddle boarding nowadays, we will sometimes just use our manual pump to inflate our boards up to 5psi!

A pro tip for true adventurers… hiking into a lake with a 10 foot long x 31 inch paddle board, a seat and a single action pump is easy. Neither the paddle board, seat, nor the pump weigh a lot. It is literally a 5 minute job to inflate the board before getting to fully explore a lake that often won’t even have a trail that goes around it due to the steepness of the surrounding terrain. These lakes have amazing fishing and exploration opportunities!

One of our favorites is Long Lake in the Lakes Basin area of the California Sierra mountains. If you prefer standing up, the re rechargeable pumps are not that much heavier, especially if you choose the one we recommend, because it will fill 2-3 paddle boards to 12-15psi. So make the strongest one in your team carry it!

Best Rechargeable Electric Pump for Paddle Board

Our favorite rechargeable electric pump for paddle board is the THURSO SURF 20PSI Rechargeable Digital Electric Paddle Board Pump. We like it because it will inflate up to three boards to 12-15psi without breaking a sweat. We have found that we need to let it cool off between each board for 5 minutes or so depending on how hot the day is.

Thurso Surf 20 PSI Rechargeable SUP Inflator Pump

amazon thurso surf battery powered inflator pump

Click to Get More Information About This Pump on Amazon

We love this pump because not only does it feature a 4000mAh polymer lithium battery capable of inflating three paddle boards on a single charge, you can also connect it to your car using the cigarette lighter cable for a continuous power supply. That means you can inflate your paddle board even when the battery is dead, which is great because John has a problem remembering to charge things (like our electric assist mountain bikes).

Best yet, the pump features portable USB charging capable of reaching a full charge in 2.5 hours.

It also has the same cool feature as the Dolphin II 12-volt DC Pump 12 where you can set the psi rating (between 0-15 psi) that you want your stand up paddleboard to be inflated to, press start and it will inflate the paddleboard to that exact pressure before shutting off.

It’s really convenient, takes all the guesswork out, and allows you to just plug it in, start it, and do other things while this little pump does the work.

The pump features a dual motor inflator which results in 30% faster inflation times since it can inflate at 360 liters per minute at low pressure and only goes down to 78 liters per minute inflation rate under high pressure. This results in inflation times of 8 minutes to fill a 10.5-foot SUP to 15 psi.

This small but mighty pump weighs five pounds and measures 12.5-inches x 10.5-inches x 4.5-inches making it very portable. It comes with four nozzles and a carrying case.

This is the best battery powered, portable electric pump for paddle board we have seen.

Best 12-volt electric pump for paddle board

We keep our favorite 12-volt electric pump for paddle board in our car at all times. That is because we usually keep at least one paddle board and a couple of floaties in the car at all times too. We can’t tell you the number of times we have found ourselves out at the lake or river spontaneously after running errands. Our car just seems to drive itself to the nearest body of water so we can cool off, relax and/or explore after dealing with boring chores and errands! After trying out and burning out several pumps, we have found the OutdoorMaster Dolphin II 20PSI 12V DC Paddle Board Pump to be a gem. It keeps filling our toys up, doesn’t care if we want things inflated to 15psi and we haven’t managed to kill it despite tons of use.

This pump is small, only 9.45-inches long by 4.33-inches tall, portable, lightweight, and fairly quiet, producing only 80 decibels of sound while inflating. Is that completely quiet? No. It does make noise while inflating, just less noise than other pumps of a similar size.

This pump works hard, so it does get hot while it is doing its job, so it is best to keep it in the shade or at least in an area where it is well ventilated.

The upside is that it does its job quickly. It will inflate a normal paddle board to 15 psi in around 11 minutes.

The pump itself only weighs about 3 pounds and is fairly small, only 10.2-inches long by 7.2-inches wide and 6.6-inches tall.

One of the features we really appreciate is that you can set the pressure you want the inflator to fill your paddle board to and it will fill it to that pressure and then shut off automatically. For Julie that means she can put sunscreen on the kids and get snacks and water ready while the paddle boards inflate.

You do need to know that after setting your desired pressure you need to push the two buttons to get the pump to start.

Last, the pump comes with a variety of nozzles to fit most high-pressure inflatables so you can use it for more than just your paddle board.

We highly recommend this most economical electric pump for paddle board we have seen.

OutdoorMaster Dolphin II 20PSI 12V DC Paddle Board Pump

amazon outdoormaster 12vDC inflator pump

Click to Get More Information About This Pump on Amazon

We hope we have made your search for the best electric pump for paddle board easier. There are so many ways you can inflate your paddle board. The main thing is that you pick a way and purchase a pump that ensures that the actual pumping of your paddle board is not what keeps you away from the water. With so many great options to choose from, we hope you will get at least one that makes it easy for you. Don't let the perceived hassle of pumping grow to more than it actually is in your mind. Really... it takes less than 10 minutes and with and electric pump for paddle board you will be inflated and on the water in a jiffy.

We hope to see you on the water.