chalk and cheese..

yeah ok so maybe I did do a bit much on the bike yesterday, not feeling so great today but unable to ignore the fact that it was a nice day so met a friend for a couple of hours of messing around on the water in Mounts Bay. There was just enough of a swell to pile up into an occasional cresting wave of 3-4ft or so on one of the submerged reefs so that was fun for a bit of play and it also a good opportunity to spend some time doing a bunch of left hand rolls.. it’s my weak side and my roll that side is not as instinctive or well executed as a roll on the right, a situation I aim to rectify in short order. My Tiderace is in the workshop for some repairs so I was using the NDK Romany that has been couchsurfing, or rather shed-surfing, at my place for the winter. It’s not mine, it belongs to a friend, but I have a soft spot for the Romany as a design for various reasons.. this one is one of the original designs and is a very fun boat to paddle… one suspects that its owner might have a tough time getting it back ;-)

in the harbour of St Michael’s Mount to swap boats

John came along on his ski, I took that for a spin too… blimey, the first time I’d paddled one, very much to a sea kayak as chalk is to cheese… good fun, very quick and very ‘tender’ in terms of staying upright until one learns to relax into it and unlearn all the sea kayak handing concepts that have become so grained in. Light too.. despite it’s 20ft length at 14kg I’d say just about half the weight of the Romany.. although in defence of the Romany – it’s bombproof :-)

a few more sea kayaking pics..

apologies for lack of words this past week, busy and lacking inspiration .. so by way of something of a continuation of the Lands End theme in my previous post below I’ll just throw a few ‘sea kayaking Lands End on a very calm spring day’ flavoured pictures at you before I go off and soak my braincell in coffee.. I hope you had a good weekend.

despite appearances there are no nuclear power plants discharging into the seas around here, rather it is just the effect of sunlight shining through a submerged tunnel in the rock.

a very big cave… when the tide is right it’s possible to paddle deep into this cave, perform a tight 90 degree turn, paddle some more along a narrow channel in the darkness  and emerge from the cliff face some 150 metres around the corner… but not when there are seal pups on the beach inside.

the arch at Lands End. Always make a nice pic

heading out to the Longships reef (in the distance) on an uncharacteristically quiet ocean.. neap tides, light wind and no swell…

looking so very different to previous visits to the reef.. i.e calm.

below the tall cliffs near Nanjizal

into the dark…

heading through the crack just to the west of Lands End

back on the water..

back on the water after an enforced layoff of 5 weeks… I felt very out of tune with my boat and I’m still not fully recovered but it was so good to be afloat again. Some pictures follow from the last couple of days. Very little swell running but with the perigee moon we have at the moment the tides were flowing very strongly around Lands End and out around the brooding  Longships Reef.. so great for some play, rescues, rolling and re-entry practice in difficult water and so on, things that I wouldn’t normally have the opportunity to practice in such an environment without a safety of net of equally  competent paddlers, plus of course coaching from friend and level 5 coach Richard of Paddlecrest Coaching, which was the whole point really, so an extremely valuable and fun couple of days on the water, although I’m completely shagged again now with a bunch of sore joints and muscles  :-| Aside from that sea kayaking is such a terrific social sport and I’m sure I’ll be back on full form at some point soon provided I’m careful to take things easy for a while.

I was struck in particular by the clarity of the water around Lands End.. it’s something I always appreciate but not so much from below the surface, I spend nearly all my inverted/rolling time in the surf, in my surf boat, where the water is all churned up and murky and one cannot see a thing.. I’d forgotten quite how crystal clear the sea is from below around here once well away from any surf zones. Fantastic.

Rick gives it some, the wind was howling through this gap

a somewhat rough lunch stop..

one thing you won’t appreciate from this pic is that Rick has only one leg, he lost it from above the knee while serving in the military a number of years ago. The system he has worked out for managing his kayak with a prosthetic leg is simply fantastic.

April Fools Afloat..

I’ve been neglecting my sea kayak over the past month or so… all my paddling time has been in my surf boat. I put that right today however with a few friends for a perfect sea kayak day out along the west coast of the Lizard peninsula. I spend a lot of time paddling in that area, it’s always stunning but today was pretty special. The west coast there is fully exposed to the Atlantic so it is very rare for there to be almost no swell at all. It’s an exciting paddle when it’s rough but today was a very different  experience – very mellow with the possibility to get properly up close and personal with the numerous caves that perforate the dark serpentine cliffs. This is a picture heavy post so without further ado…….

a trio of "Tideracii".. amongst my friends I count 6 owners of Tiderace Xcites.. they're excellent kayaks and popular down here thanks to Drew in Porthleven..

it's a good thing they didn't all come along today though, that would have been just weird... like when you see couples walking down the street wearing matching sweaters... creepy even.

John brought his big ski which was a good thing for diluting the weirdness of otherwise identical kayaks. With his wing paddles he flies on this thing, but it's not much of a rockhopping tool. Looks wicked on the water.

copious quantities of pre-launch coffee necessitated an early (very early) pee stop at Mullion. The folk on the quay are no doubt commenting on weirdness...

A nice bit of cave action. The particular variant of serpentine rock that occurs here is known, somewhat predictably, as Lizardite. My geologist friend tells me that it is typical of rocks found in the oceanic crust or upper mantle... the geology of the Lizard peninsula is very different to the rest of Cornwall, it is in fact a 'splinter' of serpentine rock formed by an ancient subduction zone.

must remember to bring a flashlight next time...

stunning clarity of the water

we did have the usual seal escorts for part of the day.. but they wouldn't be photographed... leaving nothing but a tell-tale eddy on the surface the moment a camera appears.

the dark cliffs manage to be a little threatening even on a bright sunny day

a fabulous place to stop for a bite to eat. I've never been able to get in here before, if there is much swell running it gets funnelled in and dumps in a heavy wave.. manageable elsewhere perhaps but it's very narrow between the rocks and doesn't give much room for manoeuvre.

there's a small stream here, it would be a terrific bivy spot

more caves ahoy..

some caves are big.. really big

the wind was a blustery and cold easterly. Nice clear light on the water as a result

the approach to Kynance Cove is always magical

we stopped on the sandbar for a brew.. simply because we could. The tide was high enough that the numbers of land-based visitors couldn't reach the sandbar. Always a good thing :-)

John's ski is so feathery light despite its 20ft length that we had to wedge it between sea kayaks to stop the wind blowing it away..!

some stuff on offer.. surf kayak and a useful book

feeling mellow after a lovely morning of spring time surf in the sun and easing myself into an afternoon and evening of being productive…. Firstly however a couple of things on behalf of friends that may be of interest… in no particular order of importance:

First is a Mega Boost xtec surf kayak for sale, belongs to a surfing buddy. In really nice condition this is the top end spec – foam-cored vac-bagged carbon kevlar – very light and very stiff. It has the usual minor scuffs you’d expect from normal use but has no damage, and has never sustained any. The white flecks you can see around the cockpit rim are surf wax rather than scrapes to the gelcoat… it improves grip on the paddle shaft but sticks to everything like the proverbial to a blanket. A terrific high performance boat with a new value of £1400. Asking price is £650 (no fins), and you might get the sponge included if you ask nicely – it is a very good sponge, I borrowed it today having forgotten my own and was sorely tempted to not give it back ;-) The boat, and sponge, are  located in west Cornwall but courier can be arranged, and is not as expensive as you might imagine at £35-£40 to mainland UK. If you’re interested drop me a line via the comments field and I’ll put you in touch.

The second thing is a book and a useful one at that. I have a friend with many years in the health and wellbeing business. She’s a prolific author and really knows what she is talking about.. and at only £0.98 for the Kindle download version this one really has to be worth a look if you’re looking to lose a few pounds. I like the way it is presented as a series of useful tips, small differences that over time can result in a big change – which is by far the best way to do it rather than embark on a crazy diet. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have a Kindle, you can get free emulation software as a download from Amazon that runs as a kindle on your mac or PC. Click the image below to go the relevant Amazon page.

There, obligations and promises for the day fulfilled :-)

desert, surf and a motherfu*king bike..

Just looking at the date of my last post.. seems there has been something of a famine of words recently, oh dear, I do apologise.. Sometimes it’s hard to get motivated to write when not on the road having an adventure. That’s not to say I haven’t been busy of course. I’m currently engaged in an intensive business start-up course courtesy of the excellent folk at Outset Cornwall. It’s proving to be a brilliant, fully funded program aimed at giving people the ‘tools’, knowledge & motivation they need for increased chances of success of starting a business. It is also a great place to meet interesting and inspiring people, so many folk out there doing interesting things. One in particular aroused my interest last week.. sharing a love of mountains and the solitude of deserts so I thought I would mention it here. It’s hard getting a business off the ground so any extra exposure isn’t a bad thing and it’s also a perfect of example of the diversity of ideas coming out of Cornwall.. something different to many “outsiders’” perception of the place as a county of little more than tea shops, surf shops and National Trust gardens…

The website should be up and fully functional in a few days. Suzi, the lady whose business it is was great fun to listen to with her stories of building a working relationship with the local Bedouin and her obvious passion for the Sinai. Incidentally the name White Heart has special meaning to the Bedouin, it is an expression used to indicate those of sincere, well-meaning character.. and hence quite appropriate I think. I quite like the idea of tagging along as “photographer” on one of these treks… hmmm ;-)

Now to a slightly wetter flavour of environment… a good friend showed up at our Sunday morning surf-kayak session at Sennen today with a GoPro HD camera mounted on the bow of his kayak. There is so much GoPro video footage floating around the web these days that it all looks the same and not particularly interesting … so very refreshing to see it used in ‘stills’ mode instead. I much prefer to see captured moments in time when one can appreciate the forms and colours in the water, and frozen actions that are lost to the viewer when presented with a video stream running at normal speed. After some comedy faffing while afloat with me trying to cycle through the settings with the camera on the extreme nose of his boat the end results were ace. I have permission to share a couple here which is handy. It was a fun morning in the waves. Incidentally if interested, someone in my kayak readership is bound to be… the boat is a Mega Proton, slightly bigger brother to my Boost :-)

Next time it will be interesting to see if we can set up some shots with other kayaks, without hurting ourselves…

And finally to bikes.. the other essential part of my life. There are lots of cycling videos going viral at the moment  and most of them are rubbish, not worth the couple of minutes of life necessary to view them… in my opinion… This one however that my non-cycling sister of all people forwarded on to me is brilliant. In my opinion… again. So for your viewing pleasure if you have not seen it already… and if you have, well it’s very watchable:

hiker envy…

The summers in eastern Canada and the north-east US are hot and buggy. These places were my weekend playgrounds for the years I lived in Montréal. Winter-time one could travel by snowshoe, ski and crampon without suffering the attention of hordes of miniature bloodsucking monsters, not to mention being mindful of bears and so on. In the summer months however by far the most relaxed way to travel for multi-day wilderness journeys was by Canadian Canoe… and not only because the capacity for carrying beer and wine to chill in the lake at the end of a day of paddling was unmatched amongst modes of transport. There was a concept called “hiker envy”.. it was one of those moments when you would be gliding along in your canoe, cooled by the lake breezes, free of biting insects (honestly, the bugs in the forests of the east are voracious), free of a ghastly cocktail of sweat, bug repellent and sunscreen dribbling into one’s eyes, and you’d pass some hikers on a bluff or lakeside trail. Burdened by heavy packs and sore, overheating feet they would invariably stop and stare as your canoe cruised past. Hiker envy.

a 'private' mid-lake island for a night.. no bugs, no bears :-)

some well-used beer carriers

friends will be friends...

on the move..

It comes to mind frequently here in Cornwall when paddling below the spectacular cliffs that characterise the area. There are nearly always walkers on the coastal footpaths, and they nearly always stop for a moment and stare when they spot a sea kayak gliding, apparently effortlessly, by. Yesterday being a case in point while paddling west past the Tater Du lighthouse. Being a bright sunny Sunday afternoon, albeit chilly in a cold northerly wind I wondered if they were suffering hiker envy. I thought about the cold in the tips of my fingers, despite gloves, and the chill of the wind and water and thought “probably not…”..From my point of view however it was a great day to be on the water.

heading west into a low winter sun

the light at Tater Du. My camera stopped working at this point so I don't have any decent pics. Oh well.

While I’m on…I’m going to sound awful preachy but yesterday I had cause to wonder at the thoughtlessness of some people. We passed a couple of guys out on sit-on-tops. They were a fair distance offshore and having a hard time paddling against the wind. One chap in particular caught my attention.. wearing what looked like a basic nylon overall unzipped to a t-shirt and no buoyancy aid. Overweight and unfit if anything had happened he’d have been stuffed. The water is only around 9 degs and the air was around 6 degs. He didn’t look capable of climbing back on his kayak should he have gone for a swim and with no waterproof/insulating clothing I can’t imagine he’d last very long in the water. One reads all the time about rescues of kayakers/boaters that have gone out without appropriate clothing or safety gear. Darwinism rules. I didn’t say anything for a couple of reasons.. last time I gently tried to broach the subject in a  similar situation I was told in no uncertain terms to mind my own {something} business.. and at least he had a buddy with him.. who was wearing a BA. I did keep half an eye from a distance however until they’d disappeared around the headland into Lamorna Cove. Accidents will always happen and the RNLI/Coastguard are fantastic but responsibility must always lie with the individual to ensure he is best prepared to deal with one should the worst happen. I guess I just get a bit wound up when I see such things. ho hum.

Anyway, enough of that, I’m being boring.

Cheero!

winter ocean

While the rest of the nation apparently froze it’s collective nuts off yesterday, west Cornwall was, at +4C merely a bit nippy. With light winds and just a lazy groundswell running paddling conditions out along the west coast of the Lizard between Poldhu and Kynance were particularly mellow… although later in the day the tide, in spots, was running at between 2 and 3 knots and kicking up some impressive overfalls, adding a frisson of excitement to an otherwise very lazy session.

wonderful late afternoon winter light

the Lizard's cliffs are always dark, but on days like this they are positively brooding. In stormy weather it can feel a particularly unfriendly place to be in a kayak.

there was only a very small wave on the beach at Kynance but swirling currents and waves reflected from the cliffs made landing and launching off the steep patch of sand, dodging barely submerged rocks surprisingly tricky

winter kayaking is fantastic, the ocean feels especially lonely

some sunday evening surf kayak stuff…

it has been well over a week so about time I wrote something I think. Days like today when I feel less than inspired it can be a struggle to get the words flowing but a little bit of preamble like this usually helps to warm up the parts of my mind responsible for such things as words and pictures, saving me from having to resort to a lucky dip in the dictionary. The back injury I collected 3 weeks ago while surf kayaking continues to be a bit of a problem. Interestingly I am coming to the conclusion that cycling is a very good therapy for such an injury. You see last Monday after a surf kayaking session, following a busy period of bike, kayak and work I felt very tired and decided it was about time I had a rest week away from wheels and paddle blades. By Thursday the muscles in my back were feeling more tense than at any time since damaging it in the first place, and Thursday night it spasmed horribly and left me pretty much immobile. With some Bowen help from a very good friend I am now mobile again and back riding. I have to stay away from my kayak for a bit to avoid traumatising the muscles again but my bike I think is probably the best thing for it.. I use the muscles in my back while climbing which is good, and, perhaps more importantly, it relaxes me. What a great excuse, if any were needed, for getting out riding.  I put in a steady 50 miles or so earlier today on my fixed by way of a tester. Being dry and mild (unlike the rest of the UK, haha) I was sorely tempted to do more but in the context of being injured I figured it would be more sensible to take it easy.. still a nice ride though :-)

proper pictures next time out.. if I remember

Now.. toys! I acquired a new surf kayak recently. It’s a very different beast, with different characteristics to my XS so despite having told myself that I should now sell my XS I have decided to keep both. After all folk who play golf have more than one club and each boat will excel under different conditions. Which reminds me, if, in my old age (or sooner), you ever see me reduced to playing golf please shoot me.. Oh, I also recently saw a golfer describe himself as an ‘athlete’.. now really, in a game that encourages dubious fashion choices and the use of electric buggies? Anyway, I digress.. back to surf kayaks… my new Boost. I’ve only taken it out twice thanks to my back but I can claim to be very happy with it. First time out was an ideal day for getting to know a new boat without risk of re-injury – a super clean, super mellow wave of about 4ft. Not super-exciting but a very fun, very ‘harmonious’ session with friends. The second session, just a day later was very different. Fantastic, clean surf with overhead barrels, around 7 or 8ft I suppose on the face with bigger sets on occasion. It should have been a wicked session but with the awareness of a dull ache in my lower back I was so scared of getting caught inside by a big set and crippling myself that I spent the whole session way out back waiting for just the very biggest waves. As a result I got cold.. it was a raw day of about 4 degs C.. and took only 5 or 6 waves.. I won’t surf again until I’m confident I’m not going to trash my back. Biggest impression of the new boat is the speed it can carry. I surprised myself by making sections that I would never have got away with in the XS. Naturally it is fitted with a brand new set of my carbon fins and as such totally rocks :-) As with any new boat however it is going to take a few months to really get used to it and fine tune the set-up.

my Boost with it's bigger brother the Proton. The Proton belongs to a friend. It has flowers on it.

One of these days I will take my camera out in the waves with me.. I suspect it is in fact my camera that is responsible for my injury in the first place. Normally in the surf I wear an impact vest, kind of like soft, tight fitting body armour.. it gives quite a lot of support and protection to my lower back. The day I hurt myself I wasn’t wearing it.. I’d wanted to take my camera out so I was wearing just a regular white-water style PFD with a pocket at the front for my camera. It offers no protection at all. Hmmm.

Speaking of the XS – it has a composite seat fitted, as opposed to a foam seat. Works really well but they can eventually wear through the hull as the boat flexes.. the same thing can happen on sea kayaks. A reminder this week that kayaks need regular inspections, much like a car, rather than just slinging in the garage ’till next time. I pulled the seat out to replace some of the fittings that were corroded to find the seat edges were wearing into the carbon/kevlar hull laminate. Not ideal. The weather is too cold and damp for laminating in the workshop at the moment so I had no choice but to bring the boat into the house to do the repairs. Not a hardship.

I did put a sheet down to protect the carpet from epoxy drips...

I’m not sure why but I do have this niggling feeling however that I would not make good husband material for anyone despite being handy with a pot of epoxy and roll of carbon cloth…

Hasta pronto!

p.s standing by for lots of pro-golf mail..

a mellow January drizzle kind of a post

Two weeks ago I injured my back surf kayaking.. it was a heavy, dumping wave and I was caught out in a bad place with nowhere to go. My body was forced through a violent, twisting motion as I tumbled with the wave, pulling the muscles in my lower left back. I spend a lot of time on core strength exercises so I suspect I got off lightly. I was able to recover and paddle to the beach but that was it for the day… and for the time being  unfortunately it means that with the aid of a little ibuprofen my physical activity is restricted to bike riding and sea kayaking in not too rough conditions… so not too unfortunate at all really I suppose :-) Having got well ahead of things on the weekend by working (interspersed with a few hours on the bike) Monday afternoon then presented an ideal opportunity for a sneaky little paddle out of the improbably pretty but probably mostly wealthy second homes little hamlet of Durgan on the Helford west along the coast towards the Manacles. We didn’t go a huge distance, the weather was closing in and we were feeling lazy.. but it was fun cruising around all the rocky little inlets while feeling particularly mellow and contented in the January drizzle.

I believe that this is what is known as a "comfort break" in circles uncomfortable with the idea of stopping for a pee.

Christmas night time paddling

last night was the Penzance club Christmas night paddle west from Penzance to Mousehole and Newlyn.. the point being to enjoy paddling at night with views of the Christmas lights followed by a hot, spicy and mildly alcoholic  brew and mince pies, also hot, in the boat shed :-) It was a beautiful albeit cold evening, the skies cleared and the wind dropped. No moon so once away from the light pollution of land the starscape was wonderful… and almost matched by some unexpected phosphorescence in the water.

The snaps aren’t great… using a cheap compact at night on a moving ocean with gloved hands… but you’ll get the idea.

I was disappointed Richard didn't wear a white beard given it's Christmas and all....

but he does have a beautiful new carbon Tiderace, the stern of which can be seen here. There are 6 of these things in the club now... we're going to have to create a special Tiderace owners sub-club.. or something

Ben managing to look inebriated with not a drop of alcohol in sight.

late dusk leaving Penzance

Mousehole had the winter barrier across the harbour entrance which was a shame but there was a particularly fine, if blurry once I'd done my bit, festive lobster on the quayside in Newlyn. I want one for my house.

Something else of a watery flavour.. Friday saw some pretty reasonable surf in Mounts Bay. It doesn’t happen very often in the bay but is fun when it does as the waves tend to peel a long way. It was a crumbly wave, not particularly big or powerful but it’s been more than a couple of weeks (i.e practically forever…) since there was a half-decent wave anywhere so it was gratefully enjoyed by me and another surf kayaking friend (in the red boat). The almost gale force offshore wind did make it difficult to get much speed on the boat and hence really make the most of the waves, and kept the windchill below freezing but for a couple of hours it was well worth getting wet. We were fortuitously snapped by a local surf photographer from just below the Penzance harbour wall.

the devolution of a roll

the planned flavour of the weekend was originally to be a spiced blend of a decent spin out on the bike on Saturday followed by making the most of the forecast big surf  with light offshore winds on Sunday. The reality however turned out to be something that couldn’t decide if it was a dumpling or a tasteless pudding salvaged only by a couple of hours worth of messing on the sea.. a half-hearted, appropriately watery gravy for the pudding (english cuisine)…  All thanks to picking up one of those annoying, non-specific bugs that make you feel just crap enough to not be able to do much but not really crap enough to be able to cope with the spending the whole weekend horizontal on the sofa. Hence the reason I’m sat here writing this rather than down at Sennen Cove with friends. Oh well…

Desperate to do “something” with the weekend some value was recovered from Saturday by heading down to Mounts Bay in the afternoon with a friend for a bit of sea kayak rolling. My roll is pretty reliable and is pretty much instinctual thanks to all the time spent in the surf over the last couple of years… the problem is that surfing has ruined my technique. I used to have a very nice, effortless roll with “perfect” <cough> technique on both sides  but over the last year or so that has been eroded into something that works but isn’t very pretty.. brute force rather than technique, which of course means it is more likely to fail when things don’t go quite right. I know why it has happened, when I find myself upside down in my surf boat it is something to do with a very big wave.. usually on the paddle out or when I’ve tried a move and failed miserably. Commonly swells here are quite short period too so when I go over foremost in my mind is recovering before the next one hits… repeated beat downs aren’t much fun and in my case often result in a lack of nerve for the rest of the session, especially if it results in an unplanned swim & there are strong rips around. So my roll devolved into something aimed at righting as quickly as possible no matter how ugly the technique. Every so often I consciously make the effort to slow it all down and do it properly but not always, especially if I’ve not got much breath stashed away. In respect of how poor my technique had become it all came home to me a couple of weeks ago in my sea kayak when I failed to butterfly roll.. it was something I’d never had any issue doing nicely so it was something of an embarrassment, especially with friends around. That was in my Tiderace – my Greenland doesn’t count, that thing will roll on a sneeze.

very November

So off we went from Long Rock on a bleak November afternoon. Feeling distinctly rubbish I was worn out by a quick lap of the Mount and a half hour of messing in the few feet of surf at Marazion.. rolling practice was shortened to just 10 minutes in the end with the sea cold enough now to give me an ice-cream headache. It was enough though to get my technique back in order, mostly, and remind me how easy a sea kayak is to roll compared to a surf boat.. My surf boat is not particularly difficult but it is a harder thing to right.. that flat bottom and sharp rail must create quite a vortex, and hence a lot of drag, as it rotates through the water and the short, low volume stern means that once up one needs to get one’s weight forward quickly, especially in aerated white water, to keep the boat upright. I have been known to capsize it simply because I was laughing too hard for whatever reason – usually the misfortune of a friend :-)

Sam claimed to be overheating on this November day... nuclear powered or something I suppose.

So.. the moral of this story… there isn’t one. No, wait, there is.. it’s that I need to pay more attention to technique again, rolling is something worth practising regularly throughout one’s paddling career… and that pudding with gravy is definitely more worthwhile than no pudding, or dumplings, at all..

Before I go .. back to those carbon fins… More than 5 months on the various sets in use are doing really well. I stuffed one of mine on a rock and cracked the leading edge – easily repaired and a mate managed to break his through the application of a very heavy sideways force.. i.e dropping his boat sideways onto the fin tips.. but that too was easily repaired. What was interesting with that second one was the failure mode – as expected the ‘weak point’ is the seam between the fin halves. The impact sheared that joint down to the root leaving both fin sections undamaged and more importantly leaving the fin-boxes themselves in the kayak undamaged. I suspect a more conventional solid glass fin would have transferred all the force into the fin box… The fin damage was easy to repair, much easier than trying to repair a solid glass fin  - they tend to either delaminate messily or simply snap,  and they look like new again. While I had the broken thrusters for repair the solid glass fins went back on to the boat.. it was an interesting and useful comparison having become used to the handling qualities of the carbon fins. “Dull and unresponsive” were the words used :-) I’ve stopped making them for the winter as my workshop is a bit damp and not heated but come March I’ll get production going again. You need some… well, if you have a surf boat you do..

5 month on and doing well..

Cheero!

back in the day…

oh dear, it has been a couple of weeks since I sat down at my keyboard with the purpose of populating these pages with more words and pictures.. It’s not that nothing worth writing about has been going on, it’s just that the brain cell has been otherwise engaged you see… when it’s not been waterlogged. Autumn in Cornwall always brings good surf and the last few weeks have seen some cracking surf, nice, clean, consistent waves with faces up to around 8-10 feet – the point at which my present ball-size threshold is exceeded – with one spectacular day of 30ft which I enjoyed, quite sensibly, by staying mostly dry. Anyway although this is a topic related to paddling I do digress… so back to back in the day, or something.

Of late I have been reminiscing somewhat about past adventures.. Probably something to do with approaching my thirtytenth birthday next spring.. and dark winter evenings of course. I came across some pictures of an interesting, albeit minor, episode in my paddling career. Back in 1996 I found myself “shipwrecked” with a couple of friends for approximately 6 weeks among an inaccessible speckle of tiny islands, at the time barely inhabited by a few fishermen, lost in the Indian Ocean off the coast of north west Sumatra. I had a wonderful canoe borrowed from a local fisherman, fabricated in wood and bamboo.. and this became my vehicle for exploring the network of islets, tidal sandbanks and coral reefs of the area. Despite leaking rather badly it was a wonderful thing to have, I was happy as larry out there amongst the turtles, dolphins, sharks and so on. Looking at the pictures now I cannot help but think how much fun it would be to build a replica here to use for a spot of fishing and messing about down at the kayak club of a summer evening. Only thing is I have no idea where I can lay my hands on those fat bamboo poles here in the UK… I’d love to hear if you do know.

perfect for a simple life.. a very simple life, I had 'nothing' with me.

stopped on one of the many tidal sandbanks between islets

rather funky accidental double exposure...

note the complete absence of bars, jetskis, paragliders, speedboats, windsurfers, lilos, deckchairs and, errm, people :-) Truly paradise

we lived pretty much off fish, coconuts and biscuits.. until one night a storm brought this Indonesian fishing boat in.. she had a cargo of illicit beer (Aceh province is very islamic.. hence dry) on board.. hurrah!

evening entertainment consisted exclusively of lighting a fire and watching the sun go down before bedding down under the palms. Some nights huge electrical storms could be seen over the invisibly distant mountains of Sumatra

When I finally managed to leave I had less then US$10 to my name.. it was a day and half of hitching by fishing boat back to the mainland then 3 days across the rugged interior of Sumatra to Medan on the east coast. Where there was a bank. Happily.

Sadly this group of islands was hit very hard by the tsunami of 2004. The main village on the ‘big’ island lost something like 300 people out of an already tiny population. Sometimes I think I would like to go back but research shows that there is a little more development there now with a more regular boat service so to revisit would only lead to disappointment I think. I shall stick with the memories… and perhaps a wood & bamboo canoe ;-)

Now, on a sort of related topic.. I’m not one generally for writing about what other people are writing about, blogs should be for original content in my opinion.. but this is a special case, especially for those of you interested in the Greenland tradition of kayaking and hunting. Another chap has been reminiscing about past adventures involving kayaks, but on a much grander and more involving & worthwhile scale than my self-indulgent  little journey down memory lane. The Hunting Trip to Umiamako is the story of a summer spent with the inhabitants of the west Greenland village of Illorsuit.. in 1959. The photography and narrative are a fascinating read and wonderful insight into a disappearing way of life. Clicking the image below will take you there.. <highly recommended>

North Cornwall Caves…

so, having determined that Bob is an appropriate name for my kayak (see previous post..) I met up with Ben in North Cornwall for another terrific day of paddling. Ben is the same Ben I guided with in the Hebrides and he’s a big chap… too big in fact for Rosie, being an uncomfortably tight fit… <ahem> He doesn’t have his own boat down here so Rosie was left languishing in the shed with one of my bicycles, also feeling somewhat neglected…  and instead I borrowed a larger kayak from a friend. I have no idea if it has a name.

We paddled a stunning stretch of coast from Trebarwith Strand to Crackington Haven with a lunch stop at Boscastle.. the harbour of which, due to a low spring tide was somewhat dry so we couldn’t even get around the corner to the quay without walking. The day was not a huge distance, I wasn’t measuring.. probably only 20-25km with all the mucking about, but it is a fabulously interesting stretch with towering cliffs, a multitude of sea stacks and honeycombed with some wonderful caves… well worth a whole day of exploration. I don’t have much in the way of great pics.. it was a grey day & for most of the day the offshore wind was fiercely gusty and 2 hands on the paddle and a brace in the heaviest of gusts meant picture taking was a bit fraught.. except in the shelter of the caves. So here are just a few pics to give a flavour. I plan to revisit this bit of coast on a still, sunny day.. so many tiny little caves, nooks and crannies to explore.

richly coloured ocean contrasted nicely with the dark, brooding cliffs

I did crop the sky out of this.. it was a very boring sky

paddling between sea stacks

this one rates as cave of the year I think...

deep inside the humidity was tangible, hence the hazy look of the photos.. quite painterly

it is a very deep cave... in a similar one a seal came right alongside touching Ben's boat, the faint entrance light reflecting off it's eyebrows in the darkness

how nice it would be with a blue sky and that green glow that filters into sea caves on sunny days

the cliffs are of a very black flavour...

some daylight exploring..

and some large(ish) rocks... exciting stuff this innit....

cliffs along here approach 200m in height

just look at the tortured strata in that cliff

typically right at the end of the day the sun started to break through and the wind dropped.. ho hum. We had thoughts we should have made it an overnight trip with a beach camp somewhere...

this is The End…. again

Lands End that is. Something of a Cornish classic paddling day out and my own favourite stretch of water. I never get bored of paddling around Lands End.. every time the character is different. It is magical on a glassy calm, sunny summers day when you can get in all the tiny little nooks, crannies and caves, and basking sharks are cruising close to the cliffs. It’s intimidating as hell when Atlantic swells as big as houses are rolling in with violent overfalls and spray shooting 100ft or more up the cliffs.. the rebound from those gets exciting.. and, as it was yesterday it can be wonderfully playful for a competent paddler with a couple of metres of swell cruising in and a big spring tide racing through.. provided you keep your wits about you. It is a good trip as a one-way from Sennen to Penzance but compared to the stretch from Sennen to Porthcurno the bit from Porthcurno to Penzance can be pretty dull.. so we rarely do that, instead preferring to lunch at Porthcurno, or Porthgwarra if the surf is dumping too heavily at Porthcurno, then turn around and paddle back. It is always different – the tide will be at a different state so opportunities to play are renewed, and the sea-state will often be different too… as it was yesterday with a rising tide and increasing swell which left us with the opportunity to do some surfing in fun shoulder-high waves on return to Sennen.

Interestingly the Romany that Ben and then Taran paddled belongs to a good friend of mine.. I’m looking after it by making sure it gets plenty of action.. or rather making sure ‘she’ gets plenty of action as apparently she is called Rosie.. a girl in other words. Perhaps this why Taran made the comment “she’s a playful little thing”.. hmm. My boat needs a name.. I could call it Colin perhaps, or Frank even…. but Bob might be more appropriate…

Enough of the words, having rectified the waterproof camera situation, hurrah, it’s time to wave some photos around… mine and a few from Taran at the end as well. A great day out with like-minded friends I am lucky to have.

see if you can spot the paddler... <hint - blade @ left>

a sheltered inlet @ low water

like threading a needle around all the rocks.

lovely bit of Cornish granite

Sam timing the swells...

it was quite violent on sets so timing was key

thinking about lunch

fabulous beach

lunch. It doesn't get much better, especially on a Wednesday. We're all professional work-shy layabouts it seems....

Taran & Ben swapped boats for the return trip.. this is Taran... no longer wearing yellow :-)

I like the 'frozen' waterdroplets in the foreground here

The next few are from Taran’s lens… more words & pictures over on his site.

this made me laugh... they're all watching the lamb go to slaughter as I paddle off to investigate a particularly interesting stretch of water..

the swells were rolling in..

& as I'd been lazy about my sunglasses strap I promptly lost them. Oh well, luckily I only buy cheap ones....

good tide flowing...

Ben awaiting his moment..

me & my Tiderace.. or should that be "my Tiderace & I".. or something

and again..

 

a quick kayaking the Lizard post

while I’m at it… <like Cornish buses these posts…> a few pictures from a fun day of sea kayaking with a couple friends on Tuesday. These are not my pictures, they were taken by another kayaking friend, Taran (more great pics and goings on over at his blog here). Conditions were quite lively so we enjoyed some spirited rock hopping under the brooding cliffs of the Lizard before returning to Poldu Cove for a couple of hours playing in about 5 feet or so of messy surf :-)

yours truly hiding behind cap & sunnies as usual, & regular paddle buddy Sam

Taran & his Nordkapp... funny how Rockpool kayaks decided to name a new kayak design after him, I think they should give him a Taran just for being cool...

that's Sam's head peeking above the waves..

pictures can never quite communicate how much fun and at times how exciting it was

but they're great pictures nevertheless, cheers Taran

I really need to bite the $$-shaped bullet and replace my broken waterproof camera

my red boat/red cag are definitely a good colour for this...

the sandbar at Kynance is a great stopping place, and inaccessible by regular foot folk except at low water. hurrah!

a couple of surf kayaks for sale

** both of these are now sold **

a good friend of mine is selling a couple of surf boats to make room in the garage for.. another surf boat.. more truthfully I think it’s wifey that is selling the boats as most of us know that these things make very good garage decorations ;-) Pictures below.. I’m sorely disappointed I cannot make any sly remarks about weeds in the paving or the poor state of the lawn although I am wondering about those brown patches… anyway I digress.. The stealthy looking black one is a Mega Maverick in ‘x-tech’ full foam cored carbon/kevlar construction. Usual scratches but good condition, great boat, light and very fast with a tiny radar cross-section…. £350 including standard Mega fins (though of course you’d be well advised to buy an additional set of my own carbon fins to make it go even faster and harder ;-). The rather more colourful boat is a Mega Jester IC boat in standard glass construction. A complete steal at £100 .. worth it even if you don’t surf and want something more original than an old bathtub in which to plant some daisies or something..

If you’re interested drop me a comment below – it won’t get published but it’ll give me your email and I’ll put you in touch.

final few island images…

I’m leaving these islands on Sunday morning… feeling a little sad, I feel very at home here. However all being well I’ll be back next summer for another season of kayaking and in the meantime I have a whole winter of ‘stuff’ to look forward to back in Cornwall. I have no travel plans as such for a change – just riding and paddling at home.. & I could do with earning some proper wedge for a bit… well, trying to at least.

Anyway, a final few island images…(most with the Holga lens..)

Vatersay bristles & more Holga..

the weather continues in a stormy vein up here.. Before heading back to Cornwall next week I’d hoped to get down to Mingulay in a kayak for a couple of days exploring & wild camping but with Hurricane Katia on the way it ain’t going to happen. The wind did drop off a little last night for a cracking evening surf… offshore winds on a perfectly formed head-high wave with wonderfully stormy evening light. Magic.

idle hands on a storm-washed beach...not sure what this is.. a Vatersay Beach Bristle Monster perhaps... whatever, he's coming back to Cornwall...

wonderful storm light in Castlebay...

the coast of Vatersay

painterly hues of the airport beach near high water

Because the airport is the sheltered beach behind the dunes backing the west-facing  surf beach of Traigh Eais the free parking, in contrast to Cornwall’s hideous beach parking charges, is very handy and the baggage reclaim shed makes a cracking foul-weather changing spot… but not in this photo taken one fine evening earlier in the summer. Bearded guitar minstrel optional.

a little more Barra & Vatersay

Just a few more images of Barra & Vatersay as seen through a plastic Holga lens. It has a focal length equivalent of 50mm & aperture is fixed at f8. Ideal snapshot lens if you can work with the low contrast, vignetted, unsharp look… especially at the moment as the weather remains very unsettled with terrific lighting  :-)

three carrots and other things

just before I brought myself up here to the Outer Hebrides I picked up, for a very few £ indeed – £10 or so,  a Holga lens in a micro 4/3 fit. I used to have the original medium format film Holga camera, before I broke it, and rather enjoyed the somewhat distorted & heavily vignetted images in produced. The plastic lenses are now available in various mounts for digital cameras which is rather a fun thing. Mine came from the far east via fleabay. Postie delivered it as I was packing my gear for the trip north so without unpacking it I tossed it in my bag and forgot all about it. Until yesterday that is while digging around for a clean(er) pair of socks… With 90km/hr winds and driving rain the weather was fundamentally unsuited to anything much except for a walk out onto the exposed west coast with my GF1 & Holga lens in my pocket. The weather suited the lens.. or rather the lens suited the weather. Whichever way you look it the images seem appropriate to the bleak nature of this island when a storm blows in…

 

through the rainy window of my luxury sleeping quarters....

Anyway, enough of that. Last weekend was the Barra & Vatersay Produce Show… an important event on the local cultural calendar… really it’s just a heap of fun and while some folk take it deadly seriously most seem content to have a good laugh.. and unintentionally come away some prizes…

inevitable really....

Chris won a prize with this creation...

.. and with this decorated wellington boot entered, appropriately, in the fishing & crofting section...

it's serious stuff this...

deadly serious.. quality not quantity, 4 carrots would not have done

for some reason I found it all rather amusing...

Finally, before I crack on with more kayak repairs, and completely unrelated to any of the above.. an evening scene on Vatersay snapped while on the way to the beach for a surf.

more island stuff…

“You anything to do with the sea kayaking?” the grumpy looking chap said… it clearly had not escaped his notice that I was faffing about with sea kayaks on a trailer here in Castlebay. “Yup” was my one word reply… failing to warm to him and his equally grumpy looking wife. Gruff words followed… “Well, what about it then?“. “Are you interested in just getting out for a half day paddling or one of our longer adventures?” I asked. “We just want to go paddling” he says.. It was late Saturday afternoon so I said “Ok then, well Monday is the next likely half day trip, the forecast for tomorrow is for high winds so I can’t take anyone out“. “What use is that to us, we’re going home on Monday and need to go paddling tomorrow” he complained. I apologised and blamed the weather forecast. “This place is rubbish, there’s nothing to do” he grumbled. I pointed out that there were plenty of empty beaches to explore and some terrific walking to be enjoyed amongst other things. “We don’t do walking” was the retort… I said no more.. well, not out loud anyway. I have no idea what they expected to find in the Outer Hebrides.. a theme park perhaps? I cannot imagine how meaningless life must seem for a pair cursed with such a profound lack of imagination… not that they would notice.

looking west across the Atlantic.. towards Canada in fact.. on a beautifully still afternoon

I love the place.

My kayak guiding is just about done for the season but I am in no rush to head south back to Cornwall just yet. I love the simplicity of life up here. I love the fact that the vulgar displays of materialistic greed and arrogance that blight much of the mainland are completely absent. I love the friendly, down to earth folk. I love that I can go and surf and share the waves with no-one but a couple of friends. I love that I can always find a beach on which the only footprints are mine. I love that when I want to go for a hike there are no marked trails littered with people and the odd discarded crisp packet… I can just pick a mountain and go, any which way I like, knee deep in heather and wildflowers or scrambling over weathered rock patchworked with lichens, and chances are I won’t meet a soul.

looking to the north end of Barra and beyond to Eriskay & the Uists. The beach on the left is Traigh Eais.. a good surf spot. The beach to the right is Traigh Mor - used as the airstrip.

For the next week or two.. or however long it takes I have got a bunch of kayak repairs to take care of. The glass boats are in need of some repairs before being put away for the winter. It is something I am good at and glad to do in return for a place to sleep while I enjoy this small but perfectly formed mountainous little island called Barra :-)

for some folk this is rubbish.. nothing to do, nothing at all...

Oh dear, as I write I seem to have chomped my way through an entire fruitcake… I’ve been out in the wind on top of some mountains again today, by way of a break from paddling.

spongy...

a few other random recent photos follow..

meet the Clearwater dog...she's lovely and is called Kipper... with her boundless energy I cannot help thinking of her as the Kippertron.. ;-)

yours truly having a rest... (photo by Ben)

.. having a rest.

there's a pattern emerging here... in my defence I worked hard and what else to do while waiting for a ferry ride on Eriskay ;-)

a glassy morning in the Sound of Harris (photo by Ben)

 

Harris and other places

….tired from 2 weeks of back to back wild camping kayak adventures north of here off Harris and the Uists I am somewhat lacking in inspiration to write.. luckily however I have some photos I can simply throw at you while I go off for another coffee. I have a day off today, hurrah.. and I’m not likely to get sidetracked into taking any day trips out from here in Castlebay  either thanks to the gale-force winds that are howling across the bay as I write :-)

The first week was characterised by high winds and heavy rain which did limit options for exploring to the many sheltered sea lochs on the east coast and made cooking for 11 an awkward affair huddled under a flapping tarp each day not to mention sorting out the food for the following week in driving rain one night in Leverburgh… Week 2 on the west coast of Harris with a small group of just 5 was magic… very high winds at the start meant hiking in fabulous mountain scenery rather than kayaking but things improved wonderfully as the week went on.. with lighter winds and just one very wet day.

I didn’t bring my own sea kayak up here, preferring instead to bring my surf boat. No bad thing, working boats take a hammering on these trips so I am paddling an Island Kayaks Expedition model belonging to Chris, my employer. It is the largest volume boat I have ever paddled which means empty with just my light frame on board it is quite amusing to paddle as it floats so high. Loaded however it is superb. The volume is handy as it swallows up everything needed with ease which makes squeezing food and gear into the other boats a less stressful affair. At the beginning of a trip it is something of a floating larder.. and by the end it is a floating garbage truck. I find it quite amusing how other paddlers are so resistant to carrying garbage once space has been freed in their boats by meals eaten…

Anyway, enough.. on with some photos. I never did replace my waterproof camera so not so many on-water pics but I hope they give a sense of this wonderful part of the world nevertheless. Captions where I could be bothered….

I'll start with a beach... the fine sand-bar on Taransay... a fabulous spot to spend a night

'my' Island Expedition resting on a rocky landing spot

not very 'beachy' but sheltered from high winds at the foot of Eaval on north Uist

fabulous late afternoon light

stormy weather

Loch Ainort

weatherbeaten retreat to the van at the end of the Uist week...

waiting for the ferry from Berneray to Harris... typically Hebridean weather..

a fine if somewhat damp evening hike...

patterns of foam in a peaty stream...

fine weather but gale force winds... a hiking day on Harris

wicked views down to the Sound of Harris

I had a double along on the Harris trip.. they were poetry in motion...

plenty of nooks and crannies to explore...

.. and caves

some tighter than others...

paddling upstream.....

when the heavens open.. which they frequently do.. the bothy bag is a warm place for lunch..

after a filthy wet day.. wonderful evening light

dry again - a group of happy kayak-campers..

heading down the west coast of Harris in a lovely rolling swell

a pretty, sheltered lunch stop

proper summer weather at last :-)

a fine Taransay camping spot...

essential protection... for when the wind does disappear legions of midges materialise... devils they are, devils...

an early morning of pleasant solitude on the ocean as I paddled back north early at the end of the trip to retrieve the van.. just the shearwaters and gannets soaring the swells for company :-)

stormy evening light over Harris

a final wild camp on Harris before a 5am start to get folk to the early ferry from Tarbert

evening from Harris

As a footnote.. these trips are hard work physically and logistically… non-stop 15 hour days and it takes me a week to earn what I could in a day in my past life as an aeronautical engineer… but up here I feel complete contentment and the satisfaction at the end of a trip when everyone goes home with a big smile on their face is beyond putting a value on. My season ends in a couple of weeks.. I plan to stick around a while to carry out essential kayak repairs and so do some surfing… as for the winter, don’t know yet… not worried about it :-)

Outer Hebrides Sea Kayaking

Apologies for my recent absence… I mentioned in my last post that I’d be spending the summer working as a sea kayak guide up here in the wonderful Outer Hebrides. I have a busy schedule, the meat of which is a series of 6 day wild camping trips around the various islands that make up the archipelago. I do have some days off but often as not they can be filled with day trips from our base here in Castlebay on Barra.. I did bring my surf kayak up here with me however, with some wild and empty west coast breaks to take advantage of it would have been rude not to do so :-)

Anyway.. I’m working for Clearwater Paddling <link>. If you would like to do some paddling up here point your browser at the website, www.clearwaterpaddling.com, and have a look at what is on offer. We work hard to make sure you’ll have a good time…  camping on remote white beaches and rugged headlands, spotting seals, basking sharks, dolphins, otters.. not to mention the wonderful birdlife… and despite the fact that the camping is wild the food will be fantastic ;-)

It is hard work once all the cooking, gear sorting and behind the scenes stuff is taken into account but it feels a real privilege to be able to work up here, I’ve been made wonderfully welcome and feel very much a member of an extended island family.

Here are a few pics from a trip up around North Uist and the Sound of Harris and another camped among the islands around the north-east end of Barra. More to follow as and when..

setting up camp somewhere on North Uist

super high springs brought the novelty of paddling straight up onto grass on one of the many small islands off NE Barra

a fine if somewhat drizzly view from the summit of the same island

foraging mussels for dinner

spent a stormbound 36 hours.. I do enjoy a good storm in my tent

cool caves and clefts on North Uist

wonderful early morning stormy light on North Uist

more of the same

tarp kitchen for when it rains

the empty coast of North Uist

more of.. :-)

a terrific campsite.. sea on the right, fresh water loch on the left :-)

partner in crime, Ben.

another "empty beach on uninhabited island" campsite

appropriate refreshments

despite midsummer being more than a month ago it is still light well past 10pm

glassy calm in the Sound of Harris

Sound of Harris

another terrific beach in the Sound of Harris

west coast beaches on Barra are rammed in August.....

a mellow evening with a fun little wave, on sets bigger than it looks in the photo

for the few nights when I'm not on the water this is home, shared with new friends and behind the beach.. so nice waking up to nothing but the sound of surf and sheep... :-)

another post of a carbon flavour…

I feel as if I should apologise to my cycling readership for the recently rather kayak-heavy flavour of my posts… It’s not that I am not riding, I am.. it’s just that nothing exciting is going on in that department right now.. Just cruising around on my Storck and DeSalvo fixed and not really missing the racing scene and attendant training schedules at all :-) I may have some adventure cycling flavour of news to share soon however but in the meantime however it is back to kayaking and things of a carbon flavour… :-)

The Greenland Paddle.. the latest iteration has proven to be the nicest paddle I have ever used I think.. the word that sprung to mind while out testing it on a choppy day was “silky”.. the blade is wonderfully well behaved in the water and appears to be very efficient. I’m enjoying the wing-paddle effect one can get with a greenland stick with the right stroke. Effortless :-) The 600g weight is thoroughly spoiling me.. I have continued to use my euro-blades with my Tiderace just so I can enjoy the Greenland all over again when I get back in the skinny Tahe boat.. hence this picture taken by a friend last weekend while exploring the nooks and crannies of Godrevy Island on a rare perfect summer day. Nooks and crannies of a different kind appeared to be on offer when our planned lunch stop turned out to be a secret nudist beach… we didn’t stay long.

black paddle.. black boat

perfect match for the Tahe Greenland

I’m happy enough with the design that I think I’ll offer it for sale later this year…. drop me a line if interested.

Fins then.. I didn’t really plan to write any more about these but I feel compelled to. I have a couple of sets of 3.5″ fins in use by friends and the feedback has been of the <quote> “.. fu**ing fantastic..” and “amazing” flavour.. Modesty suits me I think… <cough> One of my friends has been selected for the GB team at this years surf kayak world champs.. and he’ll be using my fins which is a very cool thing :-) The performance of them as compared with commercial glass fins does appear to offer a significant improvement in speed and responsiveness. Durability appears to be excellent too. Now that I refined the construction I might just have to start offering these for sale (to order) as well. Price I think will be £70/set, a price that compares very favourably with Rainbow glass fins, generally considered to be a very good fin. I think it is fair given the cost of carbon and the amount of work in a set. There is the added advantage for the owner in that damaged fins can be returned to me for repair and should one get broken or lost I am happy to make single replacement fins.. which is something you definitely don’t get with standard commercial fins. Later this year I’ll get around to developing some more templates.

mmmm

All of that, and the ongoing Boatbuilder’s Story project is going to have to wait until the fall.. sorry, autumn. You see in 10 days time I’m off up to the Outer Hebrides to pick up a job working as a sea kayak adventure guide. A summer of week long kayak/camping adventures among the wild coastlines of Barra, Uist & Harris. Can’t wait.. but it is also going to be the longest period away from my bike and riding for, oh.. 15 years or more . Hmm.. will probably do me good :-)

a final bit of fintology..

hmm, fintology.. that’s a stupid word but it’s all I could think of for the minute. I’m stuck in waiting for a courier this morning so I may as well fill some blank space on your screen.. This is probably the final carbon kayak fin post for now.. it needs to be posted as the fins have been through a reasonable amount of testing now and appear to be doing very well.

Despite being hollow and quite light they’re standing up to rough launchings and landings very well.. just the usual scuffing/abrasion from sand and pebbles. These fins haven’t got any form of additional clearcoat over the moulding.. at the time I didn’t see the point in the extra time and expensive in finishing with, say, a 2-pack polurethane for a set of prototypes.. but in future I think I will, it is tough stuff and should help keep them looking nice a little longer.

Here are some pictures of the setup I have on my XS.. the center fin is a smaller, higher aspect ratio fin than is standard.. the reason for that is a regular 3.5″ fin in the center box on this boat stiffens up the turns way too much – it is a relatively long boat and doesn’t need all that ‘finnage’. Running with thrusters only kept the boat very loose in the water but I found myself wanting more grip and more drive in certain situations.. hence that fin design. It is 3″ tall with a base measurement also of 3″.. and it has worked a treat.. I find the boat now has exactly the kind of the behaviour I was looking for, it has turned out to be, for me, a perfect set-up.

center fin on my XS

The thrusters are a pretty standard shape, 3.5″ tall, flat on the inside face with a 7mm deep foil shape but significantly stiffer than regular fins. I’d hoped the stiffness would give me a sharper turn response… and that is exactly what I got. Not much more to say about that except they work great. They were a little more difficult to make than the center fin due to the ‘depth’ of the detail in the root, took me a few goes to get it right but now I know what I’m doing I have myself an ‘endless supply’ of fins.

thruster fin

People have said I should be selling them, mainly based on the looks I think.. but as a commercial exercise they don’t really make sense.. it is time consuming and fiddly to make a fin with all the local reinforcement necessary so I couldn’t sell them at a price competitive with the commercial glass fins on the market.. and the market is tiny relative to surfboard fins. I am however in the process of meeting requests from a few friends for sets so if you did want a set, or even a custom fin design drop me a line.

another carbon Greenland paddle

I’ve just finished making myself a second carbon Greenland paddle. The first one has been a great success, very nice to use – comfortable and very efficient, and has proven itself more than tough enough. The reason for this new one is that I wanted to modify the blade profile slightly and vacuum bag the components rather than just rely on a hand layup.

Rather than start again from scratch I simply modified the original plugs and made new moulds. Saved me a lot of time. The vacuum bagging of the components has resulted in quite a significant weight saving, this paddle at just 600grams for a 2.19m paddle is noticeably more feathery than the last but using the same number of plies (4 of 200g/sqm twill carbon) ahould be easily as strong, probably more so thanks to better consolidation of the laminate. The only ‘issue’ I found using a vacuum bagged laminate is that the thickness is noticeably less than before, joining the blade components was an exercise akin to gluing paper sheets edge to edge so rather than joining using an internal fillet of epoxy/microfibre paste I’ve used an external wrap of bias cut carbon over the join. It looks fine but not quite as tidy. Still, it is a handmade thing and the delight of it is more in the using of such a light blade rather than the admiring of it… though that is nice too :-)

I'll get better pictures next time I head out on the water.. The black fade on the loom looks rather nice I think. Unnecessary but nice..

While I’m on.. an update on the carbon fins.. they are proving themselves more than up to task of withstanding rough launchings and landings and the performance improvement on the boat is noticeable. I’m very happy. I’ll write more about those shortly.. stay tuned!

p.s if you want to know why I’m not using the arguably simpler route of carving a foam core and laminating directly on that… it was simply an issue of cost, locally I could not get the styrofoam I wanted in quantities less than 70 or so sheets, and mail order courier costs plus small quantity orders were not economical.. so I made it hollow again. It makes a lovely paddle but is more work.

carbon surf kayak fin – finished article

an update on the carbon fin project is in order I think.. mission success if you like.. (previous posts on making the blank and the mould here <link>)

I’m still playing around with the layup of the fin shells but this first fin has 5 layers of carbon at the root tapering to 3 at the tip. The root area itself is filled out to the rectangular profile using scraps of carbon with a random fibre orientation – worked great. The whole lot was vacuum bagged using a rubble bag sealed with PVC tape – I did use proper peel ply and breather material however.. The valve is another homemade lashup using a threaded pump adapter, a flanged nut off the back of a chainring bolt and some rubber washers hacked out of an old inner tube. Works just fine.

mould and fins in the vacuum bag.. all a bit heath robinson but it works great

The fin halves were trimmed while the resin was still ‘green’ but once fully hard they popped out of the mould beautifully light and very stiff. Where holes needed to be drilled in the root for mounting hardware I just made an internal fillet using a epoxy mixed up some finely chopped strands of carbon – carbon ‘fluff’ if you like.. a pair of scissors and a fingerful of scrap cloth. When the shells are joined these areas will be solid.

fin shells fresh from the mould

After rubbing the shell interface flat using some 120 grit paper taped to the bench the shells were joined using more epoxy mixed with ‘carbon fluff’. Clothespegs held it all together while the epoxy went off. In terms of finishing I didn’t do much figuring this is just a prototype and may well get trashed very quickly.. a quick rub down of the joint and general cleanup with some fine wet sanding. The finished fin is quite light and incredibly rigid, I can’t put even the tiniest amount of bend in it. It feels bombproof but only time will tell how durable it is.

the finished fin with another fin blank - a smaller, skinnier central fin for my XS. The white things are the moulds for another Greenland paddle..

It’s great for me as I can mess about with different shapes for different conditions without spending anything more than a few hours work.

** 11July 11 – there is an update on these fins here http://mikesimagination.wordpress.com/2011/07/09/another-post-of-a-carbon-flavour/ and here http://mikesimagination.wordpress.com/2011/06/22/a-final-bit-of-fintology/ **

installed...

So there you go.. a bit of fun. Now I think it is time to plug my book again.. Sixty Degrees of Latitude. If you haven’t already go and read my previous post…

cheero!

p.s a friend asked me why I didn’t use a foam core instead of doing it this way. While I think a foam cored fin would be fine for surfboard or SUP use I don’t think it would be tough enough for a surf kayak. Making the fins the way I am means I can add internal reinforcement and play about with the fibre layup without changing the external dimensions.

a Thursday roundup…

Various projects have been moving slower than expected for a number of reasons, including having to repair my carbon paddle after I noticed some damage,  so I thought I would post a quick round up..

1. The carbon surf kayak fins.. I have a nice mould now, pictured. The first attempt did not work out when the mould did not release cleanly from the blanks so I went back to scratch, carved a new blank from MDF again and this time coated it in epoxy, which is what I should have done first time around. Lesson learned. It is more work but let me use conventional polyester gelcoat followed by layers of chopped strand mat and polyester resin for the mould itself. With a few coats of release wax the whole lot separated beautifully and now I have a nice mould. I am in the process of sorting a vacuum pump, a situation that should be rectified by the weekend.. so I should have the first fin by sunday evening if, as always, everything goes to plan.. which it rarely does.

fin mould in GRP

2. Boatbuilders Story.. just waiting for the text now, that part of the project is being done my another family member so the project is stalled until I get that. Shouldn’t be long.

3. Sixty Degrees of Latitude.. I received the first hard copy a couple of weeks ago, it looked really nice in print but not quite perfect to my mind so I made a few changes. I should have the second copy in my hands by the weekend.. if I’m happy with that then I’ll make it available to buy….

Other than that.. business as usual.. bikes & kayaks. I’ve not been spending as much time around bikes as I would like simply because I have noticed that I’m not tolerating hard riding as well as I should so probably still recovering from the last year of pedalling in S America. I have also just ordered drawings from the States for a cedar strip kayak, a Petrel design by Nick Schade. Building a strip kayak has been on the list of “must do things” for quite some time.. so  no time like the present. It’s a pretty boat, not sure how long it will take me.. 150 hours, possibly more depending on how fussy I get over the fine detailing. I’m thinking some carbon hatch plates and cockpit detailing would go beautifully with a high gloss wooden hull… anyway, I’ll write more about that when the timber is ordered and the build is underway. A few details of the boat below.

Nick Schade design Petrel

v pretty boat

more carbonology, a surf kayak fin project

(* for more & updates on this project click here *)

This is very much in the realm of experimental, I have no idea if this is going to work out because of the fine detail in the moulding and the strength required so I’ll introduce the project and what I’ve done so far and then say no more until it is either a huge success or a miserable failure..

Surf kayak fins have a hard life, harder than the average surf-board fin because you have no choice generally but to get in the boat while aground on the beach so as well as dealing with the enormous forces involved while flying along a wave they also have to cope with being dragged through sand and pebbles, the occasional bashing from a rock and so on. A good fin also makes a noticeable difference to the performance of the boat.. a very stiff fin gives more speed and snappier response but is probably less forgiving. Commercial fins seem to run upwards of £60 for a decent composite model so I decided I want to be able to mould my own as and when I please with the potential of being able to flog a few to my surfing buddies..

Before I go on there is some useful fin theory over on the surfkayakskills site (link) or click the image below. By the way the site exists with the aim of helping to raise funding for the GB surf kayak team who did rather well at the last world champs and are headed to North Carolina for the 2011 edition later this year.. so do explore the site and if you learn something useful you can make a donation if you so wish.

Surf Kayak Skills (www.surfkayakskills.com)

To the best of my knowledge most, if not all, commercial fins are made by simply laminating a slab of fibreglass to the desired thickness and then grinding to profile followed by polishing. It’s easy, fast and makes a strong fin.. but it is also wasteful and may well be why you don’t see carbon fins around… glass is cheap so turning it into dust is no big deal. I’m not into large scale manufacture so I decided I’m going to have a go at a proper moulded fin.. and I’ll make it out of carbon for a couple of reasons.. I have some left over from the Greenland paddle project .. and it looks cool :-) Initially I am just making the centre fin as this is the most complex – it is a symmetrical foil shape so needs two moulds, one for each side and also means I can test it for durability on my boat without having to make matching thrusters (the outboard fins in a 3-fin setup). The thrusters are a flat-bottomed foil so only need one mould each that can be mated with a flat slab laminated onto a sheet of glass or similar.

cutting the blank from a double layer of 5mm MDF

Using my existing centre fin as a pattern I cut a blank from 2 layers of 5mm MDF tacked-glued together. I’m using MDF because it is dirt cheap and easy to shape… though the downside is it is very porous so needs a high degree of finishing before I can take a mould from it.

The fin needs to be 8mm thick so the 10mm thick blank was shaved down to 8mm, 4mm each side of the centre join and then carved to a symmetrical aerofoil.. it’s all done by eye using a smidge of aerodynamics experience.. I knew a degree in aeronautics would come in useful one day ;-) In reality the shape isn’t going to be desperately critical so long as the maximum thickness occurs somewhere around 30% of the chord from the leading edge.. and that the leading edge is nicely rounded with the trailing edge tapered smoothly to a fine edge. It is not knife edge thin as the finished laminate needs a certain amount of thickness for strength.

the raw blank

The carved and sanded plug was then split into two and finished with multiple coats of a shellac-based sanding sealer, sanding with fine paper between each. At this stage the process is ongoing, I want as fine, glassy finish over the porous MDF. I used the shellac stuff simply because I had some.. and it is very easy to cut back smooth. The downside is that it means I will have to use epoxy and woven glass cloth to make the moulds rather than a cheap polyester gelcoat & resin with chopped strand mat – the styrene in polyester resins, plus the heat generated during curing would likely trash the finish on the blank. The alternative would be to coat the blank in epoxy but that’s a bitch to cut back smooth, especially on such a small part with some fine detail.

carved and sanded..

blank split into two, building up multiple coats of sanding sealer

So.. from here.. the plan is to mount the blanks on a sheet of smooth acrylic, polish the lot with a mould release wax and make the moulds. Going to use epoxy and fine 200gr/sqm woven glass cloth to conform to the fine detail around the fin root. If that works out OK then I’ll make the fin halves using first a layer of very fine 80g/sqm glass to fit the fine detail, followed by 2 or 3 layers of carbon twill cloth, maybe more cut to fit inside to taper the thickness of the laminate. The outer layer of glass will ‘disappear’ when wetted out and as well as helping to fit the detail will add a layer of protection/finish over the carbon. I’ll also add some local reinforcement around the root of the fin using some unidirectional carbon tows. The whole lot will be vacuum bagged. In theory that should leave me with two nicely moulded fin halves. I’ll glue ‘em together using an epoxy/milled fibre mix to give me a fin that is hollow around the root area. I have to drill holes through the root so with the fin inverted I think I’ll just fill the remaining void with epoxy and let the whole lot go off hard before cleaning up the edges, drilling and polishing… In theory.

Even if it doesn’t work out it’s still worthwhile.. I’ll learn something along the way and I like making shit anyway. Could be interesting.. stay tuned :-)

p.s in case you’re wondering where the general cycling flavour of the blog has gone of late… haha, yes I am still riding lots and still as interested as ever but nothing has changed in the fleet of late, no new jewellery to play with  - that is the fault of my DeSalvo fixed, it is ‘perfect’ and requires no ££ to be expended.. and it’s easy to play around making relatively simple parts for kayaking where the safety implications are less critical – other than a broken paddle say :-)

p.p.s as for the books.. well I’m expecting the first hard copy of Sixty Degrees by the end of the week.. and A Boatbuilders Story is ongoing happily.