“Stand-up paddling is exploding,” Buck Rowlee enthused at the Paddle Battle on Salisbury Beach, Mass., on Saturday, July 14. Rowlee, a Hampton local, has been a stand-up paddler, or “SUPer,” for seven years. He’s a veteran in a sport that is still young in New England. Stand-up paddling, where paddlers stand on a fat, long surfboard and propel themselves with a slim paddle, had barely arrived on the East Coast in 2005. But, over the past few years, the sport has grown in popularity among surfers and non-surfers alike.

According to SUPGlobal, a stand-up paddling magazine, the sport originated with surfers in Hawaii back in the 1960s and has roots in Polynesia. Stand-up paddling let surfers get out on the water when there were no waves. Plenty of surfers still appreciate it for that reason. “Even when it’s flat,” Rowlee noted, you can get “incredible exercise.”

This is the second year of the Paddle Battle for the Revo Cup, a series of six races run every other weekend at Salisbury Beach. There are two more battles left this summer, on Aug. 4 and Sept. 1.

The races are organized by the Atlantic Paddle Board Association, founded just over a year ago. Though the organization is young, its members are enthusiastic. Dozens of paddlers and their families gathered below the Surf Side 5 viewing deck on Saturday morning and took pictures before the race, while beachgoers, many of whom had never seen a paddle board before, sat down to watch.

Many of the paddlers competing in the battle were cross-over athletes who got into stand-up paddling through surfing. That’s true of Dani Schmidt, a competitor in the elite women’s race. For her, paddling is another way to “be on water.” “That’s where I belong,” she said.

But paddle surfing also appeals to a growing number of non-surfers, thanks to more affordable, higher-quality paddle boards and more local events. Each Paddle Battle includes a recreational race in which men, women and youths can join.

This year saw paddle events in other New England waterways, too. There was the second Run of the Charles River in Boston, which included paddlers, kayakers and canoers, and the first ever Boston Tea Paddle in Boston Harbor.

Because paddle surfing looks a bit like paddling a punt boat and can be done on flat water, it might look like a leisurely workout. But paddling requires incredible core strength in order to maintain balance without sacrificing speed. “It’s 90 percent core, 10 percent arms,” Rowlee noted.

The paddlers in the elite races on Saturday moved fast in the ocean, with no more than 20 strokes between most of the competitors.

Competitive paddlers must also master technical skills, like turning and memorizing course patterns. They have to have stamina, as well. The course in Salisbury included two triangles and two figure-eights around four buoys. The women did three laps while the men did four (the recreational race was just one loop).

In the first race of the day, five elite women lined up at the starting line with their boards laid out near the water’s edge. The race kicked off with a running start to the line of boards, paddles in hand. Each woman carried her board into the water and hopped on, knees first, before standing and paddling to the first buoy. The race was close for the first lap and remained fairly tight among the top four paddlers. Schmidt, who has been paddling for a year and a half, got back to shore first. She hopped off her board, pulled it out of the water, beached it and ran back up to the finish line in just over 33 minutes.

The big prizes are another indication of the sport’s growing popularity. Last year, the top prizes included Revo sunglasses; this year, the elite women and men competed for $2,000 in cash.

But, for the racers, it’s not about the money. Danielle Deforest, who came in second place on Saturday, said her favorite part is “the people, definitely.”

After Deforest finished her loop, she hopped back on her board to paddle in with the fifth-place paddler, who had learned to paddle a mere three weeks ago. As she ran back onto the beach at 42 minutes, the rest of the SUPers cheered along with a crowd of beachgoers.