Presumably the local paddlers will be on to the EA or Welsh equivalent to get this removed. A couple of trees up against that and you have a flooding issue that's apart from the H&S issue, maybe get the local HSE involved, there could be fines or prison involved! I would have thought that if a tree...

I think the first commercial throw bag was made by Pete "Green Slime" Knowles probably as early as the mid 70s and the same design was sold until quite recently by Suzy's Sweatshop. Before that we used to make our own from 2 litre plastic bottles. Pete was a legend from the early days of adventure k...

Uprights are the way to go. You can get 3 or 4 boats secure on a rack with 1 pair of uprights depending on the length of the bars, you usually can't get more than 2 boats on a rack with the type of J bar the OP is describing. I have my uprights set up offset to one side of the car so I can get my bo...

The only plastic boat I broke was my beloved Pyranha Stunt 300. It had the infamous double concave hull which despite working quite well from a performance point of view earned a bad reputation for splitting when you landed on a rock. The rock in my case was on the Colwyn, it could be seen quite cle...

I think I know what you mean, I think the difficulty I am having comes from a difference of understanding the meaning of the term "feather". I have always thought that to feather the blade was to adjust the angle of the blade in the water by rotating the shaft in the control hand which is achieved b...

Years ago the theory was that you had 90 degree feather to reduce resistance to wind when the top blade is moving through the air. Few people adhere to this any longer, but there is still a reason to feather the blades, the paddle shaft rotates as you switch between sides of the boat and the feather...

My sister is right handed and paddles left handed feather, purely down to the fact that her first kayak coach paddled left-handed. I would say get right-handed feather then things are a lot simpler in the future in the event they need to borrow a paddle. Also they will have much more choice in the l...

In my opinion this is a question that cannot be answered. This may be the case on some rivers, but the Fairy Glen isn't very easy to exit once you've set off. I guess it is possible to get on our off just above Fairy Falls, but anywhere else would be something of a mission. I would expect that ther...

I really don't think this is true, it certainly doesn't fit with my experience. Your test isn't meaningful, a damp hand will soon dry on a windy day, wet kit will take a lot longer to dry out. When you are immersed in water the water next to your skin is not moving, or at least not very fast, and as...

You will find fleece is surprisingly effective at keeping you warm in the water, not as good as neoprene on its own, but when combined with half decent waterproofs it still is probably warmer than the combination of neoprene and waterproofs. I did my WWSR wearing fleece and separates which involved ...

The above is totally opposite to my experience. Neoprene is dreadful when it is wet, my guess is that it traps the water against your skin so that it is able to absorb any warmth whereas fleece (or at least the right kind of fleece) quickly wicks the water away from your skin before it has a chance ...

. The site has also been the catalyst for year round access from horseshoe to town, something that only came about through years of negotiations with all the major stakeholders including the landlord at Mile End Mill, Natural Resources Wales, local and county councillors and the Welsh Assembly. Bef...

... on the Tay, Stanley to Thistlebrig..... ! Not my cock up, fortunately, but on the same section. There was a large group of us, and it was VERY high. The whirlpools at Campsie Linn were massive and very scary, I can't remember what Stanley Weir was like, but there was a lovely surf wave at Hellh...

Some very open questions, you may not get the kind of answers you were hoping for.

My Prozone was great in the surf, it's super sharp rails helped but also meant it was a bit of a handful on white water. My I3 also makes a good surf kayak and it's a great ww kayak, though most paddlers found it a bit to lively. What you are looking for is a boat with a flat hull and sharp rails an...

On a cycling forum I lurk around they have a thread called ebay monstrosities which shows some horrifically modified bikes and unbelievable home-builds. If we had such a thread on here this would have to be entered (I know it's on Gumtree not ebay, but the principles there).

Maybe not common, but I have read of a small number on the internet, so maybe the odds are a bit shorter than one in a million. The trouble is that it is very difficult to escape from without assistance, and therefore is highly dangerous. Maybe it doesn't happen often enough to justify any specific ...

A skeg refers to a particular kind of fin which is placed at the stern to help keep the boat running in a straight line, it's not what you want for surfing. The fins for surfing are fitted just behind the middle of the boat. I looked into this years ago and there was a company in the US who made a f...

Ian Dallaway wrote: ↑

Tue Jul 24, 2018 9:17 am

Either way, you get the swimmers attention, they look at you and you throw a rope at them. the chance of hitting them in the face is high.

Not in my experience it isn't. The swimmer is lucky if the bag lands anywhere near them

Don't know where you are looking to price a rack but 350 is well over the top take a look here sure you can find them elsewhere. https://www.micksgarage.com/d/roof-racks-and-bars/fiat/fiat-500 I already had a look at Micks Garage and the only one he does for my car is also the Thule system at aroun...

It's got to be something short yet with sufficient catchment to make a paddleable river, and also where water runs off very quickly. We did the Fassfern last year after not too serious rainfall and were astonished how quickly the level changed. I reckon you would not need much more than an hour of g...

I used to have a 1.3 Metro which I used to carry up to 4 kayaks plus people and kit, or 3 people + camping gear, boats and kit. Good use of gears would get me anywhere just as quick as anybody else, the main issue was stopping - the brakes definitely weren't made to stop that kind of weight. Oh, and...

Going back to sprint kayakers, they can't push on the footplate Why not? I've only paddled a K1 briefly but I pushed on the footplate and, as Adrian says, I have always understood it was a key part of the technique; you reach and rotate forward, raise your knee, plant, push with the leg, pull with ...

Going back to sprint kayakers, they can't push on the footplate therefore the way they can transfer the power from the paddle stroke to the boat is via the contact between their bum and the seat. I don't see why it's much different in a ww kayak. You can move the footplate as far forwards as you wan...

I generally don't on a canal, and I won't when surfing if I'm confident of the conditions, but I always wear one on rivers no matter how low the grade. I think it depends upon your confidence in being to stay in the boat and being able to deal with a situation should things go wrong and you end up i...

Hindburn?

I'm looking forward to sea kayaking when I reach retirement ☺

We had a similar talk on Saturday about access to the Derwent though the grounds of Chatsworth House. Again, I'd pay to go through there if needed, I think it should be free, but , say, a £5 charge, I'd pay. In the grand scheme of things, paying a small amount isnt a problem, and , hopefully, the r...

I also recommend pogies, I've not had good results with gloves, possibly because I have only used cheap and rather thin neoprene gloves, but I found that my hands still got very cold whereas pogies solve the problem while not interfering with your grip and "feel" on the paddle. I recommend any neopr...

I've been paddling since my early 20s and I'm in my late 50s now. Things such as strength and agility naturally start to drop off from your late 20s onwards, but this can easily be offset by training at least into your early 50s. Fortunately whitewater kayaking involves a great deal of learned skill...