Expedition Kayaks

Fridays from the Vault - Downwind on the Epic V10 Sport

2012-02-10T08:44:00.003+11:00

My little stats page on Blogger clocked over to 300 posts last week. I noted the milestone & then spent a couple of hours during the day scrolling back through the posts from years gone by, seeing how much my own perception on some things has changed, & also how similar it is today to when I first started on other things.
The first post was a welcome in January 2008, about six months after we began as Expedition Kayaks. Back then I was an avid surf kayaker, paddled the Impex Currituck (a boat I still enjoy whenever I can get into a rare specimen), figured surf skis were for clubbies & too tippy, Greenland rolling was for beardie weirdies, and with a busy family life couldn't envisage getting away for that shining light on the hill, the one 'big' trip.
In the years since my interests have broadened considerably and I'm probably unrecognisable as a paddler from the one who got out a couple of times a month back in '08. It makes me wonder what I'll be into in four years time….
There were more than a few blog posts that brought a wry smile, so I thought I would put up a weekly reminder of some of the articles that I particularly enjoyed writing up.
The first of these comes from March 2010, and documents my first ever paddle on the open sea in my new Epic V10 Sport. My mate Stacka & I decided to take out skis out for two 'out-and-backs' from La Perouse, in some moderate seas whipped up by a couple of days of southerlies. Watching it with a discrening eye now it was pretty clearly a crash or burn experince, I'm pretty shaky, my stroke turns to all arms once the heat goes on, and there are about half a dozen safety trailing braces that save me from a swim, and my expression betrays my anxiety levels! But, you really only learn how to do this sort of paddling my doing…..this sort of paddling..!
The post is HERE, and the video from the paddle is below, this was one helluva fun ride….

Check back each Friday for more EK posts 'from the Vault'.

Demo Clearance - Wind 585, Zegul 550, TRAK T-1600

2012-02-06T13:56:00.005+11:00

We've decided to clear a number of our demo boats to give our fleet a bit of a refresher.
The boats we have for sale at drastically reduced prices are below:

Tahe Marine Wind 585 (New)

Colour: White hull & deck (with light blue racing stripe), black kevlar seam & blue coaming.
Features: Skeg + Rudder

New Price $2990, 2009 Model $1990
Read a review of the Tahe Marine Wind 585 HERE

Zegul 550

Colour: Gold hull & deck, black seam & coaming;

Features: Skeg

New Price $3890, ex Demo $1800
Read a review of the Zegul 550 HERE

TRAK T-1600 Folding Kayak

Colour: White hull, Army Green deck (as above image)

Features: Folding Kayak

New Price $3990, ex Demo $1950
Read about the TRAK T-1600 Folding Kayak HERE

Please note, these boats are sold as is and as ex-demo kayaks carry no warranty coverage. They have all been regularly maintained & represent excellent value for money.

We last offerred an ex-demo for sale in 2010, and it lasted about three hours, so please be quick if you'd like to grab a bargain.

First Paddle in the Tahe Reval Midi PE

2012-02-06T11:53:00.003+11:00

Sydney turned on a rare perfect summer's afternoon yesterday, so I took the opportunity to combine a test paddle for Jonathon in the TRAK folder with a short test paddle in the new Tahe Marine Reval Midi PE.
I hooked up my helmet cam for the first time, something I've previously avoided as I reckon most helmet cam stuff looks more like Meerkat vision…. Can't say I'm overly enamoured of my own effort here either!

Anyways, the little Reval is a hoot. It has reassuring stability, a predictable edge, responds properly to properly applied technique & has excellent thigh bracing & ergonomics.
While I didn't get it out in surf, which I think it will really shred, there is plenty of volume up front & the hull planes with even the little nudge it got from the boat wash in the video.
I swapped to my stick & rattled off my small collection of Greenland rolls, the low rear deck accommodating the backwards finishing rolls, and the good boat fit making the forward finish rolls a breeze. I even nearly managed to hand roll it, doing a couple of desperate lunges with a cupped paw at the finish but lacking the finesse to balance brace myself back up.
The bulkheads are foam and after flooding the cockpit there was a small amount of ingress into the day hatch, but I'm not sure if the hot day & air tight seal on the hatches was responsible, literally sucking in some water, or if it was the seal on the bulkhead itself. That said, foam bulkheads are foam bulkheads & you shouldn't expect too much! With regards the build, I deliberately synched it down hard on my racks & left it in the sun for the day, to test the rigidity of the Tahe triple-layered layup. I'm happy to report there were no indents or oil can marks, & this plastic boat is every bit as stiff & sturdy as the Valley RM's.
On the strength of an hour's play, I think this boat is going to be irresistable as a second boat or an ambitious paddler's entry level sea kayak.
A postscript to my previous post about the latest shipment, on opening the wrappers we found that the Revals in our order were all carbon kevlar, instead of standard glass. We're going to offer these up-specced boats at the same price as the standard glass as an intro offer, so you can get a carbon kevlar sea kayak for $2990.
We also have some rudder options in our latest shipment, with the Zegul 520 now available with a rudder and a skeg, and one of the Reval Midi's with a rudder included. There is no extra cost for the rudder.
Contact Rob or Mark for a test paddle.

Tahe & Zegul - Reval & Reval Midi PE Now in Stock

2012-02-01T14:03:00.002+11:00

Our latest shipment from Tahe Marine & Zegul has arrived, with a couple of new eye-catching models we're predicting will become very popular in the local market.

First of the newcomers is the Reval, a boat we'd been previously reluctant to import without first trying, as we felt it might have blurred the lines between our Brit boats. The heritage of the boat is obvious on first glance, with lines reflecting designs like the Nordkapp, the Quest & even the old Iceflow. Phil Doddridge, South Australian veteran instructor & expeditioner, was the first in the country with a Reval & has given us some glowing reports on the way the boat handles everything from surf to a torrid instruction day. It's become his boat of choice, & while not a beginner's boat, is one of the select bunch that will definitely reward paddlers who are willing to put in the work to develop their skills.

Both Rob & I had a chance to paddle a Reval at the Currumbin Symposium, and were taken with a few stark differences between it & other designs like the Nordkapp or GT. First up, speed. It has a kilometre an hour over the fastest of the British sea kayaks, with a sleek long waterline length & close catch zone. Like most Scandinavian-designed boats, it also tracks pretty hard, so those who find the looser tracking characteristics of traditional British boats a bit of a handful will appreciate the hard line the Reval holds, especially downsea. You'd expect these traits to come at the expense of manoeuvrability, but applying my usually test of paddling the boat backwards in calm water, lifting the outside edge & dropping a stern rudder over the raised edge I was able to pirouette the kayak through 270 degrees, on a reassuringly solid secondary point. The only boats that turn faster are the Rockpool GT, the Atlantic & the Nordkapp LV. Where we think it might lack the performance of the British designs is in sheer playfulness in really rough water, but that is a shortcoming only an advanced paddler would readily identify. The Reval will be selling for $2990, a great price for a full composite sea kayak with a well credentialed performance design.
The second boat not previously seen on these shores is the Reval Midi PE, a playful rough water & surf boat with plenty of appeal. Ignoring for a moment the price of just $1490 for a triple layer polyethylene kayak, the boat has all the characteristics you associate with a fun play boat. They include reasonable water line length at 5.15m, a low back deck for those who want something for Greenland rolling, and impeccable Tahe fit out.

We paddled the composite Reval Midi last year & considered it to be a sporty design in much the same vein as the North Shore Atlantic, but with more stability & buoyancy. We didn't bring it in due to the high back deck & the fact that we thought the Atlantic was a better design, but this little plastic version is too good to resist.
It rounds off a kayak range for us that begins in the paddling stratosphere with exotic composite British boats, through surf skis & fitness boats & Greenland rolling kayaks & now all the way down to a budget kayak that has an Alfa Romeo hull.
The common thread in our range is the bit that's in the water. We firmly believe that it is all about the hull & that all the bells & whistles, technology & gloss mean little if the boat behaves like a pig where it was designed to be paddled, in the sea.
Demo boats of the Reval & Reval Midi PE are now available to test.

The Zegul 520LV has also come back into stock & there are three in the warehouse for those of you that have been waiting for the return of this very sporty little boat. Improved exchange rates & shipping mean we can now offer this boat at $3490, a drop of $300.

The Bay to Beach - Finally an Ocean Race for Sea Kayakers!

2012-01-30T14:18:00.000+11:00

A couple of years ago I enquired about entering one of the Ocean Races in my Valley Rapier, a design that is essentially an elite surf ski with a deck. I was told that they no longer allowed sea kayakers to enter after a slew of safety incidents over the years & a perception that sea kayakers were less skilled in rough water, needed rescues etc etc.

Having listened to a couple of famous ocean race stories involving sea kayakers, without agreeing entirely with their conclusion I have to say I completely understood their viewpoint & figured instead I'd see what all the fuss was about with surf skis, inspired by the brilliant videos that Rambo shoots around the world of these high octane events.

I got to learn a new skill set & love paddling my ski, but those of us sea kayakers with the skills & intent to run a real blue water race have been left to invent our own private paddles downwind at sea, and look on at the Ocean Series like a kid who got a Cabbage Patch doll instead of the Lightning McQueen race car for Xmas…

There are the harbour races, & more & more of these flat water events are popping up, enriching the local paddling scene as they appear. I entered one a couple of years back & quickly worked out that without sea conditions to read, ride & use to my advantage, my fitness meant that a flat water race was just an hour of grunting hard with none of the rewards that the sea provides for your efforts (that is big long rides where you can suck in some big ones & don't have to paddle!)

Local paddling identity & founder of the Southern Districts Ocean Paddlers Steve Newsome, told me last year he was planning to reinvigorate the grand old 'Caltex Bridge to Beach' race, a surf club challenge that had first been run back in 1984. He asked how we could get sea kayakers back into the mix. Rob suggested a pairs event whereby they could enter as a team of two, and their finishing time would be the time when the last of the pair crossed the line. The logic was that a pair of sea kayakers racing together would be able to help one another out in the event of a problem, and it also fits better with the ethos of our sport being a more collegial one than other paddlesports with a competitive base.

Steve agreed and for the first time in many years there will be an open ocean race run in which us sea kayakers are welcome. Yay!

The 2012 Bay to Beach will be run on February 25, starting at Bonna Reserve at the western end of Silver Beach at Kurnell, head out through the heads of Botany Bay past Cape Solander & Boat Harbour, across the expanse of Bate Bay, around the headland at South Cronulla & into Gunamatta Bay & the finish. It's 18km which will take you from the calm of the Bay, through the invariably confused water of the southern cliff line around Cape Solander, out into unbroken open water with the prospect of a Nor Easterly tailwind all the way along the Cronulla beachfront, then around into the lee of Port Hacking. It's hard to imagine a course with such a great variety of water & the prospect of summer sea breezes & fast running seas.

Sea kayakers wishing to enter should consider several aspects. First, there is about 5km of unlandable cliff from Cooks Landing all the way to Boat Harbour. The water around here in a Nor Easter is confused & multidirectional, but nothing like the sort of genuinely big conditions you get around the Royal National Park or several other headlands along the Sydney cliffline. You should be well versed & practiced in the art of assisted rescues in rough water, and some experience in big open water conditions would be almost a pre-requisite.

Steve has enlisted the local surf clubs to patrol the course in support boats & RIB's, so the safety margin is way higher, but by the same token it's not quite as easy to get a kayak on board a support boat if there is a big problem, so it's a good idea to be sure of your skills.

We are sponsoring the sea kayaking side of the race and will be offering a generous prize pool, because basically we want to race in the event & do everything within our power to ensure it continues to be a race in which we can participate! Who knows, if the concept is a success we might see pairs of sea kayakers admitted back into the Ocean Race series.

You can enter the race HERE - entry is $45 which includes a race singlet & a BBQ lunch at the presentation party afterwards. It would be great to see a huge sea kayaking field, & to maybe see this race turn into our annual event for blue water racing as well as a classic for the coean racing ski & OC1 guys.

Cockatoo Cup Wrap Up

2012-01-27T17:01:00.000+11:00

The Cockatoo Cup was run & won yesterday on a grey & sticky Australia Day. Despite the dire weather, more than 100 true believers turned up in a bewildering array of craft. Just casting my eye over the field lined up on the beach, I spotted spec skis, ocean racing skis, one, two, four & six person outrigger canoes, dragon boats, SUP's, plastic sit on tops, even a couple of Polynesian looking craft that I don't want to name & risk offending my coloured brothers!

The club running the gig, the Pacific Dragons, have obviously developed a fun & inclusive culture with a vibrant social scene no doubt driving the enthusiasm of their on-water success.

As outsiders sponsoring the event for the first time it was nice to see a paddle scene entirely removed from our own with so much appeal.
The briefing was novel, with a dire warning about the dangers of dehydration, & a reminder that you do have a natural reserve in emergencies, followed by a demo of how to extract said reserve & drink it, in case anybody might have thought it might be a bit um, unhygenic...
I entered the race in my Epic 18X, & when asked about my handicap I remembered that Tony King, the owner of Epic here in Australia had told me he was also racing, & would be in the V8. I scrolled down the list & spotted Tony's name, and said 'yeah, I should be somewhere around his speed in the V8 so stick me in his group….'

I kitted up & headed onto the water, watching my mate & fellow sea kayaker Tim Kennings depart in a group 20 minutes before me. TK is no slouch in his Nordkapp LV & as a former champion Superbike rider must have a killer competitor buried underneath the most amiable of personas, so I started to think maybe I might have been a bit over confident in my handicap selection. Me? Over confident? Nah….

Tony, NOT in a V8!

I looked around as my group marshalled for the start & there was Tony on a V12! He muttered something about being sorry about that, loaned the V8 to a nice lady blah blah blah. Not only that, but alongside him were four other fit dudes in V12,s V10's & a Fenn Elite. Note to self about paying attention at marshalling. In golfing parlance I could never be accused of being a burglar….
At my core I'm, a filthy cheat, and I was planning a race where I'd hook onto a faster paddlers' wash & cruise the 14.5km, blasting home well rested over the final K & decimate the field. Instead I managed to foot it with the big guys for a good 20 or 30 seconds before racing the entire soupy course under my own questionable steam.
On flat water if you want to go fast you have to be fit, so I'm at an immediate disadvantage! I'll admit that flat water racing is not my go, the appeal of the sea for me is my fascination with everything that is going on in the fifteen square metres around me, watching waves, trying to link runs & varying strokes, edges, shifting your weight to try to take advantage of the shapes magically appearing in front of you. I can honestly say I've done 8 hour paddles on the ocean that have felt like less time than I spent on Thursday moochin around the Cockatoo Cup course!
Anyways, I plodded around the figure 8 course which nicely looped the picturesque Cockatoo, Spectacle & Rodd Islands twice, and then lined up Tim on the home stretch to sneak past him just before the finish. If I had any breath left I would have told Tim how well he was doing in a boat not quite as quick as my 18X…!

Tim Kenning's back, all I saw for 95% of the race….

I was happy enough to finish in a tick under 90 minutes, if I was a horse you'd say I was well worked, but maybe a run short of a decent showing….
Rob & I then snuck out in the new Epic double ski & absolutely blasted it around the little island in front of the start. Sitting in the forward seat of the ski is like being in the Channel Nine highlights reel, we were gunning along at 15kmh plus without really trying, what a hoot! It's also remarkably stable, more stable in my opinion than my V10S, even with Mercer wobbling around in the back!
A presentation in a rainstorm & a sausage sandwich at the BBQ finished off an excellent morning.
Thanks to the Pacific Dragons for a great event, and to Tony for a brilliant fix!

OneDegreeS: WTF….?

2012-01-25T10:51:00.001+11:00

Just posted an update on our plans at the One Degree South blog…

OneDegreeS: WTF….?
This is one bizarre Sydney summer. We have been ready to go now for about the last 3 weeks, yet the weather is still stuck in a typical spri…(Read More)

I love my job….

2012-01-19T08:57:00.001+11:00

I've had a memorable four days of 'work', if you consider what I've been doing to be in any way laborious!
Rob is in Tassie having an extended break from his unbearably stressful existence - people who've been to his office will know what I mean - so I've been out doing demo paddles & mixing it up with some new paddlers/customers. I've also had the chance to reacquaint myself with 9 of our different designs, something I really should do more often, as your perceptions of a craft change as your paddling develops.
Sunday was a demo paddle with Wade down at a dingy, cold, rainy & windy Dolls Pt, testing out the Zegul 520, North Shore Atlantic & Nordkapp LV head to head. The three of them are radically different in their design intent & the way they feel on the water, & there was plenty of chop & bounce, not to mention an easing Easterly wind (what's with all these frigging Easterlies around Sydney at the moment…!) for Wade to plough through & under to test the characteristics of each design.

The Zegul 520

He struck up an affinity with the Zegul 520 & really made it sing, carving turns & blending strokes very impressively. I haven't spent a lot of time in this boat & having watched the way Wade danced around in it I'm thinking I should be paying closer attention.
On Monday arvo I met another customer, Chris, at La Perouse to pit the Atlantic RM against the Valley Aquananut LV RM. If you ask Chris James what his favourite boat of the last 4 years would be - and he owns a lot of boats - I reckon he'd nominate the LV as the one. I haven't paddled it for over a year, and in the neat little 1m sea whipping into Botany Bay on the back of a 12-15kn breeze it was a joy.

The Aquanaut LV RM

The plastic version of the Atlantic feels much the same as the composite, maybe with a little extra buoyancy, and this translates to a very reassuring ride in rough water. Chris has been paddling an Inuit Classic, a beautiful little boat originally designed by one of the sport's great pioneers & characters, Norm Sanders. I used to own one years ago & learned the art of surfing a sea kayak in it, one of the all time great short sea kayaks, sans rudder or skeg. This background showed in Chris' paddling, and although he doesn't have an extensive resume of sea paddling, he looked at home in the two Brit boats, comfortable using his edges in the bounce & looked like he was enjoying himself. After we finished I pulled out my Mitchell stick & rattled through my repertoire of Greenland rolls, sadly neglected of late in pursuit of a single degree of latitude, but still passable, even in the Aquanaut LV, which isn't exactly a Greenland T.
Yesterday I met up with Neil, again down at Frenchman's Bay, this time so he could have a go in the V10 Sport. Once again the weather turned it on, with a gentle onshore wind giving us some small runners to ride back to the island from the rebound around Henry Head. Neil hadn't paddled anything as demanding as this ski in the sea before & was a bit tentative to begin with, but was soon stretching out & pushing himself & gave it a good enough go to want one.
I always encourage paddlers to try a more demanding ski design so they can see what's over the horizon from the entry level boats, but it remains an undeniable truth that if you keep falling off your ski you'll soon chuck it all in. The boat that suits you best is the best boat for you! Paddling skis on the ocean is a completely different ballgame to paddling sea kayaks, or even paddling the same ski on the flat. You need to be either very dedicated to the acquisition of a new set of skills that take away deck contact as a means of support for bracing, or have a history with rough water & reading the shapes in front of you, as well as a little more core strength than our forgiving sea kayaks demand of us. But the rewards, oh man the rewards, running a big following sea in a ski is as good as it gets…. In my view, as someone who still considers himself a beginner ocean ski paddler, the key is to get out in rough water as often as you can safely, and keep at it, and obviously that means you need a reasonably stable platform.

With that in mind, and an appointment at Epic in Brookvale that I managed make myself suspiciously very early for, I pulled in at the Spit & took my V10S out for a short cruise to North Head & back. There was very little action happening out in the harbour, it's a harbour after all, but I still managed to crack a few small waves on the stretch back to the calm of Grotto Point from across the way. Once inside Middle Harbour I latched onto the stern wave of the James Cadman & went almost all the way back to the Spit at over 13kmh, riding along with very little paddle effort. That is my kinda paddling, my lazy paddle is featured in the little video above set to the music of the Lazy Song….
Having the ski on the roof allowed me the luxury of spotting a chance & a waterway & fitting a sneaky paddle into my schedule.
So, in the space of four days, I've been able to paddle 9 different boats, get out on my ski a couple of times & crack a few runs, paddle a couple of supreme British skeg boats, give the Zegul 520 a refreshed shot, and have a little refresher session on my Greenland rolling.
Tough way to earn a quid right…?

Cockatoo Cup 2012, Australia Day

2012-01-17T11:17:00.000+11:00

The annual Cockatoo Cup is being run again this month on Australia Day. The race is open to Dragon Boats, Outrigger Canoes, Surf Skis, SUP's & Sea Kayaks, in fact almost anything that floats. It's a family day, with a BBQ lunch at the end of the racing, and a short course & long course option.
The Pacific Dragons run the event, & last year attarcted over 100 participants. We're a sponsor of the race & have donated prizes, & will have our trade stand on site with our range of gear & a few demo boats for people to test.
You can sign up to take part at the event HERE.
This is a fun event with participation the main theme, handicap starts & a nice chance to pre-emptively work off some Australia Day largesse!

The Rockpool Taran Returns….

2012-01-13T09:47:00.000+11:00

Our next shipment from the UK is due in six weeks, and there are four Tarans available in the shipment, not yet pre-sold. These boats have created such a stir in the world market & have been snapped up here without ever really reaching our stock racks. In the short period of time the Taran has been on the market they have been paddled in some record breaking trips, broken many open sea records, and this month for the first time they will be used on an attempt to cross Bass Strait. As an expedition boat they have made sea paddlers re think the idea of range & boat speed over long distances, surely the most vital of safety considerations when undertaking long crossings in particular.
About a dozen people have expressed serious interest in the boat over the Xmas period & this is advance warning of what is coming, I've inserted a graphic below of the colourways.
A slight saving on shipping has allowed us to drop the price to $4490, for a boat made to the same specs & rudder fit out etc as Chris James used for the North Reef Expedition.

Please let us know if you'd like to put your name next to one of these unique boats, which in our opinion represent the future of expeditioning designs.

Kayaks & Shark Attacks

2012-01-12T08:59:00.001+11:00

A recent posting on the Sea Kayak Forum which diverted into a discussion on the usefulness of shark repellent devices got me thinking about our toothy friends & their interaction with us as sea kayakers.
In 10 years sea paddling I've probably had a shark encounter at least two or three times every year, usually a flash under your boat or a fin off to one side.
I've been bumped a couple of times by something identifiable to my paddling partners as almost definitely a shark, and bumped many times by everything from what could have been a Great White Shark, to a Great White Turd. I can't honestly say I've ever felt a hit & known for sure it was a shark, the only time I knew for certain was when others actually saw it.

Top view of a curious Tiger Shark

At a recent talk on his round Oz paddle, Stuart Trueman was asked about sharks, obviously you'd expect a guy who paddled the entire coast of Australia to have some tall tales of great escapes from monster beasts of the deep. His reply was something I've observed many times over the years, it's over before you even realised what it was! Rob echoes Stu's thoughts on the toothy far north of Australia, where the vibration from your rudder seems to be a beacon to the sharks in the murkier water & it's invariably a target for them, with a sonar signature undoubtedly similar to a big fish in distress.
Paddling through the crystal clear waters of the Capricornia Cays, about 100km off the coast of Queensland, in an area Brian Towell described to me as the most shark infested place he's ever been, having spear fished there for many years, we saw plenty of big Tiger Sharks. They would barrel along straight at you from the deep (at least the ones you could see coming from in front), veer off at an alarmingly fast rate once the 'Snackability ID' had been made, then almost always come back around for a slow pass just for a look. One of the things that strikes you is not how long they are (it's impossible to judge from a kayak really & I swear one of them was 27m long), but instead how round they are. Their girth is amazing, less the sleek greyhound of the sea, more the swimming Brahmin Bull on steroids.

Tigers have a fierce reputation and are justifiably an animal you probably want to avoid being in the water with unless you know what you're doing. However, it soon became apparent that these big sharks were firstly not the slightest bit interested in eating us once they worked out what we were, & then became almost playful in their curiosity. While it is a bit unnerving to see the distinctive mottled stripes going under your boat just a few feet below in clear water, after a few encounters it became a rare thrill to see them so close.

A beautiful Tiger Shark

When I mentioned these shark tales to Tim Harvey, the manager of the Heron Island research station, embellished by a few beers at the island bar, all jokes stopped. Tim looked me square in the eye & said 'you realise there is no way in hell that those sharks will hurt you, don't you?' His message was simple, treat them as a beautiful animal of the deep like a whale or a dolphin & enjoy the privilege.
Attacks on kayakers by sharks are most uncommon. Experts point to the fact that 98% of sharks eat small fish, & taking on something 5m long in the natural world is bound to have nasty consequences for a predator. It's only really Tigers, Great Whites & a couple of other big sharks that will have a go at something as big as a marine mammal, because basically the rewards aren't worth the risk & effort.
Where that changes is in the murk. Dawn & dusk, a river mouth after rain, estuarine water with silty outflow etc, are places where the risk is undoubtedly amplified, as the sharks have much more difficulty in identifying their prey. On the same trip my anxiety levels rose when we reached the inshore area of Keppel Bay, with the water as brown as a cup of cocoa. If any of those big buggers were going to be forcefully curious it was surely in this muck. My nerves weren't helped when I remembered that Rob had said there were crocs around this area, & I yelled the question across the wind:
"Hey Rob, is this where you said the crocs were….?"
"Yeah, why…..have you seen one?"
Thanks for that Mercer, about as funny as a shark in an elevator.
Around Sydney Bull Sharks pose the biggest threat because they have a strong salt tolerance & can get right up into the brackish fingers of harbour & estuary systems & do tend to hit first & ask questions later. They've knocked a couple of paddlers out of their boats in the upper harbour, with no more harm done than a bruised shin climbing quickly back on board & maybe a strained sphincter...
Stu again mentioned a massive hit he copped off the WA coast, which moved he & his fully loaded kayak about an inch. Not much you say? Try swimming at a loaded kayak from below, head butting it & getting it to budge. Importantly though, the 'hit' is where it ends. I can't find may examples of a shark making a reconnoitring strike on what it hopes is a dying whale or a big seal, getting the fright of it's life when instead it smashes it's precious snout into 120kg of hard laminate, & still thinks it's a good idea to head back & have another bite. Can you imagine the fright the poor shark must get?
I think sharks are the single most misunderstood creature in the sea, sensationalised by films like Jaws, inducing fear so far & above the actual risk they pose as to make it almost a Monty Python-esqe farce. Only about 1400 people a year in Australia are attacked by sharks seriously enough to require hospitalisation, & only about 15 a year die, & they're mostly little kids, no big deal right…..? Sorry, sorry, that should read dogs, not sharks.
Happy paddling!

Back on Deck

2012-01-09T08:43:00.000+11:00

Happy New Year to all, here's hoping 2012 is a cracker.
Just a short post to let everyone know that the warehouse is back at full staff, & all orders placed over the Xmas break will be sent out today.

Hacked....

2012-01-08T08:48:00.001+11:00

Hmmm.
I've just switched the electronics back on after a brief sojourn into the blissful unconnected world of the NSW South Coast to find that we have changed from Expedition Kayaks into Extradition Scamacts!
It appears my blogger password and proxy settings have been hacked and put to mischief.
One of my best mates runs the fraud section of a major credit card business, & he says its a malicious attack, an actual person out to do some harm, not some spambot infecting and churning out scripts, suffice to say its fixed.
To the guy who did it, well a few cross checks are underway and we'll shortly have a very good idea of who you are, even if we won't be able to prove it. Luckily over the years there have been precious few negatives in our business, certainly compared to the cut throat industry in which my primary business operates. I'm flattered that someone could go to this amount of skulduggery to cause problems, apparently you'd really need to know your stuff to pull it off.
To Mr Dickhead Hacker Dude, the password is no longer monkeyturd69. I've learnt my lesson on web security, having treated it much like my car, which I never lock!
Apologies if you've received a weird email from me, please let me know if anything strange has come in from my direction.
Thanks to Dredgy & Pete for raising the alarm, only just picked up your SMS & emails, much appreciated.

Variety

2011-12-21T10:58:00.000+11:00

Andre & Chris at full throttle (pic Rob Mercer)

One paddling event I never miss is the annual Tuesday Nighter's Xmas paddle. Even though I barely clock up the miles to be credible, this hardy bunch of all-weather & all-conditions sea kayakers are most welcoming, even to a blow-in who only drops by for the glory nights.

How's this for an evening paddling:

Cast off from the picturesque Watson's Bay on the outer edge of Sydney Harbour, destined for Diamond Bay, about 7km around the corner of the cliff line, with a well set southerly wind blowing up to about 18knots.

On the water, ready to go

Round the lighthouse at South Head & turn north into some engaging & confused rebound, firing back off the clifflines & offering runners going in the opposite direction to the sea. Punch upwind for an hour or so zig zagging around in the confused seas.

Nice little bumps on the way south (pic Rob Mercer)

The Dover Heights cliff line (pic Rob Mercer)

On reaching Diamond Bay, a U shaped cliff face at Dover Heights, spend half an hour bouncing around in some fantastic rebound, practicing your strokes in the most demanding water of all to paddle.

Chris in where Chris is most happy (pic Rob Mercer)

Anyone who wants to have a go, takes a run up close to where the waves are crashing against the sandstone.

Andre launching his Hybrid skywards (pic Rob Mercer)

A 40 minute blast back downwind with the southerly wave pattern almost slow enough to hook into & ride, but with multidirectional waves making any decent run you might garner bouncy & focused.

Ease back into the harbour with the sun setting over the city, the protected waters inside the heads offering a glassy calm.

Back in the lee

Then, spend the best part of an hour a few metres off the beach with everyone trying out a few of Gordon Brown's on-deck acrobatics, practicing re-entries, standing up in their cockpits, generally fluffing around & laughing at one another's antics.

Matt & Rob on the deck

Gary a bit confused

Anne demo's the backwards lay back

Matty shows the high angle forward stroke….

…then the elevated low brace

…..then the air brace…..

After packing away the boats & towelling off, enjoying fish & chips & a few cold beers at the Watto Bay pub, telling tall tales & spending some rare time with like-minded friends.
I couldn't imagine a better way to round off my paddling year. Variety? Today were racing, surfing ocean waves, playing & manoeuvring in big moving water that would bring a smile to face of any whitewater paddler, we were safe, with protocols for ensuring one another's safety in a challenging environment, we were flat water cruisers & then at the end we were just plain buffoons. Above all we were sea kayakers, because that's what this sport offers if you're prepared to have a go.
Thanks to Rob & his bunch of merry cohorts.

The Real Deal

2011-12-20T10:24:00.001+11:00

Over the past few months I've been chatting to a couple of paddlers with a trip or two coming up. They are Ben Woodcock & David Williamson, sea kayakers from South Australia.
Have you heard of them? Unless you've been around a while or are an active paddler around Adelaide I wouldn't have thought so. In fact, I when I realised who David was I called he & Ben 'the blokes that nobody knows about', much to his amusement.
A few years ago, with little fanfare, in a bog standard plastic double, they managed to paddle from New Caledionia to Australia, one of the all-time epic trips in a sea kayak. I found the story on the internet called something like 'staff trip from Noumea', on a long since expired web page. Try as I might, I can't find the gripping trip report anywhere else on the web & the guys aren't sure where it's gone either…
Earlier this year they paddled from Australia, 700km to East Timor (there's a link to that story HERE).
Early next year, Ben & another paddling mate Lachie Harvey are planning a full circumnavigation of Tassie, with a western Bass Strait crossing to start things off, & a cruisy Eastern Bass crossing to finish. You can read about that trip HERE, with route maps (HERE), a link to a Spot tracker & heaps of info on their preparation etc.

And in 2013, Ben & Dave are planning a trip from New Zealand back to Australia, via Norfolk & Lord Howe Islands, something Ben described to me as a 'long island hop'. Again they'll be in a standard double kayak with the front bulkhead removed and sea sock fitted, with a material hatch cover for conversion to sleeping space in the front.
These guys are the real deal in a sport that to an extent has become hijacked by a culture that seems to value self promotion more than actual achievement. In the footsteps of the likes of Laurie Ford, Jeff Jennings, Tony Gaiswinkler, Dave Winkworth, Peter Carter, Les Allen, Andy McAuley and now Stuart Trueman, Ben & Dave continue the tradition of bold adventure on the sea.
I hope their profile can be raised a little based as it should be on merit, and people will keep an eye on their travels & lend support.

Merry Xmas & Thanks.

2011-12-19T10:45:00.001+11:00

Another year has ticked by, and our little business has reached it's fifth summer. In a competitive market we continue to be humbled by the lovely support we receive from you our customers, paddling peers and friends. It's reached the point now where it can't really get any bigger without turning into something different - rest assured we're not planning on turning into something different.

Our message continues to be a simple one, that this sport of sea kayaking is one you can get a huge amount of satisfaction from if you are prepared to pay due respect to the sea, & work on your skills.

Although we obviously sell gear & boats, as Napoleon Dynamite says, they're long secondary to the acquisition of skills, which are really what it's all about.

Thanks again to everyone with whom we've come into contact this year, we appreciate every single call & inquiry, and hope to spend even more time on the water in 2012 at various events around the country meeting our paddling buddies.

Have a safe & happy Xmas & enjoy your New Year celebrations.

Mark & Rob (we might be dodgy paddlers, but man have we got some moves…..)

NRS Vista PFD

2011-12-16T14:54:00.001+11:00

I have been testing a lighter weight PFD from NRS over the past couple of weeks, the Vista. It's a fairly minimalist design which is suited to paddlers who want a less bulky option, for general paddling or fitness paddling.

They're now in stock for $99. There is a nice video above showing all of the features, from the NRS catalogue.

Xmas Trading

2011-12-15T16:14:00.000+11:00

The Xmas break is approaching, and demand these past few days for test paddles & instruction over the holiday break has cranked up.
Just so you know, either of Rob or I will be available over the entire Xmas/New Year period, however the warehouse will be closed other than by appointment.
The final day of dispatch from the online store will be this coming Wednesday, December 22, so please get any orders in as quick as you can if you'd like your gear before Chrissy.

Paddling against the flow

2011-12-14T12:24:00.002+11:00

I had a demo paddle scheduled early this morning down at the picturesque Swallow Rock Reserve in Port Hacking. Arriving a bit early planning a fitness paddle before the demo, I had a choice, paddle down to Bundeena & go for a surf on the bar, or go upstream to Audley, a 6km return trip on glassy flat water.
Deciding variety is the spice of life, & opting for a 'form' session, a cruisy 40 minutes where I just concentrate purely on my stroke, I headed for the Audley Weir, in the Royal National Park.

The river valley is a gem, with shallow oyster beds passing below the tannin stained water, white sandy slivers of beach backed by Sydney's iconic sandstone strata.

I chugged up to the weir to find it expelling the heavy rainfall from the Hacking River at a great rate. I messed around in the outgoing flow for a few minutes, paddling against it like one of those space-challenged swimmers with a BaduStream. Wing paddles are not the most sensible choice in aerated water, relying as they do on a good catch to start things off, & I had a few underwater airswings. I video'd the little outflow above, minutes of amusement!

I also got a nice little bonus on my return to Swallow Rock when Olympic kayaker Tony Schumacher was setting up at the car park for his morning training paddle. I introduced myself & we shot the breeze for a few minutes on ski & racing boat designs & his thoughts on what works & what doesn't. One of my mottos in life is that you never get better information about things you don't know too much about until you talk to people that do, & Tony knows his stuff, as you'd expect!

WA Sea Kayak Symposium

2011-12-13T08:39:00.000+11:00

Les Allen has announced the inaugural WA Sea Kayak Symposium, to held this coming February. Les has a comprehensive expeditioning record, having paddled great swathes of the WA Coast and been their leading instructor now for many years. He made it across to the RnR this year & obviously liked what he saw, & has set about establishing a similar event in his own backyard.
The symposium will be held at Point Peron in the magnificent Shoalwater Bay area just outside Perth, & will be a 'live-in' style event very similar to the NSW Rock & Roll complete with cabin accommodation.
Les has drafted in Sandy Robson as a guest, fresh from the first leg of her attempt to retrace Oskar Speck's Germany to Australia paddle, and our own Rob Mercer will be an instructor. Sharon Betteridge is joining Rob for the weekend, and will be presenting a female perspective on paddling.

We attend almost all of the major paddling events around the country & it's pleasing to see them gaining popularity. A weekend among paddling peers, sharing experiences, learning new skills & having a good time off the water is an opportunity too good to miss.
The itinerary is above on the flyer, and you can register using the application form HERE.

One Degree South - Fuel for the Long Haul

2011-12-12T10:12:00.003+11:00

I've just penned a short peice on my nutrition plan for the One Degree South paddle - http://1degs.blogspot.com/2011/12/fuel-for-long-haul.html

North Reef Expedition featured in Ocean Paddler Magazine

2011-12-09T10:03:00.001+11:00

We were all thrilled to have the trip report of our North Reef expedition published in the esteemed sea kayaking magazine in the UK, Ocean Paddler.
The article featured in an expedition issue, packed with the sorts of useful tips & information that all paddlers looking to journey in their craft should know.
Ocean Paddler is heavily subscribed here in Australia, so if you're not getting this superb magazine due to the distance factor, rest assured that your copy, like mine, arrives on time each & every time.
Unlike most of the kayak mags around the world which cover a broad scope of paddling, Ocean Paddler zeros in on sea kayaking, with almost all of the content written about sea kayaking that happens….on the sea! In my eyes it's proof positive that you don't need to be all things to all people to in order to produce a successful formula, that satisfies the market for which it is intended.
The good folks at OP have given permission for us to re-produce the North Reef article, if you'd like to have a read through, click HERE.
You can subscribe to the digital or soft copy version of Ocean Paddler though THIS link.

Last Chance - Next Valley Shipment Closes Today!

2011-12-09T08:28:00.000+11:00

Today is the last day we'll be taking orders against our next container from Valley & North Shore.
If you'd like a completely customised, carbon kevlar, three piece, pink & orange, foot pump installed Valley Sea Kayak please let us know straight away!

Training Paddle in the Epic 18x & Wind 585

2011-12-08T10:23:00.001+11:00

Training for our One Degree South paddle is now in full swing. I grabbed some time yesterday with a rare blank schedule & Rob & I went for a training paddle out to sea from La Perouse. I was paddling the Epic 18x, my boat for the challenge, & Rob had the Wind 585 while his Taran is being modified.
Conditions were pretty benign, a 12-15 knot breeze and a typical little sea running on top of a metre or so of swell.

We ran 7km straight out, averaging about 8.4kmh into the wind. I shot some video of Rob in the 585 as I realised we have precious few movies showing how our boats actually look moving along in the sea. Reviewing the footage later, the 585 is a very sleek creature in the ocean! Rob was impressed by how well it chews the distance with a minimum of fuss, & once engaged with moving water just how much the stability hardens up.
We saw a container ship leaving the bay as we neared the turnaround point so headed north to dodge the shipping lane, whereby I managed to once again whip up a bluebottle & loop it neatly around my throat. As a warning for out trip it was most timely. I will now develop my paddle clothing to try to prevent this from happening again, as bluebottles are definitely going to out in abundance in the weather & wind conditions we are planning for.
The run home was a hoot. My GPS trace had me running mostly between 10-15kmh as I threaded the little runners bad into the bay. The new rudder system on the 18x is definitely a success. The only time I broached unexpectedly was when I backed off to try & get cute on a wave, allowing the boat to lift back up the following wave & release the stern into thin air. My weight was back, the rudder lost all bite & I skewed off to the right. Noting this error, I kept the foot down for the next 20 minutes & once again didn't have to call on a corrective braking stroke once. I'm salivating at the idea of 110+km downsea in this boat.
We pulled into Little Congwong Beach & swapped boats. Rob paddled the final 3km home in calmer water & marvelled at the lack of resistance in the 18x hull, and the engaging responsiveness.
I got a go in the 585 & there was a definite contrast. If the 18x is the Spitfire, the 585 is the Lancaster. Hard tracking, solid as rock on the water & as fast as any traditional sea kayak out there. For a long expedition with a group you'd be hard pressed to find a more user friendly design, capable of carrying monumental amounts of gear.
The next objective is to wait for a hanking Nor Easter & get out amongst it for the final judgement on the boat.

Into the Wind - Round Ireland DVD

2011-12-07T08:45:00.000+11:00

In the lead up to our own North Reef trip, where we were using Rockpool Tarans, Epic Mid Wing blades, & planning a fast & athletic expedition style, all our eyes were focussed on Jeff Allen & Harry Whelan & their attempt to break a 21 year old record for the fastest circumnavigation of Ireland.

The guys were using most of the kit we planned on using, and made the bold statement of aiming at the record, come hell or high water, which added pressure but also motivation to pull it off. Rob & Jeff swapped corrspondence on how we thought the boats were handling our lead up, & he shared their findings, all of which was very useful stuff for us, & we hope for him as well!

And man did they smoke it. In appalling conditions, most of the time, the guys tore 8 days off a 33 day record.

Their mate Vaughan Roberts followed them around the coastline recording the journey, & the boys were well fitted out themselves with cameras capturing the on-water stuff. Vaughan has since cut a DVD of their trip which has once again raised the bar for documentation of a rough water expedition.

We'll have our stock here in about a week, but the DVD is available now for pre-order. Go to the DVD Section in our online store for details. Price is $34.95 including delivery nationally

One Degree South Blog

2011-12-05T21:09:00.000+11:00

Our blog for January's 'One Degree South' paddle is now live. You can see it HERE.
There is an initial post outlining the paddle, as well as a portal to allow you to donate to RU OK Day, the suicide awareness charity we are supporting.
We will be updating with training notes, gear and other aspects of the challenge over the next month or so, as we count down to the attempt

One Degree South

2011-11-28T20:42:00.001+11:00

Forget about space, time is the final frontier. The likelihood of either of Chris or I getting another coordinated block of time to do a North Reef type trip is remote at best in the medium term, so with Rob we have aimed up at a new challenge.

Our goal some time in January is to paddle one degree of latitude in a day, or 60 nautical miles. Roughly speaking, this will link Sydney and Jervis Bay, if the locals will allow us a few km of license and include Currarong in their bay geography!

Our aim in this endeavor is to promote the idea of safe ocean paddling in groups, to lay down a time that will hopefully inspire another group even in another part of the world to have a shot, and finally to highlight another issue close to our hearts.

We have teamed up with R U OK Day, an independent, not-for-profit organisation whose purpose is to provide national focus and leadership on suicide prevention by empowering Australians to have open and honest conversations and stay connected with people in their lives. The founder of R U OK Day, Gavin Larkin, was a schoolmate of mine who sadly passed away earlier this year, and his idea has been a huge success, paying tribute as it does to his Dad Barry. In doing so we're also raising our own little tribute to local paddling legend Wayne Langmaid, who sadly passed away a couple of years ago, a victim of depression. Wayne was a mate of Rob & Chris' & is much missed.

We'll shortly be posting a new blog site to record the build up and training, as well as providing a portal for the paddling world to donate to this worthy cause, and then of course follow our 'spot dots' as more than 12,000 people did on our North Reef Trip.

We plan to go light and fast, downwind if the weather gods are kind, this time without sails.
It's an awesome 'day trip' to contemplate and I can't wait!

The Balanced Boater: Lesson on a stick..

2011-11-28T07:51:00.000+11:00

Rob has just written a beautiful blog on paddles.

I think it very succinctly points out the folly of the strange & bizarrely evangelical fundamentalism that some people out there in blog world attach to their particular paddle choices.

The Balanced Boater: Lesson on a stick..

The Epic 18X Downwind

2011-11-24T16:02:00.004+11:00

I'm planning on paddling the Epic 18X in an upcoming trip with Chris & Rob, & have been busy this past week or so testing it out in the context of what we're planning. The new rudder system is of particular interest, as so far it does seem to have revolutionised the way the boat performs downhill.

It was a blustery start to the day, with a solid southerly wind blowing 19-27 knots across the bay, so I took the opportunity to get out amongst the steep little wind waves on offer. I put my head down into the stiff breeze and managed 40 minutes into the teeth of it averaging bang on 6kmh. While the boat does tend to fall off the back of steep oncoming waves this has little or no impact on forward speed, and once I worked out how to manage the boat over the crests I minimised the effect

Turning with steep, quite slow wind waves from astern, I flew back to the shore in just under 20 minutes, mostly on or above 11-13kmh. Where possible I held the boat on the sweet spot of the waves to stop it from charging into the troughs. An indication of just how good the rudder works, and how well it complements the hull is the fact that in that speedy 20 minute burst I didn't use a single stern rudder. In other words I was able to continue being aggressive & chase runners without having to put on the brakes, ostensibly a neccessity when you feel your directional stability sliding on a following wave.

I plan on a longer open sea outing with some more size to the following conditions & will try to get some video as well as a trace to share.

It shows you what innovation can deliver. A boat that was always fast now looks as though it really will handle the kinds of steep following seas that it's siblings in the ski stable are built for.

Released - the Epic Double Ski

2011-11-23T16:30:00.000+11:00

The wraps have come off Epic's latest design, a superb new double ski. Oscar & Greg paddled it together to launch the boat on the weekend's Dragon Run in Hong Kong & put some serious strain on the timekeeper.

It looks sleek, fast & everything you come to expect from Epic's innovative design team.

I'm going to pester the Epic guys for a loan so I can get Rob out for a blast, I reckon it would be a heap of fun.

Remounting a Ski

2011-11-17T10:12:00.002+11:00

Rob, Chris & I have a new challenge on the horizon, so this week marks the point where I've deigned to try once again to get my fitness back to levels required for the rigours of long distance sea paddling.

I do this by getting out on my ski & doing short, sharp interval sessions, 'cheating' my way to decent cardio & strength conditioning using the limited time I have available for paddling that isn't work related.

Yesterday was day zero, a new marking point to lay down some times, heart rates etc & give me something to measure & hopefully improve against. Our respective fitness programmes for the North Reef trip produced great results and it's good to have a successful template to work back over. Based on yesterday's effort it's a nice low marker point to begin from!

More time on the ski means becoming reacquainted with the self rescue skills that are necessary for safety. Hands up, I'm no great practitioner of the surfski remount that has been so nicely described on Surfsi.info HERE. I find the sidesaddle re-entry easier in really rough water so have practiced it over the past couple of years at every opportunity.

Then Oscar Chalupsky made THIS neat video a month or so back showing his preferred technique, which is something of a hybridised version of the two wider known methods.

I gave it a go yesterday after an hour of pushing hard along the glassy waters of the Bay, so I at least had fatigue to escalate the challenge, and it is a cracker. Next test is out in some rough water, but the method is so flowing & stable I can't imagine having any dramas out at sea either.

Ski paddling is attracting a much wider demographic since the launch of the Epic V8, and anyone that buys a ski from us gets a very stern talk about making sure this remount technique is mastered before any solo or challenging paddling is undertaken. I still consider myself essentially a ski-paddling beginner, and from this perspective I can heartily recommend Oscar's way, it's instinctive, effective & surprisingly simple.

The Zegul 520 - Canoe & Kayak Magazine Review

2011-11-14T15:54:00.000+11:00

The excellent rough water paddling magazine from North America, Canoe & Kayak, have released a review on the play boat in the Zegul range, the Zegul 520. Reviewing the standard 520, as opposed to the smaller Zegul 520LV, they have come to very much the same conclusion as us.

This design seems to fit directly in between the ranges. Paddlers from a skeg boat background, with experience in boats like the Nordkapp, Avocet or Aquanaut, tend to tell us how fast & hard tracking the 520 feels. Paddlers new to rudderless paddling rave about it's playfulness & relatively low input for maintaining a heading, not a feature to be underestimated when learning a new skill set in which directional stability is pretty important.
The hull design prevents the stern from sliding without a solid edge, and makes the manoeuvrability, while not in the sports car league of the Nordkapp LV or North Shore Atlantic, very predictable & reassuring.
The standard Zegul 520 has a higher deck all round than the almost cult-popular Zegul 520LV, is designed for paddlers up to 100kg, and like many of the boats we import fits neatly into it's own niche.

Riders on the Storm

2011-11-10T10:43:00.001+11:00

Whew, Tuesday night's paddle was distinguished by one almighty electrical storm that we just managed to sneak off the water prior to it unleashing.
A change in the forecast from 'possible storms' to one of those 'all hell is going to break loose' storm warnings was issued about half an hour after we left the beach on what looked like a pretty cruisy Tuesday night paddle. On reaching North Head, we didn't need the BOM to tell us what was going on, and turned tail running down the following Nor Easterly breeze back to the safety of Camp Cove.
Andre & I were the last into the beach, I remarked to him that it didn't look all that dramatic & then BANG, a very big lightning strike lit up the hill above the beach. We all then cowered under the sandstone break wall at the northern end of the beach as the light-show hit full throttle.
The skyline was just so dramatic, despite the edge to being out on the water with something clearly very big threatening, that it was still a privilege to see a storm cell of that magnitude from the water. Just don't try it at home.
Paddling anywhere near lightening is silly, seriously….

The Epic V8, the Friendly Downwind'er

2011-11-07T15:16:00.000+11:00

From about now & for the rest of summer, we're blessed in Sydney with a consistent 15-20kn Nor Easter which has mostly kicked in by early afternoon & gives us a fresh, slow moving sea to ride.
The weekend just gone gave me a brief opportunity while camping with the kids at Sydney's Bonnie Vale, to jump in the V8 for an hour or so & run some gentle downwind chop.
Up to now when people come to try a V8 I always encourage them to try the V10 Sport as well, so they have both a comparison to the 'next' level up in competency, and also because at least half of the people who think they should get a V8 can probably very easily get into a Sport with a smidgin of instruction, and some dedication.
Why a Sport as opposed to a V8? Well, my story is that the V8 is based on a kayak hull, albeit a very fast kayak designed for the sea, and it doesn't 'run' like the narrower boats. That means the effort required in a following sea is obviously more in the V8 than the longer, narrower skis.
I took the V8 with me on the weekend so the kids & adults could have a play, but a decent blow came up around midday so I decided to go out & test my theory.
I didn't think there was a better way to make my point than by demonstrating an entry level ski in what are pretty user-friendly conditions.
The V8 is aimed squarely at people getting into the sport, and this sort of fun following sea is a fantastic way to learn the art of paddling downwind. It was manageable, fun & the hugely reassuring stability provides the best education you can get in your quest to work out how these craft work in the environment for which they were designed.
So, does it 'run'? Well yeah, in the sort of conditions it was designed for, it runs like a mustang, so my theory has some serious flaws (surprise surprise…!)
Sure, it would be found wanting for pure speed on the longer, more technical ocean swells & bigger developed seas, but by the time you're ready to head out into that stuff you would have a whole lot more in the toolbox, & probably also a narrower, faster boat more suited.

I made about 4 runs of 2km out & back across the expanse of Port Hacking, each time turning & running back to Mainbar on the 20knot breeze & tiny little wind waves.

You can see from the video how little input was required to keep the ski on a run in these conditions, sometimes running for a minute without much more than the odd burst to hold position.

My eldest daughter Kiri certainly thought it looked like fun, & insisted on coming for a paddle. She's becoming quite a little adventure junkie, and thought the best part of the whole thing was catching the waves into shore & then getting bashed around in the shore break!
As for the V8, well despite a welter of new designs aimed squarely at the market it has singularly created, demand continues to far outstrip supply. Our next stock lands in about 3 weeks & isn't expected to hang around for long. Check our Epic Kayaks page for details.

Next UK Shipment Cut-Off

2011-11-02T10:34:00.002+11:00

We are finalising our next order with Valley & Rockpool in the next 2 weeks, and invite anyone with a custom order to let us know you'd like your new boat to look!
Valley offer several customised options, from their aersopsace infused carbon/kevlar layup to individualised colours, bulkhead lengths, foot pumps, keelstrips & even three-piece boats, which seem to have suddenly become most sought-after.
The next shipment from Valley will also include the smallest version of the Etain, a genuine expedition boat for smaller folks, the 17'3".

Rockpool customise every single one of their boats to the owner's requirements, so if you'd like a GT or Taran, or even the cult Alaw Bach in a funky design just for you, let us know. In the past we've delivered boats with starfish, kelp, even a beautiful Aboriginal design in the gelcoat artwork, so they really do have the capacity to make your boat exactly to your specs.

We'll likely receive the shipment here in Australia some time around early February, and if the pervious couple of Valley shipments are anything to go by, there will be very little left to buy off-the-shelf that hasn't been pre-ordered.

National Sea Kayak Symposium Wrap

2011-10-27T08:51:00.002+11:00

We've just returned from the fourth annual National Sea Kayak Symposium on the Gold Coast, an event we have supported as major sponsor since it's inception.
This year the weather gods again smiled upon us, with the coast turning on three perfect days of clear skies & temps in the high 20s, warm water & barely a zephyr.
Rob was held up the day before our planned departure by an aviation 'issue' where he was holidaying on Lord Howe Island with Sharon, so I made the long trek north on my own. There is a big effort involved in getting all of our gear, demo boats, workload-while-away sorted & then making it up to Currumbin in time for our traditional demo day on the Friday. We're always encouraged by the emails prior to the event asking us to bring up this boat or that paddle to try, & so it proved that come the Friday we had a bunch of people waiting to give the boats a good crack.
Craig at Adventure Outlet had enlisted Mick MacRobb from Flat Earth Sails & Tom Nicholson from Elver Paddles to come along & enhance his display. It was good to catch up with them both, & shoot the breeze with Mick over a few beers about how well his sails performed on our North Reef trip.
The demo day was also the first sighting north of the border of the Valley Etain, & true to form neither the 17'7 nor it's smaller sibling the 17'5 touched the sand, as paddlers took them for a spin to find out if the reality lived up to the hype.
We packed up our trailer mid afternoon & dashed across to the Community Centre to set up our trade display, but instead of knocking ourselves out as we usually do, the presence of Sharon & Mick made the whole thing very nearly a pleasure!
The attendees started to arrive & register at about 5pm & we spent the next few hours catching up with our mates up north & then listening to Stu Trueman trying to fit a 16 month round Australia odyssey into a 90 minute presentation. Stu's trip is nothing short of amazing, & he broke it down into several aspects, rather than try to produce a chronology of the expedition, which went down very well with the big crowd in the hall. Post talk we all headed back to our apartment to catch up properly with Mick & Gary Forrest, who was staying with us.
After cracking a Haka roll faster than either Chris or myself (below) Gary invented a new roll at the demo day, the long-lost Aleutian Smuggler Roll, and quite possibly became the first sea instructor in history to teach a novice Greenland roller the Haka Roll, while dressed only in his hat & his Speedos.

The student, an obviously mentally tough QSKC President Brian McCarthy, ignored the sideshow & snapped off a textbook Haka-for-blokes-Butterfly-for-less-hairy-folks roll in about 8 minutes. Stand by for a warm summer in Sydney & Greenland rolling in nothing but bikinis & budgie smugglers, why should just the surf ski dudes get to dress down? Lets face it, all that head-to-toe black kit, just ain't that sexy......
The Saturday program at the Symposium is all off the water, with a range of seminars, talks, skills demo's & even some yoga. The end of the program featured Olympian Amanda Rankin putting forward a compelling case for us sea kayakers to embrace excellence, rotate more & start to make some of our rusty old forward strokes start to work more efficiently.
We retired to the local Surf Club in the evening to enjoy a steak & a few beers, tell some tall tales & enjoy a rare opportunity en-masse to mix with our paddling peers. It was heaps of fun!
Sunday is the main day of the Symposium, with a full program of instruction, some trips & on my count more than 70 demo kayaks lined up on the beach for paddlers to try. I took an instruction group out with Queensland instructor Shawn West, and attempted to twist & cavort my students into a series of gut busting edging & torso exercises. These guys had a go! Almost everyone fell in with a smile on their face & I hope they took something away from the session.
The latter part of the day may well mark the point where the dark arts of Greenland rolling merged into the Australian paddling mainstream. One by one, paddlers would come over & learn a Butterfly roll, sit upright with hands raised while the highly amused spectators from the bank cheered. I tried to get Macca doing a gloved hand roll after he picked up the bio mechanics for the backward finishing roll from Rob & Gary ridiculously fast on the Friday, but he just couldn't quite crack it. Jonathon then pushed in, seized the mitts & hand rolled first go! The competitive juices started to flow, Macca hurled some abuse, Jonathon responded with a good sledge 'Yeah mate, talk to me when you can do one....', and then it was on!
Seriously, demystifying the Greenland stuff is half the battle, well instructed it is something that looks real hard, but is actually very, very easy. I think you might see the warm waters of Queensland turn into a sub tropical Qasigiannguit over this coming season, as these motivated & skillful paddlers poke friendly jabs at one another to try this roll, then that roll, down the progression of learning these fun tricks.
I thought I was in reasonable shape prior to the weekend, but having been upside down & twisted a thousand ways over the course of the three days, I'm a little bit slow out of my office chair this morning. Clearly it's time to lobby the Global Yoga Organisation and try to have my lifetime ban lifted.
After packinmg away the boats for the final merciful time, I then adjouned to the local RSL to watch the RWC Final. Only a point separated me from having to send yet another world cup jersey off to Vinnies & it becoming a cherished souvenir, and despite having to sit next to Russ Hinze reincarnate at the rissole to watch the game, and having the bloody haka perfectly dissected by the Ode (OK, I think the ode is pretty important too…), there were big Sundin smiles for the rest of the evening.
All up a top weekend, and one that needs just a little more support from paddlers to make that next step into massive kayaking event.
Thanks to Mark & his mob at QLD Canoeing, and to everyone who took the time to try a boat, check out our goodies or just say G'day.

Greenland Wars II, the James Strikes Back

2011-10-18T12:36:00.003+11:00

Give a man an inch….
I took Chris down to the local pool yesterday to attempt once & for all to 'fix' his Greenland rolling. That's 'fix' like how Carl Williams eventualIy got 'fixed'….
I tried every dirty trick I knew to make sure the black art of the forward finishing roll remained just that to him, a skill unattainable to all but the most supple & talented athletes, like me.
The results are on the video above, clearly my instruction is so good I couldn't even do it badly if I wanted to….
His one serious misdemeanour was an attempt at our 'Holy Grail', the forward finishing rodeo roll, sans paddle. Whereas I was happy to fail miserably & wallow upside down waiting for an undignified rescue, James attempted a sleight of hand deception by arching his back & finishing with a back-leaning recovery! Fortunately, the camera caught out this cynical breach of ethics, which I've included here as a lesson to the cheats among you all. Understand what sort of man you're dealing with if you ever come across this Chris James fella in some other walk of life.
There was interest at the pool from a few Petersham locals, real rough inner city types with big L-O-V-E H-A-T-E prison tats who took some out time to study the ancient arts we were so elegantly performing. Could this become the new yobbo sport, some twisted 'Jackass' underwater….?
I actually heard a rumour that one of the local rugby league teams caused a dreadful brouhaha at the same pool last week, when they turned their 'Mad Monday' celebrations into a crazy Greenland rolling session. Luckily the NRL were able to keep it out of the papers, saving the reputation of the greatest game of all from a scandal that would dwarf the betting, drinking & general antisocial behaviour league players are renowned for. You heard it here first…..
**Note, although I make mention of 'a small animal dying' at the end of the video, please rest assured that no small animals indeed died during the making of this movie.

Tuning up the Rolls

2011-10-17T15:45:00.000+11:00

I snatched an hour last week to take the 'T' down to Sandringham Beach & try to tune up my rolls. I recordered the session on my camera, essentially to try to spot any technical problems, but the murky water & late arvo light knocked that idea on the head.
In my limited experience, the backwards finishing rolls seem to be all about how flexible you are, whereas the forward finishing rolls require rather a bit more finesse & intuition. They're awesome when you get 'em right, you rise up almost as though someone else is doing it for you, very cool.
I had a crack at the half-paddle rolls that Rob was doing so effortlessly HERE, and that's another one in the 'work-in-progress' basket.
Regardless, never having been one to be afraid of going through the 'a bit hopeless' phase when learning a new set of skills, here's the highlights & a few lowlights of the session set to the groovy tunes of the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain.
Now that's a mob to aspire to belong to, once I can get the hang of this Greenland rolling bizzo.

Greenland rolling competitive…? Nah….!

2011-10-06T10:37:00.000+11:00

Disclaimer - Apologies in advance to the reverential readers in Greenland cyberspace, we're just having some fun here….
I guess the phone call must have gone something like this….

"G'day Rob, Chris here."
"Just noticed the video of you guys doing the rolling thingy"
"If Mark can do it that quick, I bet I can do it quicker…"

A little less Mozart & a little more Rage Against the Machine, the joyous, peaceful, calming rolling pastime, has given way to…... Greenland Wars.…..

Quoted 25 minutes for my first 'Haka Roll', Chris set about the task with Rob down at Watson's Bay yesterday, stopwatch set & running. Nailing it with 5 minutes to spare, after highlighting the achievement with a blatant reference to his watch, he then proceeded to rattle one off on his offside. Not content to stop there, out came the NRS Propulsion Gloves. He ticked off hand roll with the gloves, he then took a shot at the hand roll au naturale, and of course bloody well cracked one second go.
This sort of provocative one-upmanship has escalated the simmering rivalry, so I headed down to the local pool this morning & desperately tried to regain the yellow rolling jersey. Competitive? Me? Nah…..
A dodgy hand roll later & we're all square, although my effort was a little less smooth than the James version. However, and this is a BIG HOWEVER, I was then up for Rob's 'round-the-world-kind-of-imagine-yourself-trying-to-shove-your-finger-up-your-clacker' forward finishing roll, then the forward finish, forward start, paddle over the keel line roll, then the crooked elbow rolly thingy. All highly technical, unbelievably difficult, athletic, Greenland rolls requiring supercharged talent that start with Q have several 'L's' in them and finish with a K.
Just to put both of us in our places, Rob then fired a few tricky rolls across the bow, which you can see interspersed with Chris & my novice attempts in the video above.
Interestingly, none of the three of us can manage a balanced brace, which is widely espoused as the starting point for anyone to learn these rolls. I think our top-heavy physiques probably make this something of challenge no matter how good we are, so there you go, square pegs in round holes.
This rolling caper is a lot of fun, bring on summer, some warmer water & a chance to really get good at it.
The little skinny elephant in the room is the boat we're using. They're designed for rolling, and certainly make a massive difference. The big fat elephant in the room of course is Rob standing by providing expert instruction, this stuff would be very hard to get your head around without it…..

EK Demo Day in Queensland - October 21

2011-10-04T12:51:00.001+11:00

The annual National Sea Kayak Symposium is now less than 3 weeks away, and once again we'll be bringing a trailer load of demo boats, paddles & kit north for the event, of which we are Major Sponsor for the third year running. We'll also be holding our traditional Demo day on the Friday preceding the symposium, along with Craig McSween from Adventure Outlet. As well as demo boats to paddle we'll be available for individual on-water tips & instruction throughout the day.
For those who were there last year, the venue is the same, the beach on the creek at Murlong Cr, Tallebudgera, next to the boat ramp (map below).

This will be the first opportunity for Queenslanders to test paddle the new Valley Etain 17-5 and 17-7, as well as the Rockpool Taran and the fastest selling play boat in the market, the North Shore Atlantic RM. We'll also have a demo on hand of the Mitchell Blades Bombora LV, fast acquiring a cult following among the smaller engined paddler brigade.
Please drop us a line between now & the event if you plan on coming along.

Sea Kayak Rescues with Gordon Brown - the Trailer

2011-09-30T08:34:00.002+10:00

Here's the trailer for the latest Gordon Brown DVD. The production values & sheer art in the trailer have certainly whet my appetite for the full movie, it looks fantastic. Stock is due around October 25.

Tahe Marine 2012 Catalogue

2011-09-29T13:35:00.001+10:00

Our friends at Tahe Marine have just released their catalogue for the coming year. There are several exciting design & colour innovations, have a flick through the e-book below:

Open publication

NRS Gear for Spring

2011-09-29T10:21:00.003+10:00

From time to time the good folks at NRS send us out a few samples to play around with, and this forms the basis of the products of theirs that we include in our online store. The weather is starting to warm up, we're noticing people making queries about the more immersion-centric elements of the sport (rolling, skills instruction that involve capsize & rescues etc), so we have been on the lookout for products to enliven the barmy water most of us are about to start paddling around in (sorry to the Sea Canoeists in Tassie, I know it probably feels warm to you in summer but….)
The latest range of testing gear included four products that we're rapt with, and they're now either in stock or about to be in stock for the coming warmer months.
The first one is the Endurance Paddling Jacket.

One of the big successes kit-wise on the North Reef Trip was a lightweight paddling jacket that Chris used instead of a heavier cag. When we'd stop on the water in the wind, or pull up in the late arvo he would throw it on over the top of his paddling gear & PFD and it provided a breathable shell against the wind & wet & kept him from cooling down. I didn't have this option in my gear & twice landed after a long day in the wet & windy environment a bit too cold for comfort. We have tested this Endurance jacket over the past month & found it to be exactly what we wanted in the range to provide an option like Chris had utilised to such effect on our expedition. It's light, wind & waterproof, breathable, visible & only $109. A great piece of kit as the warmer months approach.
The fun addition is the very cool Propulsion Gloves. You can't say we don't cater to niches, even if the niche is so small it might only be me! What the hell, if your best excuse for including products in your own store is that you just want one, I'm sure there is no commercial law against that!

These are webbed paddle gloves designed to help you make the transition to some of the trickier hand rolls in the Greenland repertoire. I have personally had a lot of fun using these gloves, pretty much cracking a 'cheating' hand roll the first time I had a go, after some good instruction of course (see below)!

They've got a flexible plastic shim between each finger for rigidity, but are still supple enough to allow me to miss a roll & reach for the stowed paddle & recover. They pack such a punch we're contemplating heading out in some gentle surf wearing only the gloves & seeing how long we last, but please don't try this at home. These will be available next week for $40.

In keeping with our premise that the hull is the single most important feature of any kayak design, we're now offering The Padz Deluxe Kayak Outfitting Pack, a comprehensive outfitting foam pack for paddlers wanting to adapt idiosyncratic seat & comfort to their boat.

This pack features a set of hip pads & shims, a seat pad, a sheet for ankle/heel paddling, two thigh pads & two thigh risers. It takes the headaches out of making that small adjustment to your boat. The full kit sells for $55.

Finally we've added a paddling glove in a more budget conscious price range, the NRS Guide Glove.

This is a nicely made half-finger design with a textured palm for grip & a very durable Terraprene backing. They're great value for money & have the typical NRS cool good looks.

The NEW Epic 18X, Now in Stock

2011-09-28T13:26:00.000+10:00

The first of the brand new freshly designed Epic 18X's have touched down. We have stock on the shelf for $3990, ready to roll out. If you want to know what's new on this iconic sea kayak design my review of the updated 18X is HERE.

Sea Kayak with Gordon Brown - Rescues DVD

2011-09-27T11:09:00.006+10:00

Simon Willis has just sent us through the pre-release info on his upcoming sequel to the hugely popular Sea Kayak with Gordon Brown DVD. The trailer alone (which is now online HERE) gives a hint to the spectacular production values that have gone into this epic 2 hour instructional DVD.

With the beautiful islands of St Kilda as the backdrop, Gordon Brown takes us through a series of rescue & emergency scenarios, from assisted rescues in rough water to contact tows to seal landings & even a brilliant sequence where he lands his Etain through breaking seas onto a rock platform by swimming it all in.

There is a lovely piece in the middle of the feature about Hamish Gow, who together with his wife Anne were the first to paddle the 40 miles out to the remote islands of St Kilda in 1965. There were no wing paddles, fast kayaks or hand-held GPS back then, and their tale is worth the price of the DVD alone. There is a some great historical footage of this pioneering trip as well as an interview with Hamish.

There are a series of reviews of the DVD which you can read below:

PaddlingInstructor.com

Canoe & Kayak Magazine

SeaKayakPhoto.com

KayakQuixotica

Our stock is on the way & will be available from our online store from October 25. You can pre-order your copy now for $39 including freight nationally.

Surf Ski Remount with Oscar Chalupsky

2011-09-26T13:13:00.000+10:00

A skill I have about 90% mastered on my V12, and one essential for all ski paddlers, especially now that the market has been opened up by stable beginer boats like the V8. Here's Oscar Chalupsky demonstrating a textbook remount with a very clear step by step technique.

The first thing you should do when you buy your new ski is head down to the bay & practice this skill.

Video - Greenland Paddling Around Sydney Harbour

2011-09-26T13:03:00.000+10:00

Following on from Friday's post about our relaxing morning paddling the Tahe Greenland boats, here's a video with some of the pics & movies.
Special mention to Rob for his fantastic photography. Obviously all of the pics of me in this little video are taken by him, and he really has become a brilliant on-water kayak photographer. I had to cut out another 15 photos that were perfectly composed.
You can see how much fun the NRS paddle gloves add to the exercise. Next up I'll have a crack at the hand rolling without them…..
Music from Michael Franti, suitably relaxed in keeping with this gentle morning cruise.

Greenland Paddling in & around Sydney Harbour

2011-09-23T17:31:00.004+10:00

Sitting on the beach after landing at Hummocky Island on our recent expedition, with just one day's paddling left, and so many months previous spent preparing for the challenge of the trip, I asked Rob how you get over the 'post expedition blues'. He said the secret was to start planning the next challenge as soon as you get back, even if it's not likely to happen for a good deal of time.
The time demands of a trip like we did means another one like it cannot really be on my radar now for a while, so I have spent the last month or so trying to work out what to do with my paddling without a clear challenge on the horizon.
Thinking it was a bit silly to have the Greenland boats in our range & not really have any handle on how they work, I have filled my lost motivation nicely by having a crack at the art of Greenland rolling.

Today was a beautiful Sydney spring day, with a warm northerly wind in the morning & a bouncy but pretty tame sea running outside. After an early demo paddle Rob met me down at Watson's Bay & we took the two Greenland boats in the Tahe range, the Greenland & the Greenland T out for a trundle along the cliffs. As we left the heads dressed in black, in our black boats, a dude paddling past asked us what we were going to go & secretly bomb. No calls from ASIO yet so hopefully he accepted our lame excuse for looking so silly…

The spectacular scenery of the Sydney cliffline is highlighted in the morning sunshine, and it's a beautiful time of day to get out & around the sandstone formations of the infamous Gap.
Being relatively inexperienced with a Greenland paddle, the rebound & confused water is definitely something to concentrate on a bit harder. Even so I soon settled into a rhythm, essentially by waiting a fraction longer for the stick to 'bite', rather than feeling the power at the catch as you do with a flat blade. It takes a little while to adjust to the 'different' predictability of the stick, and remembering to keep your hands low when you need a bit of extra support, which is quite counter-intuitive to my normal dynamic water paddling.
We messed around up against the cliffs, washing in & out on the surges & generally having a relaxing time in among the rebound & chop.

With a big change forecast we struck out for the harbour & spent an hour or so doing some rolling in the calm of the bay. NRS sent us some webbed gloves to try out & the extra lift from them soon had me doing some hand rolls, while Rob was almost able to crack a forward finishing hand roll.

I then lined up for a go at my first forward finishing or reverse sweep roll & managed to do a couple of them, much to my own amusement. This is an amazing roll to perform, & I can't honestly say I have my head completely around how to position myself. It's also a very late recovering roll which is something to get used to when my combat roll is snappy & instant. The number of twists & convulsions you seem to perform upside down are quite disconcerting, but with a little bit of extra rotation suddenly you're upright again. Too funny.

These Greenland boats themselves are such a pleasure to paddle. While we had the little Greenland boat out in conditions that are probably at it's limit, at least for a paddler of Rob's weight (& therefore free board), I had no end of fun in the higher volume Greenland T. It's a smile on the dial boat if ever there was one. It skips along in the flat water & turns & dances around in the gentle clapotis, importantly responding perfectly to properly applied technique. The little one is definitely the king of rollers though, even though the T rolls like a dream, it's smaller sibling is almost a self roller. If rolling is your thing, then this specialised boat just has to be on the list, it's a dream...

We rounded off the morning with lunch on the waterfront back in Watson's Bay (at 'Rob's Office for those of you familiar with his hospitality set-up). We got some good still & moving pics of the paddle which are now up online HERE….

Klanocopia 2011

2011-09-21T09:39:00.007+10:00

Three years ago Hunter Klan founder Brad McPherson decided it was time to have a focal weekend for his slowly building group of local paddlers. He approached us to run a day of training at Umina Beach, followed by a 'messing around in boats' day on the Sunday. The first ever Klanocopia was a relatively small gathering, a bunch of paddling mates getting together to do some targeted training aimed at making them safer sea paddlers.

Rob gives the Saturday morning briefing

Last year the event built a little more, with some new members joining in & establishing it as an annual meet, rather than just a once-off weekend.

Bert Tarrant cracks a nice wave on the Box Head Bar

This year Shawn Armitage took over the organisation of the Klanocopia & did a terrific job of sorting out everything from the venue, accommodation, registrations & a communal building for some presentations, and Klanocopia made the jump from a smallish weekend to a proper symposium-style sea kayaking event.

The Klan are a broad range of people & paddlers. Not all of them are interested in out & out sea kayaking, but those who are have steadily built their skills up over time to give them what is now a very solid member base of core sea paddlers. They take it upon themselves to introduce their Klan mates to the sea, look out for one another & treat the open waterways of their region with great respect. They also have way too much fun for the often grumpy world of sea kayakers - I think a few more disapproving strokes of an old grey beard are in order if these folks want to consider themselves 'real'…..

Chris outlining his battleplan

We arranged for Shaan Gresser to come along to help out Rob, Sharon, Chris James & I in running instruction, and also to give a talk on the Saturday night about her solo Bass Strait crossing, the first ever by a female paddler.

Surf & bracing training at Box Head

The weather delivered, with a warm spring weekend, some gentle surf & clear blue skies.
On the Saturday we ran five separate instruction programs, with the focus on everything from basic skills & rescues with Sharon & Shaan, to blade control in close quartering with me, to surf, bracing, contact & emergency tows & rescues with Rob & Chris. I bamboozled my guys with a structured session aimed at getting them to eventually turn their boat 180 degrees without stopping, and without resorting to old 'pinpoint turn'. It's not easy stuff, and both the morning & arvo groups applied themselves admirably with several capsizes & a lot of blue language as they contorted themselves & generally performed some kayak pilates trying to follow my directions.

Blade & boat control group

Afternoon surf on the bar

In the evening Shaan gave her talk about the Bass Strait crossing and the dramatic lead up to it in which she suffered a couple of debilitating injuries, had to cancel an original attempt due to bad weather, before finally succeeding earlier this year.

Shaan, all smiles….

Her story is a beauty, with all the elements you'd imagine are required, determination, sheer toughness & careful planning, preparation & risk management. It's a real story of overcoming adversity to achieve something remarkable in the paddling world.

Colin Sheringham showing some nice surf control

Fernando going hard!

Sharon Betteridge then presented a woman's perspective on expedition paddling, using a 1000km trip from Cooktown to Cape York as her narrative. She highlighted the different issues women face in attempting these sorts of challenges, from the obvious differentials of having a smaller engine to the blokes, as well as some subtle ones such as group dynamics & preparation.

Chris is the crunch zone….as usual

Rob, Chris & I then finished the evening with our North Reef trip, which gave the Klanners some froth to bubble after hearing Sharon & Shaan speak so impressively!

Patonga fun on the Sunday

On the Sunday we headed over to Patonga to mess around in the bay with our demo boats. In the space of three hours a spectator would have seen everything from a 7 year old paddling the Greenland (my eldest daughter Kiri, yes I'm a proud Dad…)

Kiri in the Greenland (thanks to Owen Walton for the pic)

to Greenland style rolling, rescues, beautiful edge control from eager students, capsizes & even a spectacular southerly front, which put an end to the fun right on Fish & Chips O'clock.

Leonie practicing the Haka roll

In all more than 35 people attended throughout the weekend, and despite Klanocopia getting bigger it remains what it was intended to be, a bunch of paddling mates having a good time on & off the water.

Rob smoking the Baidarka in between the demo paddling

Shaan summed it all up when she made the simple comment at the end of the weekend, 'Hey that was fun'. She was right, it was fun, the weekend had a great community spirit infused throughout, which is something us Sydneysiders don't get to experience too often. I'm sure all who turned up felt the same way.

Selim showing a Mexican bow draw in the Etain

Thanks to all who attended & to Sea-Kayak-Mini-Symposium-Organising-Guru Shawn Armitage for putting it all together.

60 Minutes with the Valley Etain

2011-09-12T14:35:00.001+10:00

I can usually sneak an hour so on the water every Friday arvo, with an alignment of a late kids gymnastic class pick-up & proximity to the sea.

I've been keen to get the Valley Etain out on flat water to find out empirically how fast it can go, and also to play around with the edging, manoeuvrability & general nuances of this rather different Valley sea kayak.
After about 6 months of the demo living exclusively at Mercer's house it turned up at the warehouse last week so I commandeered it for a spin around at Dolls Pt, at the southern end of Botany Bay.
I set my GPS & took it for my own special speed test, to determine the speed I can hold a boat at over a 12 minute stretch. I like this test because it's pretty hard to go flat chat for that length of time, and even though you can push hard you tend to find a sea kayaks' hull speed in the averages. There was about 10kn on my nose & no discernible current or flow, and over the test period I averaged 9.8kmh. Top speed was about 10kmh with a very flat line on the trace. This was faster than I thought & puts it alongside the Nordkapp & Rockpool GT in our crop of sea kayaks for the 'exercise pace' hull speed. I don't think I could have made it go much faster so my guess is that the terminal hull speed would be somewhere around the same mark.
Next up I ran back with the tiny little wind waves, trying to hold the boat in the troughs & make it glide along with very little paddler input. A typical loose-tracking British boat will tend to slide around in these sorts of conditions, a feature which actually makes them such a joy to paddle in rough water. The Etain has a similar downwind feel to the other Valley boats, but with a little bit of skeg it tracked hard, in fact very hard. Extrapolating this to bigger & faster seas I reckon it would be a great downwind runner in much the same mould as my old Aquanaut, but plainly it has a much higher hull speed than the Aquanaut could hold. I haven't had a go in these conditions yet because my business partner keeps all the fun stuff to himself.
Finally I indulged in a little bit of fart-arsing around, doing my best to find the tipping point of the boat, dropping it on edge, low-brace turning, rolling & sculling. This playful madness has method, I was trying to find out the subtleties in the design, in comparison to the more traditional 'Valley shape' which is fish, rather than Swede form (the fat part on a fish form kayak is around your thighs, on the Etain it's slightly aft of the cockpit).
Valley designed this boat with user-friendliness in mind, hoping to conjure a rough water kayak that looked after the paddler, without sacrificing too much of the responsiveness that frankly makes Valley boats such brilliant performers in the dynamic water of the sea.
So how to achieve this lofty goal? Well a good start is bucket loads of stability. Not stability in the sense of that reassuring lounge chair feel that you get from some 'ol buckets of kayaks with 60cm+ beams. Rather stability as a very solid feeling that the boat is at one with the water. On edge the Etain is absolutely rock solid, with a lovely bouncy & predictable secondary point that is going to be identifiable to even the most inexperienced of paddlers. It rolls with the same snap that the Aquanaut has, and doesn't rest in the upside down pose as comfortably as some other more radical Swede form boats with flat rear decks.
I had to modify my mechanics a little to get the boat to turn off the bow, but soon worked out the small weight adjustment required to make it do what my old Aquanaut could do.
The boat feels nimble, with the narrower foredeck giving the impression of a much more sporty boat than it actually is, and the stability gives you huge confidence to throw it around & play.
I reckon this boat is a winner for paddlers new to skeg paddling, perhaps looking to ditch the rudder for a few years & learn some good boat handling in a boat that won't crucify them for a mistake. I haven't paddled it laden so can't comment on the loaded performance, but I now have my eyes fixed on the smaller Etain 17'5"if I can sneak it out of Mercer's backyard. Unfortunately there are only a handful of Etain's left in the next shipment, two in standard glass & two in the infused carbon-kevlar layup. Check our stock page for more details.

EK Joins the Facebook Generation

2011-09-08T12:03:00.003+10:00

We've finally got around to putting up a Facebook Page, which is now live HERE. We promise to use it for updates, interesting stuff & not waffle, we are damn sure you don't need to know what we had for lunch at the Watto Bay cafe.

Rolling the Tahe Greenland T

2011-09-07T16:53:00.003+10:00

Enough is enough, we have the world's best Greenland rolling boats in our fleet & I've sadly never taken the time to get in the water with Rob & learn a few of the moves.
The local pool at Enmore has recently been refurbished & they kindly allowed us an hour's lane-time for a session. The aim for me was to go from scratch & try & make a start on acquiring some of the techniques of this ancient art.

Obviously I'm hardly a novice, with a reliable combat roll developed over years of rough water paddling, and a sea instructor to boot, so my learning curve would hopefully be a little steeper than most people out to pick up a new paddling skill.
Nonetheless, Rob took me through first principles, which revolve mostly around becoming familiar with the balanced brace. I can see why people with a lighter upper body can find this particular position so relaxing & joyous, but for a near-enough 100kg 'person of Pacific Islander appearance' who has been banned for life from attending any form of yoga instruction, it is rather a 'stretch'.
I was able to get my head on the back deck of the Greenland T, the second easiest boat in the world to roll, with only a tiny lift off the seat, so the recovery position for the backward finishing rolls was going to be possible, not always the case with some less flexible folks. The original Tahe Greenland is that little bit easier to roll, but unfortunately I can't really fit into it, and besides, as well as rollability the 'T' offers a much more capable sea boat.
We progressed through some gentle recovery exercises using the paddle as an anchor for finessing onto the back deck, onto a full capsize with the same recovery, into a sculling brace to further develop the mechanics of the recovery, then to a full blown go at the technique unassisted.

Rob is a master instructor, breaking down the components of the roll into such small parts, watching the bits that I immediately understood & skipping through them. The result was that after about 25 minutes I was doing a basic Butterfly roll (although because you can't go from the macho jut-jawed world of ski paddling to doing something called 'Butterfly', I prefer to call it a Haka roll).

Rob's own Greenland rolling is really something to behold. Although he doesn't blow his horn on this aspect of his instruction abilities, I can't imagine many other people in the country able to either demonstrate or teach Greenland rolling as well as he does.
With 10 minutes left at the end of out little session he hopped in & showed me the mechanics of the forward finishing rolls, as well as one he's developed himself, awesome stuff.
It's a completely different way of rolling to the whitewater style that I have developed over the years primarily to deal with recovery from being wiped out in big breaking surf. It's rather nice actually, and pretty much at the opposite end of the spectrum to the ski paddling & big water training & paddling I've dedicated myself to these past months!
But…..the deceitful buggers who say it's relaxing & calming should spend an hour in my bones this arvo, I've got strains in places I haven't stretched since the days I was getting pinned on the bottom of rucks.
The video above shows a few of the ugly moments in the lesson, as well as a couple that came out alright, with the bonus of some of Rob's lovely rolls at the end.

Bundeena Surf Therapy

2011-09-06T17:02:00.000+10:00

Just a short blog about the perfect morning paddle I had today. I went down to Cronulla to do a demo paddle & spotted the Bundeena Bar with some perfect cresting green waves, so paddled over for a play in the short hour or so I had available.
I chased the Bundeena ferry across Gunamatta Bay, remembering what Max Walker had taught me about how to hook onto the bow wake & stay there with minimal effort, in the early days of training for the North Reef trip.
Out at the bar the surf was fantastic, over head high, slow enough to paddle onto without having to hang about in the steep zone & risk a thrashing in the break, and giving me ride after ride of 100-200m with little effort other than the first burst to get my ski running. Once away I'd angle left & right seeking out the steeper sections & troughs which unlock a faster ride, all the while soaking up the freedom of surfing along at this 'once in a blue moon' spot.
It dawned on me that I had no goal for this paddle, no heart rate monitor, GPS, nothing to measure my progress as I have been assiduously doing since March. I've gotta say, it was bliss, riding the waves, enjoying the speed of the ski across a glassy waterline & punching back out for ride after long ride.
I had the camera going but alas my SD card still carried the welter of footage from the expedition & only gave me a minute or two at the beginning before expiring. No matter, the video has been replaying in my mind all day.
I didn't think in such a busy life I'd get the post-expedition blues, but I've got to honest & admit that the last few weeks of paddling haven' been very inspiring.
I reckon I cured all that this morning.

New stock from Valley, landing in October

2011-09-05T09:45:00.002+10:00

Our next shipment from Valley is about 4 weeks away, but once again out of 30 boats, there are only a handful left for sale. I've listed the stock we will have available below with boat colours if you're interested in a new Valley boat for the coming paddling season.
The new Etain 17'7" has made a massive impact already, and this next container sees the very first Etain 17'5" stock landing,. This is a lower volume boat designed for smaller paddlers looking for a viable expedition boat that isn't a big tanker, or day paddlers looking for Etain performance without the extra bulk. We have had our demo Etain 17'5" out all winter & love the sporty feel & speed of this nimble Swede-form Valley boat.

Freya Chases Down Continent No2

2011-08-31T10:28:00.000+10:00

The amazing Freya Hoffmeister begins her quest to circumnavigate another continent tomorrow, when her South American odyssey begins.

The scope of her circumnavigation of Australia is mindblowing, but somewhere as exotic as South America, with it's political variances & wildlife, is something I find very intimidating. Then again I suppose sharks, big surf & crocs are something we're more familiar with here in Australia & so they hold fewer fears of the unknown. Meeting a Shining Path guerrilla would probably be a far friendlier experience than landing on Bondi & having Tony Abbot accost you in his smugglers...…
You can follow her journey once again through her Qajaqunderground Blog. Best of luck Freya, we'll be following your adventures.
If anyone can do it, Freya can, she is one determined woman.

Video Diary - North Reef Expedition

2011-08-22T08:57:00.003+10:00

One of the great things about modern day paddling is our ability to record the adventure with all manner of waterproof digital cameras.
On our North Reef trip we had 'tough' point & shoot digital cameras, GoPro HD Hero Cams, POV Litpstick cameras, a Canon EOS 7D SLR, and a hand held Flip HD. I took my laptop along so we had a convenient dump point for the large data files that this bevvy of technology produces, and was able to clear off our SD cards each evening & store the day's adventures.
The upshot of this is that we are able to document the trip in it's entirety, & attempt to share the essence of this beautiful & often wild part of the world.
I hope you enjoy the diary.
Note, there is a Flickr album with the entire collection of pics HERE.

Tarans at 10 paces

2011-08-17T15:28:00.000+10:00

Occasionally when the weather forecast is very pointed, predicting a strong change to hit at a fairly certain time, an email arrives in my inbox from either of Rob or Chris. Usually something like 'Rapiers at 10 paces', or more lately, Tarans.
Last week there was one such forecast of a good southerly blow so the buggers closest to Watson's Bay, Rob & Chris, headed out to blow out a few North Reef blues.
They paddled into the conditions for an hour or so, before turning near Diamond Bay & running back as the wind strengthened.
Mercer was back in his element, craftily riding the subliminal water shapes that code themselves off the cliffline, so Chris figured all was fair if he hoisted his sail to catch him.
The video above shows a few of his little rides in amongst the sea & swell, brilliant fun, & a long way removed from the slow & short seas of the Capricornia Cays.

Downwind

2011-08-04T11:13:00.000+10:00

The final day of our North Reef trip featured our first where the predominating SE trade winds lined up behind us. We delayed launching from Hummocky Island to complete the 39km back to Keppel Sands until mid morning when the wind had built to near enough 20 knots, and as it was a fresh breeze we got a developing sea running only a fraction faster than the top speed of our boats.
A 2kn current running against us jacked things up for about an hour as we left the lee of the island, & while it slowed us down, it made from some brilliant lnked surf rides.
Our Flat Earth Sails got their first proper workout of the trip, set atop customised carbon brackets we have built specially for the expedition.
I was pleased to have spent the last year or so chasing downwind runs in my surf ski, because this magic three hours was the nearest thing I've experienced to that ski high in a sea kayak. When you consider that our boats were fully loaded, with about 35-40kg in each, it becomes apparent just what a great lift the sails give you, as we surfed along at speeds frequently exceeding 14kmh.
The GPS trace from the journey is below, showing us covering the first 33 km in 3hrs 21 minutes, before a snapped rudder cable in Rob's boat saw us ease back & sit alongside him as he expertly cajoled his kayak in through the steepening sea to Keppel Sands.

It was a fantastic, seat of the pants way to finish a great trip. Hope you enjoy the video shot from all three of our POV cameras.

North Reef Expedition - The Wrap

2011-08-03T08:32:00.003+10:00

The tiny coral cay island which houses the North Reef Lighthouse, 130km off the Queensland coast.

Back to reality for Rob, Chris & I after completing a brilliant, challenging & incredibly rewarding trip out to the North Reef Lighthouse, via the Capricornia Cays.

All up we covered just under 370km in seven days on the water, with four weather forced rest days at Lady Elliot Island & Lady Musgrave Islands.

We snuck through some decent crossings, with the big one out to Elliot clocking 92km, the Musgrave to Heron a speedy 75km, and the final slog back from North West to Hummocky Island 59km. While the destinations each evening were picture postcard coral islands, the real highlight for us was the water in between. There was so much variety, current, swell, wind & sea that we used every bit of experience we've gained over the years to complete each crossing.

The blog documenting the trip is now complete, & if you missed following the progress of the journey it will remain up at http://northreefexpedition.blogspot.com.

Thanks to everyone who followed the trip & took the time to send us their good wishes.

Shetland Bus Expedition

2011-07-14T09:03:00.001+10:00

Another fantastic expedition starts Friday, when Mick Berwick, Olly Hicks & Patrick Winterton attempt to emulate the Norweigan fisherman who operated the fabled 'Shetland Bus' route throughout WWII. The guys are attempting to paddle the 388km between Scotland & Norway, with three no doubt very cold & uncomfortable nights spent out at sea in the process.

Our mates at Reed Chillcheater have made the team a cockpit tent each (below) which should protect them from the elements when they raft up for a kip. It makes me glad that we're in nearly-tropical Queensland on our expedition, as I contemplate a night out in the deep dark cold North Sea.

As he has for our North Reef trip, our very own Mick MacRobb from Flat Earth Sails has outfitted them with his brilliant sails.

They're raising money for the local life boat service that does such a great job in the UK, & have a site set up with all of the info on their trip & a donation box HERE.

We wish the guys well on this epic trip.

The Epic 18X - It's back…!

2011-07-05T16:23:00.003+10:00

I remember seeing the first incarnation of the Epic 18X, the Endurance nearly 10 years ago at a club weekend & thinking, 'hey that's not a sea kayak!' The long waterline, seemingly rockerless profile, plumb racing bow & modern look evoked a racing design profile, not the rough water sea boat that I'd grown accustomed to as representing a sea kayak.

Epic have undergone a few changes over the years, and the brand new 18X is showing all the signs of being a huge improvement on what has come before. First of all, they had Freya Hoffmeister paddle a bog standard glass 18X two-thirds of the way around the country, completing the trip with one of the first of the new batch of the 18X at Broome, with the first casts of the features that have just gone into standard production.

A 12 month varied expedition covering every single aspect of sea paddling has got to be a good testing ground, & Freya's experiences in her boats have given rise to a boat that is really a seriously good design.
One thing unmistakable was the speed of the Endurance, the guy paddling it was smoking us, & he was no hot shot. The new version of the 18X has all of the renowned speed. A strong paddler won't hit the wall on flat water until well into the 11kmh zone. Last year's MREC Hawkesbury Classic winner, Toby Hogbin, blitzed the 111km in 9hrs 18 minutes, so the credentials for racing are well established.
What's new? First off, the 18X just looks different. The clunky build of old models, the telltale signs of mass factory output compared to quirky loving construction is gone. We've been selling Epic skis since they began production at their new facility & haven't had a single issue with regards structure or fittings, and this 18X has the same hallmarks of beautiful quality.
I've been paddling it now for a week or so & have had it plunging into head seas upside down rolling in breaking water & haven't seen the remotest sign of a leak. Their new hatch system is light, clever in it's closure system & dry…

Bone dry hatches sealed with a clamped cross lever.

The day hatch is now standard, not a bunged on afterthought option for sea kayakers, rather the necessity for sea touring that we all know it to be.

The carbon flush day hatch on a hinged fixture.

And then there is the new rudder system. I don't reckon the pure hull shape of the old Epic 18 was good enough to deal with steep following or quartering seas without a deeper draft rudder, which it didn't have. As a result It tended to skate around disconcertingly when things got steeper & you really did need to take care to angle on runners to avoid broaching too far to recover.

The revolutionary housed rudder - deployed

The new system, while not quite the 'holy grail' retractable underslung rudder, still manages to put the pivot point further forward, safely protected in a housing, and give great bite in following & quartering seas. Flat water paddlers can retract the blade & use the integrated rudder for calm water steering with less drag, while those of us who like a downwind blast now have a control system nearly as good as Epic's legendary surf skis.

….and safely tucked away.

With the rudder up, the ski also performs very nicely with the application or 'proper' kayaking strokes. Initiate a turn, drop your opposite edge, plant a careful bow draw & the boat will pirouette just the way a more traditional design does. Here's a short video illustrating the things you don't expect the 18X to do….

We think this fitness/tourer design is about to bloom as a very prolific boat style among sea kayakers. In some respects the Epic 18X has been ahead of it's time in leading the way towards the sorts of designs with good upper end speed & radical looks. Other designs have caught up & even surpassed the old Epic 18 as quality & design innovation have moved ahead in recent years, but this superb new incarnation has put the old pioneer back on the podium. We will have stock of the new Epic 18X from next month, selling with full features for under $4000.

North Water Products available from EK

2011-07-04T17:11:00.001+10:00

We have been testing a small range of products from the excellent North American safety & rescue specialists, NorthWater in recent weeks.

Of most interest to us is their Sea Tec Tow System, something that offers a similar level of functionality to the Valley Deck Mount System, but in a smaller & more versatile package. We're pleased to report that it performs well in the helter skelter of a tow at sea, & we're happy to put our stamp of approval on it for local paddlers.
Our stock has arrived & is now available through our online store, there is a fantastic explanation of the system does HERE.
We've also got some of the super cool Paddle Britches, a practical & quirky storage system for your spare paddle.

Last but not least, at least to start with, is the North Water Coiled Paddle Leash. It's a robust & beautifully finished piece of kit, for keeping your paddle tethered securely.

You can order all three products through our online store, for immediate delivery nationally, freight free.

North Reef Expedition Blog

2011-06-30T12:10:00.001+10:00

Our North Reef Expedition is just a fortnight or so away, and we've added a new blog site to record the lead up & progress of the trip.

The blog can be seen HERE. If you're really bored & want to see my training regime for the last four months, then wait until you need a good reason to get sleepy & troll back through - it's really been kept updated for me as a motivator, recording some of the training in my own buildup to the trip.
The interesting stuff will begin from next week!
The offer is open to anyone out there with info on the area to give us a shout, all advice & tips are welcome.

The Valley Etain - Reviewed by SeaKayaker Magazine

2011-06-29T12:18:00.000+10:00

SeaKayaker Mag in the US have done their own review of the new Valley Etain. We have called it the Roswell boat becuase they were virtually all gone before they landed in the last shipment, and the paddler response from thos e who bought the first batch is very positive.
Click HERE or the image above to read the review.
We have one Carbon Kevlar boat in stock & another dozen landing in early September.

Zegul Baidarka Review - Sea Kayaker Magazine

2011-06-27T13:05:00.001+10:00

Sea Kayaker Magazine in the US has reviewed the Zegul Baidarka.
The results are more or less in line with what we've found out about the boat, that with the skeg deployed it is a touring boat capable of surf ski speeds, and with the skeg up it is as nimble as they come, quite a combination.
In serious downwind conditions it really does excel, firing along in following seas with great stiff tracking & edge control handling. You can read the review by clicking the image above of by clicking HERE.

Westerlies

2011-06-23T10:33:00.000+10:00

Yesterday was the first opportunity Chris, Rob & I had to get on the water, all in our Tarans, with nearly all of the fit out complete for our expedition. We were hoping for a nice 15 knot wind day, some head & following seas & a 35-40km paddle just to get a feel for the boats & our group cruising speed.

The best laid plans etc etc meant that instead we were served up a day with a honking westerly, the most dangerous local wind for paddlers. Rather than mess around doing a slog inside the bay, we decided to run out to sea & stay under the lee of the cliffs as far north as we could in an hour-forty, mindful of the slog we'd encounter on our return west to La Perouse.
Westerlies in Sydney do strange things in the coastal environment. Where we could tuck under the cliff line we had sometimes refracting following winds, sometimes headwinds. Where we broke into open sections like Maroubra & Coogee, we were hit with the sledgehammer of 20 knots plus, from the beam, producing demanding paddling requiring a good level of fitness & strength to negotiate.
Westerlies tend to magnify the further away you get from land, so it's not very long before you're past the point of being able to make it back to safety. The dangerous thing about these winds is the very small margin for error. If a problem occurs, you'll very quickly be blown to seaward and then face a tough job getting back to the lee of the land.
How tough? The graph below shows the speed vs heart rate of my paddle, showing the brief blast out to Cape Banks at the beginning & then various wind influences as we made our way north & then south again.

Check out the final 5km, just under an hour of serious slog into a wind which had come up to a steady 25-30 knots, with more than 15km of fetch to throw up nasty little head seas.

Wind strengths get thrown around kayakers blogs, tall stories in the bar & into folklore, but it's important that we all remember just how serious a wind above 25 knots can be. Local observation stations are usually a poor indicator of wind strength for a kayaker - part of the reason they get exaggerated so badly in paddling stories. A wind recorded 60m up on North Head is not going to be anywhere near as strong at water level for a kayaker, so we can be lulled into thinking an observation reading is really what we were out in, when it's rarely the case. The airport station at Sydney is however a good reliable source as it's down at ground level. Yesterday during our paddle it registered between 19 & 30 knots, with the highest readings pretty much coinciding with our rounding of Cape Banks for the trip back into the wind. The best laid plans. I personally find making headway once things hit 30 knots very physically & mentally taxing, & beyond a very short period of time, nearly impossible.

I'm pleased to report that aside from the dastardly end to the trip, we managed a very sustainable 8.4kmh despite the unhelpful conditions. I also spotted an early season Humpback off the coast of St Micks Golf Course. It was a good start as a team to our expedition planning.

North Reef Expedition - the countdown begins...

2011-06-21T16:46:00.000+10:00

The iconic image of a lone lighthouse on a tropical island, some 110km off the Queensland Coast, makes a tempting target for a sea paddler. Unprotected by the reef, and subject to shifting & largely unpredictable currents which give birth to East Australian Current, the area is a renowned rough water seaway best avoided when things aren't all lined up in the mariners' favour.
Throw into the mix a fairly set single passage taking advantage of prevailing, but generally very strong trade winds, three separate crossings in open, demanding water exceeding 70km, and a series of island reefs to safely negotiate in the face of breaking ocean swell, a total distance pushing towards 400km, and all the ingredients are there for a brilliant & demanding short term expedition.
Standing high on the shoulders of Gary Forrest, Paul Wilton & Eddie Safarik who last year safely negotiated the route from Fraser Island to Heron Island, Chris James, Rob Mercer & I will shove off the northern shore of Fraser Island next month attempting to push a couple of islands further up the Bunker chain, with the aim of reaching the distant North Reef Lighthouse. As far as we're aware, neither North Reef or it's close neighbour North West Island have ever been reached by kayakers before.

Heron Island

We'll all be paddling Rockpool Tarans, a boat used to great effect recently by Jeff Allen & Harry Whelan to smash the record for an Around Ireland circumnavigation. We aim to follow a line from Rooneys Point on Fraser Island, 88km out to Lady Elliot Island, then a further 45km to Lady Musgrave, followed by 70km across the no-landing marine islands in the chain to Heron, then on to North Reef, North West Island & hopefully back to the mainland via a 78km crossing to Great Keppel.

Our support so far from the good people at Queensland National Parks has been brilliant, as has the welcome promised by Peter Gash & his team on Lady Elliot Island & John Johanson & the staff on Heron Island.
I'll be posting updates over the coming month on various aspects of the trip, including the training we've all undertaken & various destination islands. The expedition will be blogged in real time with updates live via a Spot Messenger & sat phone feeds, so everyone will be able to follow our progress.
Any information on these islands & waterways would be very much appreciated, please contact us if you have anything to offer!

Ocean Paddler Reviews the Zegul 530

2011-06-15T13:01:00.000+10:00

One of the quiet achievers in our range is the nimble little Zegul 530. It's a very low volume speedster designed for smaller framed paddlers who want to go fast, in a straight line. The cruising speed is among the fastest in the range & it has fantastic ergonomics for smaller paddlers who are constantly looking for something with proper boat fit.
Ocean Paddler in the UK reviewed the boat in their latest issue & gave a glowing endorsement.
This is another of those boats in the 'fitnes touring' genre that we feel are about to become very mainstream.
Click the image above to read the review, or see it HERE.

Taran Stock

2011-06-10T07:38:00.001+10:00

The Rockpool Taran has certainly caused a stir. Our stock doesn't arrive until early September, yet from 8 boats on order only 2 remain available.
While we don't usually announce stock landing until right before it gets here, in this case there have been so many people interested we thought it fair to let everyone know that they should probably get in now if they want a Taran for the upcoming season.
Our next UK shipment probably won't be here until December if you miss out. The colours we have remaining in in stock from the September shipment are below:

Rough water in Sydney Harbour…?

2011-06-03T16:50:00.001+10:00

Rough water is definitely in the eye of the beholder. The most sobering thing about it as a paddler with a breadth of sea experience, is that you look back at what you perceived to be 'rough' in your first few years of development, remember the white knuckle fear as you bounced around in confused water, & realise how risk averse you've become when you now consider the same sort of fizz to be nothing more than a spot of fun to mess around in. It's probably no less an obstacle, but the respect has long dissipated as bigger & meaner conditions hone your skills.

By definition, a harbour is, well, a harbour. It's a protected waterway safe for vessels in nearly all weather. In Sydney Harbour both the indigenous & later occupying settlers chose well, it's a spectacularly well protected place, safe from the predominating long period southerly swells that often blitz the surrounding coast.
I would say I've seen maybe a dozen days of challenging paddling in or around the entrance to Sydney Harbour in all my years paddling the harbour. Rob has a great yarn about smashing his wooden boat to pieces on the steps of the Neilsen Park Kiosk on one day when the swells wrapped all the way in to the bay. Yet only a kilometre or so either direction of the heads outside the safety of the harbour you'll nearly always find a very different proposition, where high cliffs & deep water combine to produce a fantastic variety of dynamic water.

The Sow & Pigs washing machine

The exposed headlands around Middle Head can get some refracted swell, but it's been greatly broken down by the time it gets in there & has neither the wavelength or associated speed to produce genuine ocean conditions.
The dozen or so big water events I've seen inside the harbour coincide with a strong & persistent wind, coupled with some very long, powerful swell, usually with a bit of east in the direction.
One such day materialised last Tuesday, & Rob, Dave Rowan & Chris got some great video of the ocean conditions to seaward (top of page) that produced spectacular breaking surf off Sow & Pigs Reef, smack bang in the middle of the main channel of the outer harbour. The reef was going off, with multi directional breaking water giving the guys more than a few long, bouncing, broadsiding rides through the whitewater.

Chris heading across Sow & Pigs Reef

Rob being lined up by a rolling Piggie wall

Struan Lamont Race Report - Great Barrier Reef Ocean Challenge

2011-05-30T13:59:00.001+10:00

We sold a Taran recently to a dude up in Cairns named Struan Lamont. Not that he told us, but a little web search revealed that he is a champion downriver & all round racer. Last weekend he raced his new boat in the Hekili Great Barrier Reef Ocean Race & sent us a couple of pics, one from the local newspaper & one of him at the start. It's a great read:

G’day Rob, Mark,

The Hekili Great Barrier Reef Ocean Challenge was a huge success for the organisers and competitors alike. The weather turned on a few clouds and a steady 10-12knotts for the 40 clicks from Palm Cove near Cairns to Four Mile Beach in Port Douglas. The one foot closely spaced wind swell not allowing too much ‘relax’ time!

The field was capped at 50 craft for the inaugural event (expected 100 next year) and comprised OC 6’s, OC 2’s, OC singles and a ski category – not surprising that amongst the ocean and surf skis the only sea kayak was my Taran!

I had to laugh at the start line scene with the ski paddlers all standing three feet deep in the water while I steadied myself on the beach – lucky the water went deep quickly so just a few ‘seal flopping’ hand strokes and I was in the water and away thorough the shorey managing not to take anyone out!

I reckon we added a k or two to the total distance by first heading into the wind for the rounding of ‘Scouts Hat’ Island before putting the breeze behind us and ‘B’ lining for Port Douglas. After some cramps and fatigue in my last 50km down river white-water race I decided, for the first two hours, to happily cruise along with the blade set at 218cm, checking out a few sharks, turtles, stingrays and fish! I had the nearby company of a few ocean and surf skis. This changed at the 2 hour mark. I was well warmed up, the shoulder pain I had in previous races wasn’t and issue, hydration and food were good…it was time. I caught a nice runner and took the chance to lengthen my blade to 220cm and put the hammer down.

Wow, did the Taran respond! That little extra oompff and every runner became a rideable wave! The boats I was around couldn’t keep up! I was putting in yes, but the boat, oh the boat!!! I was astounded. It is some feeling when you are hooting to yourself out at sea while passing OC 6’s, doubles and singles, not to mention dropping ocean skis, while in a sea kayak!!! And I have the advantage of being able to drag lures whenever I want!

The day wrapped up for me in 3hrs25m. Pretty much spot on 12km/hr average. I used the standard rudder and carried mandatory equipment weighing roughly 5kg. My paddle was an ORKA Inner, medium blade. In relation to the other skis the Rockpool and I placed in the top third from a field of roughly 20 (official results not out yet). I was spent, super happy, and looking forward to lots more time in the Taran.

Plenty of interest in the boat. Massive interest in the event. Hopefully the next pics will be of hauling in a big fish and cooking it up on a remote island somewhere sometime.

Catcha, Struan

New - Sea Kayak Essentials DVD

2011-05-26T13:34:00.004+10:00

Sea Kayak Essentials DVD from Kayak Essentials on Vimeo.

Nick Cunliffe & Matt Giblin have just sent us out stock of their latest offering in the growing library of rough water sea kayak instruction DVD's that are gaining a following.
These guys can paddle, possessing elegant rough water skills & showing them off in a well presented instructional style that should inspire paddlers to get out & mix it up among the whitewater.
It features the tide race footage we've all come to enjoy from the This is the Sea series, & enough dynamic water to keep everyone happy, mixed happily with tips aimed at paddlers with a decent grip on their skills, looking for that extra expert advice on how to put it all together.
We have stock on the shelf for $39.95 including delivery nationally, through our online store.

Expedition Fitness for the time poor….

2011-05-25T15:55:00.005+10:00

How to meet challenge of preparing for a very committing expedition, with basically nowhere to hide once it's underway, based on historical weather data that shows extremely demanding conditions to be the stock standard daily fare, when you have very small windows of time to devote to training? My family commitments mean weekends, early mornings & evenings are out, so I have had to work out a routine of meaningful fitness preparation around lunch hours & the odd gap where I've got an hour or two during the day.
This has been the problem for me to solve over the past couple of months since agreeing to take part in a trip with Rob & Chris James which kicks off in July, and something I've gone far & wide in search of expert advice to try to overcome.
Chris & his mate Chris Walker, who won the sea kayaking division in the recently completed Harbour Series, suggested an approach favoured by a guy named Tim Ferris in his book 'The Four Hour Body', which despite sounding like some horrendous Anthony Robbins self help bible, gives some very simple & sound advice.
Essentially, the message is to measure. Measure your weight, your times on fitness paddles, your routines, heart rate output, you name it. Measuring gives you a start point, a line of progress & a goal, which any good navigator will tell you is the key to getting from A to B in one piece.

So what to do when you're basically limited to 60 to 90 minute sessions, for a trip that will have several legs where we'll spend upwards of 12 hours on the water?
Asking around a bevvy of fitness experts with performance paddling experience, there is universal agreement that interval training is king. That means spending intervals of time on a fitness paddle changing up a gear & pushing yourself above the general pace that you're aiming for. I've developed a 60 minute paddle where I will go hard for 3 minutes, every 10 minutes, & each time focus on something different, such as form, speed, cadence, leg drive etc. I'm rigged up with a heart rate monitor & have a GPS perched in my eye line, which records my speed & output, as well as telling me how fast I'm recovering. Improving fitness is all about improving recovery, so measuring these things in a palpable way tells me if I'm making progress. My aim is to get this up to 6 minutes on overdrive, with two minutes rest in between, for an hour. It's a goal Max set me which seems pretty hard core!
Here's a readout of my heart rate on a 60 minute paddle where I covered 11.3km, showing the spikes in effort around the intervals, and my recovery rate.

Ideally, those 150-160bpm spikes should be back around 145bpm, and the recovery rates in between back to 125-130bpm by the time of the trip.
I bought one of Dean Gardner's Kayak Pro Ergo machines, which is a phenomenal piece of kit for tuning your stroke & power, and have been spending an hour every other day working on the highest resistance setting trying to improve my resistance strength. That saves me oodles of time, as a one hour training paddle is realistically a three hour absence from the office by the time I get to & from the water.

Chris has one as well & we're comparing notes on how we're both progressing, which is a gentle competition to keep us both motivated.
I'm also doing a lot of swimming, which has been recommended to me by guys with elite athlete training backgrounds like Rob Walker, as being the closest thing to replicating paddling that you can do. I'm now punching out 2km a few times a week, constantly aiming to beat my previous times, and finding the improvement is accelerating as I keep up the effort. Swimming is one of those things you don't have to persevere with for long before it becomes way easier.
I've continued my quest to get my forward stroke in good order, with one-on-one lessons from experts in ski racing picking out the small flaws & giving me something to aim at.
I've used these past couple of months to build a base of fitness that will soon allow me to start working on the other aspects of expedition paddling. At the core of this is obviously getting out & doing a few days in loaded boats, in demanding conditions & working against weight resistance. Going against general sea kayaking lore, this is the sort of paddling that contemporary training wisdom says is really the icing on the cake for an expedition, the stuff you should get your head around, but not necessarily the paddling that will make your body any stronger. This is due to the big toll it takes if repeated over & over. That was advice I was pleased to hear, but nonetheless I'm intending to tune up with some long open water paddles prior to leaving.
I was lucky enough to spend loads of time with Les Allen & Ian Pexton talking about the sorts of preparation they did mentally for their multitude of big committing trips. Of course in Rob I have a guy who's paddled the majority of the East Coast, & in Chris a brilliant all round paddler with heaps of experience in & around Bass Strait. It's not a bad situation for me, not having done any multi day expeditions since before my eldest daughter was born in 2004, & one I'm fortunate to be in.
It's been an interesting couple of months & has opened my eyes to just how much performance you can achieve if you commit to an organised training regime, not to mention awakening the competitive instincts that I thought I'd left on Coogee Oval with my boots & expert phrasebook of sledges.
I'm acutely aware that I'm paddling with two guys who are real athletes & want to make sure I leave nothing in my preparation that could see my performance suffer when we're inevitably under the hammer. And you know what, all this hard work is also a lot of fun.
Time will tell if it all works; I might end up in a screaming heap after my first hard day on the trip, but I'll only know that for sure once I'm there. It's been terrific so far to be working towards a goal.

Geigerrig - the best Hydration System Ever

2011-05-18T11:58:00.002+10:00

Rob & attended a trade show over the weekend & found a hydration system that boggles the mind. It's called the Geigerrig, named after Bob Geiger, the energetic founder & inventor of the system. Bob ran us through the way it works, & we did our best to throw a spanner into his works with the sorts of left field questions that only a sea kayaker with years of experience with dodgy hydration systems can ask.

The system revolves around a super-strong bladder that you infate with small hand pump through one outlet, and drink through a second outlet, which obviously jets presurised water. For a trip we have coming up a concern for us was access to adequate levels of water & the time honoured frustration of having to locate the bite valve & then, under duress, suck on the bugger.

It gets better, the bladder can be fully inverted & run trough a dishwasher, the clips are a closed system so it can't leak, and it's tough. Bob has taken great delight in vidoeing several attempts to either nuke or velocity stress his creation with little success in making an impact.

We have stock on the shelf from this week, offering the 3 litre bladder for $59.95, through our online store. It's so good we think it will soon be the biggest single hydration system in the market, as people quickly see the advantages over the standard offerrings.

Backpacker magazine have reviewed it as the best hydration system they've ever seen - you can read the full article HERE.

Thunderball Revival - the NRS HydroSkin Paddle Jacket

2011-05-18T09:15:00.000+10:00

Remember the Bond flick Thunderball, where the greatest Bond of them all, Sean Connery, spear-gunned the bad dudes in his full zipper wetsuit, with Claudine Auger hanging off his left hip?
That was a seriously cool piece of kit, the well fitted, full zippered water jacket, so you can understand our excitment when we spotted a contender for this classic relic in the NRS range.

I secretly ordered one in with a shipment last month to test out, but Mercer, clearly another Connery fan & old enough to have watched Thunderball when it came out, beat me to it & has been flouncing round the Eastern Suburbs seaways wearing it ever since.
Finally we landed our stock this week, so I've had my very own one on pretty much ever since, and I've gotta say, I'm feeling pretty damn Connery wearing it around, with our without my kayak.
It's made from HydroSkin, the laminated Terraprene fabric that seems to be winning fans in a very short space of time, features the Titanium fleck in the weave which radiates body heat back at you, and has a full length zipper to allow you to regulate your temperature. That might sound a bit like some clever marketer's angle, but the reality is that when I'm going for a blast, the extra airflow the lowered zip allows is genuinely refreshing, while the sort of downtime we sea kayakers generally build into our paddles make the 'zipped up' position a great heat retainer.
It has all of the clever design features of the Hydroskin top, including a spandex underarm gusset to remove the possibility of a hot spot for chaffing. For last Friday's paddle (video below) which was as much in the water as on top of it, with a stiff breeze chilling anything exposed, I layered a thin Merino wool t-shirt underneath & felt toasty, without once overheating on the downwind leg, when I was mostly firing along with a lot of effort. For me it's the winter ski paddling top I've been looking for to prevent me from overheating, without sacrificing the first principle of cold water paddling which is 'dress for the water, not the air temperature'.

The NRS Hydroskin Jacket in action, from my best angle….

Best of all, if you're not quite built like Bond in his heyday, the jacket comes in two cuts, a close fit, in which sizes M & L will suit most women in the 10-14 range, and the larger sizes fitter blokes under 90kg, and a more generous cut designed for barrel chests & blokey proportions.
Stock is good, and you can order them through our online store for $109.00, including delivery nationally.

Chilling in the Capital

2011-05-17T15:55:00.000+10:00

We held our annual demo day in Canberra on Sunday, in temperatures that I last struck out the front of the Tahe factory in Estonia! The suns rays had the mercury rising above zero by the time we hit the water, but it was a reminder to us soft temperate climate dwellers that there are waaay tougher paddlers around than us!
As is normally the case at this event, things were pretty laid back on the lakeside, with about 25 visitors over the course of the morning & plenty of time to mess around & reaquaint ourselves with some of the elegance of kayaking on the mirror smooth water of Lake Burley Griffin. And no, there wasn't any rolling - the wettest part of my anatomy was my hands, & I'd lost all feeling in them until the sun started to radiate in the early afternoon.
It was a great opportunity for people to have a go in the Taran, the new Valley Etain & the Zegul Baidarka & 520, all designs that arouse a special curiosity, & tend to put a smile on the dial of the test paddlers.
Thanks to everyone who made it along, we'll see you again next year at a time of the year far more suited to some immersion paddling, we've sacked May as a venue date!

Jeff & Harry Blitz Ireland

2011-05-17T11:31:00.000+10:00

Jeff Allen & Harry Whelan landed back at Ardmore last night, after circumnavigating Ireland in 25 days. That knocked an incredible 8 days off the previous record, and if you've followed their progress via their blog you'd know that they did it TOUGH with the wind & seas.
By all accounts they're enjoying a few well earned pints of Black Gold & resting easy, after punching out some massive mileage over the past 48 hours.
Their Taran's performed as expected, fast, superb in rough water & unaffected by the loads the guys were carrying. Our view that this style of boat is the expedition kayak of the future is gathering more & more hard evidence as each day passes.
Well done guys, you're a tough duo, that's for sure...

Getting down with the Gray Raider

2011-05-11T17:06:00.002+10:00

One of the more unique tourists we seem to have engendered is the 'Kayak Demo Jetsetter'. These are a rare breed of paddler who will jump on a plane or take a long drive to meet us on our turf to get out amongst it & test out the range of boats we offer. It's reached the stage now where we entertain upwards of a new regional or interstate guest every week, travelling in for the day or weekend in pursuit of certainty about the expensive boat they've had their eye on.
Rob has even sorted a timetable whereby you can fly into Sydney Airport, catch the airport train to the Quay, hop on the Watson's Bay ferry & be in the cockpit of the boat of your desire within an hour or so of landing, about to head into the challenge of the Sydney cliffs.
A recent visitor was the almost mythical Gray Raider, AKA Gavin Cook, a legend in the shearing shed…I mean the Queensland paddling scene where he has a great reputation as a skilful & strong sea kayaker.
Gav has been curious about the Taran, and so did the right thing in bringing his lovely wife Kath down for the weekend, with the proviso that the Friday arvo was dedicated to some paddling.
As is often the case to seaward of La Perouse, the view from the car wasn't too intimidating, but conditions on the water were a little more vertical.
Wave riders buoys were recording a steady 2m swell, with occasional 3-4m bombs, there was an easing 20 knot breeze & enough wind generated sea on top of all of that to make the odd fast moving swell catchable, if you got it right.

We headed out into the conditions at a good clip, the GPS registering 8kmh & over for 5km into the wind which was probably down around 12-15kn on the nose. The lumpy conditions were raised up by the recorded bigger sets every now & then & kept the three of us on our toes. Gav recalled an alarming moment when Rob swung straight across his bow for no apparent reason, and decided to alter course accordingly in case there was some hidden bombie that Rob had spotted. There was, he just didn't bother to tell Gav….
On the screaming run back home I spotted a large black fin sticking out of the water, & headed across to investigate. Rather than a pod of Orca or a basking Bull shark, I found to my delight a large male Fur Seal just lolling around in the messy seas as if he was sleeping on a Love Sack. He must have been a NZ Fur seal becuse as I got closer he let go a fishy tirade & all I could make out in the wind was the word 'Bro'.
The little video above captures a bit of the action & my close encounter with Flipper.
This was one of those days that challenge, exhilarate & leave you wanting more, bigger waves, faster rides, and in awe of the sort of show the sea is capable of putting on.

Les Allen Kayaks - WA Tahe Dealer

2011-05-11T09:54:00.001+10:00

I had the good fortune to spend a couple of days with WA sea kayak instructor & expeditioning legend Les Allen last month when he & his good mate Ian Pexton flew over to attend the Rock & Roll weekend.
Les was curious about the Tahe boats, & in particular the Wind 585, as a boat with speed, carrying capacity & a litle more than the standard straight line handling that boats of this waterline length typically display.

Over the four days at RnR Les gave our demo 585 a flogging, managing to get it into everything he could find except XOS surf, and came away impressed. In many ways he was a far more astute judge of the merits of this boat than either Rob or myself, coming from a rudderred long expedition boat background, with a list of long trips & acheivements over the past couple of decades that take some topping.
Les went back to WA with a demo of the 585, as well as the Greenland T & Reval Midi (kindly sent over to him by Craig McSween from Adventure Outlet on the Gold Coast), and has just ordered his first shipment from Tahe to begin a new business as the Tahe Marine dealer in the burgeoning WA paddling market. WA paddlers should contact Les for a demo paddle if they're looking to get their hands on a new Tahe boat within the next three months.
He has written a great review of the 585 HERE, and also a summary of the Greenland T from a different perspective HERE. They're the sorts of boat reviews I enjoy reading, less a gushing sales spin, more a measured evaluation of a boats' performance from someone with peerless paddling skills & credibility.
Les' establishment of Les Allen Kayaks as the latest Tahe dealer in Australia rounds off an impressive group of instructors with thriving retail businessess who now stock & sell the range. The full list is below.
Queensland

Adventure Outlet

Craig McSween (AC Sea Instructor)

(07) 5571 2929

info@adventureoutlet.com.au

Western Australia

Les Allen Kayaks

Les Allen (AC Sea Instructor)

041 9900 715

les@lesallenkayaks.com

Victoria

East Coast Kayaking

Rohan Klopfer (AC Sea Instructor)

(03) 9597 0549

roh@eastcoastkayaking.com

South Australia

Adventure Kayaking

Phil Doddridge (AC Sea Instructor)

(08) 8295 8812

info@adventurekayaking.com.au

ACT

Wetspot Watersports

Scotty Hunter

(02) 6239 1323

info@wetspot.net.au

NSW

Expedition Kayaks

Mark Sundin & Rob Mercer (AC Sea Instructors)

(02) 9559 8688

mark@expeditionkayaks.com

Canberra Demo Day - this Sunday May 15

2011-05-09T09:54:00.001+10:00

We'll be down in the nation's capital again this weekend, holding our annual demo day on the lake at Blue Gum Point.
We'll have a great range on hand, including the Rockpool Taran, the new Valley Etain, the Zegul Baidarka, Zegul 520 & 520LV, the Nordkapp & Nordkapp LV as well as the Tahe boats.
Please let us know if you're planning on coming down to say G'day, we'll be on the lakeside from 10am until 2pm.

Sandy Robson - Germany to Australia Paddle

2011-05-05T12:03:00.001+10:00

Paddler & adventurer Sandy Robson has begun her journey to retrace the remarkable Oskar Speck, who paddled solo from Germany to Australia just prior to WWII.

She has set up a website to document her travels which you can visit HERE.

Her first stage from Germany to Cyprus is underway & her site will be updated as she progresses.

Best of luck Sandy, we wish you well.

Next UK Shipment

2011-05-04T09:18:00.000+10:00

Our latest shipment from Valley & Rockpool has all but sold out within days of landing. We are finalising our next order, due in late August, early September.
If you'd like a Valley Etain, Etain LV, Nordkapp or Nordkapp LV, Rockpool Taran, GT or Alaw Bach, or any of the myriad designs in the Valley or Rockpool stable customised to your exact specs, here in time for the next paddling season, please get in touch before May 15.

The Valley Etain - It's here…..

2011-05-03T14:26:00.000+10:00

Rob has been out testing the new Valley Etain since they arrived last week. Based on previous big hype designs I can tell how good the thing is by how long it is until he lets me have a go. I think I'm booked in for a 20 minute paddle in early July.
Short of doing our own review after such a short time, we've instead got the comprehensive one done by Britain's Ocean Paddler Magazine. It pretty much says it all based on what Rob has found out so far, probably the most comprehensive sea kayak design for all round paddling that we have ever landed. Maybe the GT would shade it for out-&-out manouvreability & gear carrying capacity, but the Etain is so well designed it manages to capture all of the hull design features we think are mandatory for ocean paddling, minus some of the bulk, with the peerless Valley build quality. This means the weight range for paddlers is far wider, and in our next shipment we will have the LV version, as well as the RM boat.
For now we have stock in both the Carbon Kevlar & GRP layups, but the interest in them is very high, considerign this the first time we've even mentioned them in our own marketing.
Our own review will be coming shortly, as always once we've given our demo a good hiding, but for now enjoy this OP version - click HERE or the image above to read it.

Surf Ski Paddling in Hong Kong - Updated

2011-05-01T20:29:00.004+10:00

My business takes me away several times a year, as much as 40 nights in a year out of the country. My calendar is so crowded & my responsibilities to my young family obviously compelling, so I tend to make my trips a whirlwind of meetings & fairs to minimise the time away from home.
A particularly busy period is just finishing thankfully, with 3 days in Bangkok prior to Easter, then back to Sydney for some time with the kids, then off on Easter Monday to Hong Kong & Canton for another 5 days. I'm sitting at the airport at HK now feeling a bit knackered, with just the red eye flight to negotiate.
The one thing I miss of course in my travels is a chance to go for a paddle. I have taken the TRAK away with me a few times when I've been anywhere for an extended time, but it's not suited to these sorts of frenetic three & five dayers. So, for this latest trip to HK I looked up Rene Appel, the Epic dealer in the territory, to see if he had a spare morning to go for a paddle around his home waters.

Rene Appel

Rene is quite a guy, a Dutch born Hong Kong resident of more than 20 years, with a seriously beautiful home in the quiet bay area of Sai Kung, about half an hour's drive from the frenetic bustle of Kowloon. He has been the HK Sailboarding head coach for the best part of the past two decades, and has guided the team to five world championships, and their first ever Olympic gold medal at the 1996 Atlanta games. That is some over achievement when you consider the sporting prowess of the local Hong Kong teams in most other disciplines.

The view from Rene's front porch

He took up ski paddling a few years ago & has completed multiple Molokai races, as well as establishing the Dragon Run race in HK, and a race series similar to our own Ocean series.
We met & had a coffee, then stepped off his back lawn with a ski each & went for a paddle along the seaward coast of the territory. I have been coming to HK for many years, & this was a side of the place I hadn't seen. Rugged coastline with vertical islands rising straight out of the sea, volcanic geography, waterfalls dropping off the clifflines in the steady rain, the odd cluster of high rise development perched impossibly on a precipitous, doubtless very expensive piece of lofty waterfront rock, tiny leaping fish escorting us along as we cruised the coast.

Right on cue as we reached the outer islands, the wind kicked up & started to produce some nice little runners, so we turned tail just short of the northern entrance to HK Harbour & ran home. I was in the ultra V10 Sport, a very light, stiff, and expensive layup in the Epic stable. Despite being a bit skeptical about the real performance advantages of these elite skis to a mug like me, I could definitely feel the extra glide that the boat had over my own standard layup V10S. Either I'm getting good enough to notice subtlety in surf skis or it's a palpable difference, most likely the latter!
We shot home finishing off with a dodgem course through the expensive Gin Palaces that line the bay near Rene's home, including a smaller 30 foot yacht with a sole population of cats. Figure that one out....

I was feeling very spoilt when he offered to take me down to the local yacht club for lunch, then topped that off with a ride back into Wan Chai where I had to shake off the salt water & return to my patrol of the Hong Kong Gift Fair.
There are some mighty differences the residents of HK face with their paddling. For starters, the sort of space you need to store a ski or kayak is usually worth a bloody lot of money! Almost everyone is in an apartment, and the storage options are limited to the chain of yacht & dragon boat clubs that line the waterways. Then there is HK harbour. Despite watching the traffic from the safety of the Star Ferry each day & plotting a wild line through the turbulence of the junks, pilot boats, dredges & San Pans that ply the harbour, Rene informed me that the Marine Police would be quickly onto an idiot like me attempting to run the gauntlet. Pity.... Here's hoping the suits don't try on the same access restrictions in our own harbour & waterways, but you get the feeling it's only a matter of time.
Presented with the opportunity to knock around with a genuine high performance coach I managed to do my usual trick of asking him 1000 questions about building fitness, muscle memory etc for paddling, how it related to his expertise area of sailboarding etc. His advice on diet & fuelling yourself for tough expedition or race paddling was worth the airfare alone, I just wish I had a tape recorder!

I've had a few people raising eyebrows about my recent curiosity for maximising performance in a more scientific way, with a couple saying it has no place in a 'fun' sport like sea kayaking. I guess I wonder how anyone could try to put a definition on 'fun'; for me the fitter, stronger & more skilful I get, the more I enjoy what I'm doing. The rare chance to speak to a guy like Rene just reinforces to me that there is no shame in attempting to be as good as you possibly can be, even in a sport with a hobby culture as strong as that which exists around recreational paddle sports. So many of our customers come to us with raised expectations of what is now possible at the pointy end of our sport, and I figure emphasising the attainment of skills & fitness as a precursor to getting out into some challenging water is a bit of a no-brainer. The problems start when paddlers head into that stuff without the skills & fitness. Bloody hell that's what airport lounges do to you, tangental blogging....!

Thanks to Rene if you're reading this mate, it was really an awesome way to spend a morning in a place that I know so well, & now know from a completely different perspective. Your reciprocal paddle & lunch in Sydney is already arranged.....
There is truth in the adage that you haven't seen a joint 'til you've seen it from a kayak.

Round Ireland Underway

2011-04-25T07:42:00.000+10:00

Jeff Allen & Harry Whelan have begun their Round Ireland record attempt. Both are paddling Rockpool Tarans, using Epic Mid Wing paddles, in a formula we have been eyeing for an upcoming trip with some long crossings. We've been bouncing feedback across the globe as they have tested & tried out their boats, and we have been doing liekwise, so we're very interested to see how they get on, on such a challenging trip.
You can follow their progress HERE.
Good luck Jeff & Harry!

Vicki McAuley 'Solo' Back in stock

2011-04-08T08:21:00.000+10:00

Just a quick note to let everyone know that we have stock back on the shelf of Vicki McAuley's highly acclaimed book Solo.
Every cent of the book's sale price goes directly back to Vicki & Finlay, which isn't the case if you buy from a book shop, so if you've been looking around for a copy, we've now got 'em again.
Here's a review of the book from Australian Bookseller & Publisher Magazine:
"Wow. What a rollercoaster of emotions. Solo is the story of adventurer Andrew McAuley and his dream to cross the Tasman Sea by kayak. This book was also a dream of Andrew’s, but after his tragic death during the Tasman Sea crossing, it was left to his wife Vicki to complete. Andrew’s story is told from several points of view—Vicki’s, Andrew’s, and friends who helped the couple plan this epic voyage. Vicki discovered files and film footage that Andrew had written and filmed during his 30 days at sea, and with much heartache she has pieced together a story that will tear at your heart. Her story takes us into her husband’s world and helps us understand why he chose to leave his wife and son behind as he attempted to become the first man to reach New Zealand from Australia by kayak. I had so many mixed emotions reading this book. Knowing Andrew’s fate before I began the book filled me with a sense of sadness, but many, many times throughout the story, I found myself inspired, awe-struck and laughing at things he was able to achieve. This book is also about Vicki and her son Finlay—the support crew who helped to keep Andrew’s dream alive for many years. This is an inspiring read and McAuley has done a wonderful job in re-telling a story that has so much happiness and grief."

This review from Australian Bookseller & Publisher magazine (September 2010, Vol 90, No. 2)

Next UK Container - Valley & Rockpool

2011-04-06T13:00:00.002+10:00

Our next shipment from the Valley & Rockpool stable lands in about 3 weeks. Due to a slight delay in Valley getting the new Etain ready for us, there are very few boats left for sale, that haven't been pre-ordered. We're finalising our next Valley order shortly so shouldn't be without the ever popular Nordkapp LV's and the new Etain LV for too long.
Our Kayak Prices & Stock page, with all colours, models and pricing available from stock is now up to date with what is coming.