You are looking to stiffen the deck, so either add something to increase the section modulus (stiffen by shape) or add a stiffer material, or a bit of both. I have added stiffer material to race boats a few times, I normally run strips of carbon transversely from seam to seam in the area I want to s...

Yachts running downwind are particularly difficult to manouevre. If you steer off the wind you may pick up speed and definitely risk an accidental gybe, a turn off the wind has to be carefully planned and it may take a couple of minutes to get the crew into position to execute it, so bearing in mind...

Visibility of small boats from yachts can be very poor indeed, when you are a long way off they have these large flappy things obscuring a large part of the view ahead and when you pass through the narrow window of visibility you are still quite small and hard to see, and then you are hidden by the ...

That looks like glass woven roving to me, I can see the fraying around the heel hole but it is quite different to the furring I was envisaging from working on kevlar and carbon/kevlar boats. Glass and diolen are both white so difficult to tell apart visually, I did have a boat with a diolen deck for...

I think straight arm paddling works better with 'high angle' stroke, that is with the shaft more vertical in the water (70º?) and the blade is closer to the boat for most of the stroke, compared to a low angle stroke in which the shaft is nearer to horizontal (30º?) and the blade moves outwards fro...

1) I agree with Chris, Kevlar and Diolen fur up, no need to use flowcoat, use epoxy, lay a piece of peel ply over slightly larger then the wet area and rub it down well with another piece of peel ply to ensure all the air is squeeed out. You can often tape the peel ply down, but it doesn't always wo...

If heating doesn't work, try cutting through just outside of the end of the shaft and drilling/carving out whatever is left. AFAIK you shouldn't find an aluminium core in a Lendal blade so you should be able to make do with woodworking tools and sandpaper (wearing a suitable mask).

I guess these straight arm techniques means less if any correction as it reduces the chance of turning via your stronger side. Not sure I understand the question, but if you are talking about ability to use sweep strokes for steering, you need to straighten your arm to do a sweep stroke so these ar...

To follow up on Chris's first possibility - can you lock your arm other than dead straight? It will be much easier if you can lock the arm with a slight bend to it - when I train hard in either my WWR kayak or my sea kayak (I use wings, but you can use ordinary paddles just the same) I lock my arms ...

Instead of lowering your knees, try moving them to the middle of the boat out of the thigh braces, you can easily dip them back under to lock out if it is too rough, but when things are going well it can sometimes be better to paddle with your knees in the middle more like a racing K1, certainly wor...

AlexC wrote: ↑

Fri Sep 04, 2020 7:24 pm

Cycled along the über upper Feshie. Has anyone been up there, it looks like it would be utterly epic on a Norwegian scale.

Pretty sure Andy and some of the old Lochaber crewed hiked into it, over a mountain because that was shorter than portaging up river.

Like Chris I have been using paddlok for a long time, since 2000 I believe, mostly for river running, originally for flying abroad but there have been periods where i used my splits as my main paddle at home too. I never really logged my mileage, but 3 descents of the grand canyon adds up to around ...

The Rapier has a reputation for being a difficult boat in all but the calmest conditions, it never really took off in race circles amongst paddlers who should be able to cope with it. Early Nordkapps have a reputation amongst touring paddlers for being tippy, and it certainly isn't a boat for sittin...

That makes sense, not used memory map for ages but I was thinking you could just plot a route downriver instead of on paths and it would draw the profile, but yeah, importing a GPS track would be a lot quicker than trying to plot out every bend on a river. Didn't even take my GPS on the Spey, I took...

That looks like pretty much the way it felt, getting to Grantown is such a relief! I'm not sure how much I would trust GPS to help with this, I did a 20km time trial on the sea this morning, and just over 8km in my elevation jumped from -1m to 58m until about 12km where it dropped back to -1m again ...

Nick's story made me think laterally, because sea sicknesses is related to balance, an inner ear infection or something like a perforated ear drum could make you more susceptible.

The relative cost of a drysuit is so much less than it was 20 years ago, for a beginner choosing which to get first, I would normally recommend drysuit these days if you are expecting to do a lot of wet training (capsize drills, rolling practice or anything where you fall in a fair bit when learning...

Congratulations, seasickness in kayaks is pretty rare. Unfortunately I can't help, I have only ever known one person become sea sick in a kayak, and part of the problem may have been that he had got car sick on the way to the launch point. I get seasick on yachts, ginger is of limited use but has th...

Jim, I'd assume the locals are a hazard on the Leven? I've had stuff chucked at me off bridges on the bike. I normally only go up to the A82, but even when I go up as far as Renton I never have any trouble, some of the local anglers may look rough and ready but I have always found them quite friend...

This is more a thread about whether there are any kayak shops left in Scotland isn't it? TIso have a few, or at least a few boats to hire, but I suspect the choice will be too limited if it even includes creek boats and not just touring boats and canoes. Sea Kayak Oban and Karitek won't have creek b...

I'm in the same boat, so to speak. Holiday in Scotland with the family, noone to paddle with. We're staying down around the Arrochar Alps area though, so meeting up would be unlikely. Have a good holiday! Whilst I expect you will want to go and solo the Falloch if it rains, I can recommend the Leve...

Try some wetsuit slippers from decathlon - they have changed the brand name on them a year or 2 ago but I still have 2 of the old pairs that get used several times per week and one of the newer pairs.

Spey, Knockando section - nice level on Saturday and will still be on even if it drops some, easy enough not to kill you and should be feasible to hike or bike the shuttle. Not too many anglers about at the moment, give them a chance to see you and most will indicate where they want you to pass, all...

You may have to change the level of access the app has to the phone's GPS. I was having trouble when I first started using Wahoo on Android and discovered it was something like only being allowed to access GPS when I was interacting with the app, not much use for recording my track whilst paddling, ...

as I feared, there doesn't seem to be a 'ready made, clip on' version of a transport flag/tag Just a thought, I have some hi vis modern 'cycle clips' which are actually just strips of hi vis fabric with a reflective stripe on and velcro to wrap them around the bottom of your trouser leg. Would some...

I had some hi vis yellow ripstop left from a project and made a couple of flags by sewing a hem down one short side of each and threading some cord through so I could tie them to my deck lines. Assuming your sewing machine is ready to go it's a 5 minute job.

It may also be worth asking Silverbirch if they are near to releasing a composite canoe. They have been working on one, but this whole Covid-19 thing has seen a massive uptake in paddlesports and my understanding is that they are currently flat out building PE boats (including canoes, but mostly the...

14' might be a little small for camping, depending on how light you pack. I've only heard good things about the Outlander, but never tried one. A bit of a speciliased taste since most people seem to want PE or Royalex boats rather than composite, but I paddle a composite canoe (Apache) and there isn...

pathbrae wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 31, 2020 5:56 pm

Personally, I've never had a lot of success getting duct tape to stick to a cold, wet, salty kayak hull - but it can be useful for other things so it still gets added to the away kit.

On camping trips I usually have a towel and stove available to mitigate those circumstances...

Usually about £20/m from East Coast Fibreglass, Easycomposites or CFS. It is usually a 2+1 plain weave (2 strands of carbon and 1 kevlar in one direction, 2 kevlar and 1 carbon the other way giving a distinctive dumbell pattern), you may also find twill cloth which is 2 over 2 under in a herringbone...