CLC Kayak/Canoe SailRig

Kayaks are so easily driven that the urge to equip them for sailing must be as old as kayaks themselves. The original CLC SailRig, from 1995, has been built in vast numbers. There hasn't been a SailRig kit for years. When we noticed recently that it is the second best selling plan set (after the Chesapeake 17), we decided to study how to make the kit easy and affordable to build. 

The SailRig MK2 matches the effortless performance of the original, but features simplified construction and easier kayak attachment. The SailRig is adaptable to almost every kayak and canoe in our catalogue, and many other production kayaks as well. Mounted on a single kayak, the acceleration is neck-snapping, with good handling upwind and down and 9-knot potential. Ten-foot beam gives you monolithic stability (and thus sail carrying power with no hiking out), but the whole rig can be dismantled for cartopping in a half-hour. The SailRig components weigh only about 30lbs total.

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Touring by Sailing Canoe

Out Among the Islands by Sailing Canoe

by Bob Halsey While camping at Sugar Island, I have made several camping trips with my open sailing canoe. I sail to one of the fifteen campsite islands in the St. Lawrence Islands National Park of Canada. Typically, after a busy week of sailing races morning and afternoon and maybe taking part in the swim around the Island race, I am ready to relax and do something different. For example, at the end of the first week of the annual encampment in 1989 on Saturday, I packed up the canoe with my tent, food, small stove, sleeping bag, clothes, most of which I put in garbage bags to protect from rain or spray. Then Sunday morning I sailed over to shore and went to early church and breakfast in Gananoque and started (from TIV motel) sailing up the river against the wind. The wind is mostly out of the SW and usually is pretty dependable. The seas were not too much for the loaded canoe and I had plenty of room to be comfortable myself. I was sailing my 18 ft cedar strip I had built the winter before and was quite happy with its performance.

As I was tacking back and forth upwind, I got a good view of many of the Islands- Corn, the Punts, Leek, Huckleberry, Bostwick, Lindsey and others. Some islands are wild, some have beautiful homes. I was planning on going to the last of the Admiralty Islands, a park island named Aubrey island, but I had to be aware that if the wind didn't hold up or if I didn't make the speed I thought I could I might have to stop at a different park island. By mid-afternoon I arrived safely at Aubrey Island. I had a government chart of the waters in a zip-lock bag to help locate myself among the islands.


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Rain rain and more rain on the 2010 ICF Canoe Slalom World Championship Parade

Here on the first day of the 2010 ICF Canoe Slalom World Championships, both athletes and organisers were put through their paces. The expected downpour has kept those behind the scenes on their toes, but thankfully the careful planning has kept the event running like clockwork.

The Course for the Heats and Friday's Team Event

Talking to Helen Reeves, ICF Technical Committee Member and course designer for this event, athletes will face a number of challenges. First up is the Big Drop, right at the start of the race it means the course is fast from the outset. This can be intimidating for some, perhaps not for the leaders. So, fast and furious, the course by its very nature is swirly and unpredictable making it very changeable. Add this to the unsavoury weather conditions, the water is even faster; another challenge for the athletes who may find it hard to predict the water. The downstream gates also pose a little problem. The tight stagger sequence quite early on make the combination at Gates 4, 5 and 6 very tricky, reading the water here will be a challenge.

Men's C2

The day started with the Men's C2. Qualifying in first place was the British duo made up of Tim Baillie and Etienne Stott. They cleared the field with half a second to spare. The French team, Denis Gargaud Chanut and Fabien Lefevre completed just the one run, safe in the knowledge that their time of 107.12 would put them in the top 30. It sure did. Their one and only run was the second fastest of the day. China's Hu-Shu team are becoming a regular fixture on the Canoe Slalom startlist. Securing their place with the third fastest time of the day.

Others appearing in the semi-finals on Saturday morning are Slovakia's Kucera-Batik and the Hochschorner brothers, Great Britain's Florence-Hounslow. One big surprise was the failure of Czech pair, Volf-Stepanek to get through to the next round.

Women's K1

Next up was the Women's K1. On her second run, Maialen Chourraut (ESP) made the course look positively easy winning the best time with nearly a second to spare. Following behind was Czech Republic's Stepanka Hilgertova and China's Yingying Zou. Team GB fared well with all three athletes from the Women's team qualifying. Louise Donnington qualified with the 5^th fastest time, Lizzie Neave with the 15^th fastest and Fiona Pennie with the 17^th fastest time. Jana Dukatova, ranked first coming into the competition, is perhaps saving her best for last, qualifying with the 7^th fastest time with her team mate, Dana Benusova with the 9^th fastest time. The two Austrians, Corinna Kuhnle and Violetta Oblinger-Peters also made it, while their young compatriot and recent Youth Olympic bronze medallist Viktoria Wolffhardt didn't quite make it. One Youth Olympian who did make it through however is Australia's Jessica Fox. She took the last qualifying spot with the 30^th fastest time.

Men's C1

A few surprises in this line-up with all the favourites ending up a little down the list of qualifiers. With the fastest time of the afternoon, Germany's Sideris Tasiadis will lead the 30 men going into the semis on Sunday. David Florence (GBR) and Takuya Haneda (JPN) follow with the second and third place respectively. In 4^th in 5^th place were the two Frenchmen. Reigning World Champion, Tony Estanguet finished with a time of 98.89 in his one and only run. Denis Gargaud Chanut's fastest run was in a time of 100.36. His second run included a 50 second penalty.

Home boys, Anze Bercic and Benjamin Savsek came in together, just one second between them in 9^th and 10^th times respectively. Michal Martikan, who also just completed one run, qualifies with 11^th fastest time followed by his fellow Slovakian, Alexander Slafkovsky.

Women's C1

Both Jessica Fox (AUS) and Jana Dukatova (SVK) were clearly saving their energy today as they raced just one run. Both of them ended up at the top of the board, Jess was fastest with a time of 123.52, Jana second with her time of 131.85. Both Nanqin Chen and Qianqian Teng (CHN) qualified in 6^th and 13^th place respectively. Judging by their year's performance, they may be saving their best for last. Qualifying in third place is France's Caroline Loir followed by Australia's Rosalyn Lawrence (last year's Women's C1 silver medallist) and Germany's Michaela Grimm.

Tomorrow we will see the course again with the Men's K1 heats from 2.30pm (CET) onwards and the Team events on Friday. Come Saturday, we will see a whole new course throwing up more difficulties for these top-class athletes to overcome. Keep watching!

Tune in for more updates on our website, www.canoeicf.com. Or visit the official event website, www.sloka.si. Live results can be found at www.123result.com.

PrecisionPak CratePak Max Review

Design and construction clearly led by avid kayak anglers
PrecisionPak makes a very wide line of gear management products, waders, gloves, jackets, and other specialty textile-based outdoor products.  The PrecisionPak CratePak Max is their top of the line kayak fishing gear bag.  The CratePak Max includes a PrecisionPak Black Ice Cooler that I also recently reviewed.  It comes in three or four different colors including hi-visibility orange or lime green, and all have a lot of sewn in reflective tape accents.  This is an excellent safety feature.  Mine arrived in the orange color.


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WINDVINDER

UNMANNED VESSEL OF THE EXPEDITION TO THE ORIGINS OF THE WIND

Somewhere in the Pacific Ocean an unmanned “windship” makes its way through the waves - almost transparent, people say, wings everywhere… and it is headed, without a doubt,  INTO THE WIND !         
With three prows pointing straight into the wind it is underway across the world’s vastest ocean, following every windshift. No one knows how long it’s been travelling. People laugh at fishermen who talk about having seen it.

But there it appears again; all but silently it moves through the swell, as if drawn by an invisible string: on an impossible course....

This is the Windvinder, unmanned vessel of the Expedition to the Origins of the Wind: a satellite on the ocean. It is steered by wind alone and driven by headwind.  A windmill drives the ship’s propeller; a tail fin in the wind keeps the vessel on its never changing course.

From time to time an island pops up in its path.

For anyone who finds it there, instructions are engraved on all parts of the ship  (translated into more than 45 languages):  People are asked to mend what is broken, improve what wasn’t working, and to relaunch the vessel on its voyage – to where the wind comes from.

Please report date, position, and any changes in the construction to the Expedition Headquarters (contact here) .

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Old Town Sailing Canoe With Amas and Akas

2010 ICF Canoe Sprint World Championships

Thursday, 19th August 2010
Difficult Weather Conditions but Good Racing Action in the 1000m at the
2010 ICF Canoe Sprint World Championships in Poznan, Poland

After a superb Opening Ceremony, athletes woke up to strong and gusting winds
creating difficult racing conditions for all the compcompetitors in the 1000m heats and
semis on Day One of the World Championships.

Morning Heats
There were no surprises from the morning’s heats but two classes gave much interest.
The Men's C2 1000m welcomed the new exciting Russian pairing of Alexey
Korovaskin and Ilya Pervuhkin. They won their heat in style to progress directly to
the final, though the honour of the fastest qualifying time went to the Azerbaijan crew
of Sergey Bezugliy and Maksim Prokopenko. In the Men's K4 class, the French got
their World Championship campaign off to the best of starts with a good win, making
the final directly. Belarus and Germany joined them there, each looking strong.
Semi-Finals delivered some surprises

The afternoon semi-finals threw up a few surprises. Perhaps the biggest of the day
came in the third of four semi-finals in the Men's K1. Adam Van Koeverden (CAN)
and Ben Fouhy (NZL) were pushed into the B final by Maximillian Benassi (ITA),
Tim Brabants (GBR) and Marko Tomicevic (SRB) who all finished ahead of the two
Olympic medal winners. Van Koeverden seemed to get off to a bad start, he recovered
and looked comfortable in the mid part of the race, but faded just before the finish.
Meanwhile, Max Hoff retained his winning streak and was the fastest qualifier for the
final. He will be alert to the strong threat from Aleh Yurenia (BLR) the young
pretender to his crown who has continued to impress throughout the 2010 season. The
comment regarding the racing difficulties were summed up by Barry Watkins of
Ireland (who finished third behind Max Hoff) while waiting to see if he was a fastest
qualifier:

“It was little bit wavy, hard to control the boat and I’ve just finished 3rd I’m just going
to wait and see if I can get to the final. That’s the plan. It's hard to race in this weather
but it's the conditions and you better get used to it.”

In the women’s classes, the highly fancied Katalin Kovacs (HUN) dominated her
semi-final here today as did Sofia Paldanius (SWE). Paldanius reflected after the race:
“I felt very good in the beginning then in the end the conditions were so hard but it
was under control.” Franziska Weber (GER) and Rachel Cawthorn (GBR) will join
her in the final and these three will be the medal favourites.

In the Men’s C1 there was a better performance from Olympic champion Attila Vajda
(HUN) who has not performed this year to his normally high standards. Weiyong
Xie’s (CHN) win in the second semi-final showed yet again that the Chinese have a
great habit of producing talented canoe athletes. Cuba produced some good results
raising their world profile having achieved a final place in both C1 and C2. The one
surprise of this class was that Mathieu Goubel (FRA), who has been consistently
medalling in the World Cups this year, lost out in the fight for a final spot to Polish
favourite, Tomasz Kaczor (POL).

In the Men’s K2 Hollstein and Ilhe (GER) are on track to win another K2 1000m
gold. They looked very comfortable on the water today. The day’s action concluded
with the K4 semi finals – so who will join Germany, France and Belarus in the final
race for gold? In the first semi-final Great Britain was squeezed out of the top three
by Romania, Italy and Poland. The European silver medallists, Hungary, suffered the
same fate in the second semi-final with Russia, Australia and Czech Republic beating
them to the line. There is no doubt, come Saturday morning and finals day, this one
will be a ‘classic’.

Paracanoeing Suspended
Paracanoeing racing got underway in front of an enthusiastic crowd late in the day.
All was going well with some good performances with the crowd cheering on the
winners. However, increased wind and incremental weather meant Paracanoeing had
to be suspended until tomorrow due to safety reasons.

Keep up to date here with the results and watch the live webcast at
www.canoeicf.com.

Feature Story: Quetico Park - 12,000 Years in the Making

Rocks embedded in the ice left linear scratches (glacial  striae) that are visible on the shores of many of Quetico’s lakes,  including Sturgeon Lake, shown above.

Quetico is celebrating its 100^th Anniversary. Quetico was originally set aside in 1909 as the Quetico Forest Reserve, became a Provincial Park in 1913, logging was banned in 1972 and it was declared a wilderness park in 1978. Quetico is characterized by towering cliffs, rocky islands and sandy beaches in a watery landscape of clear water lakes, rivers, creeks and bogs. These compelling attributes that attract canoeists to Quetico are primarily the results of the actions of glacial ice and glacial meltwater at the end of the last Ice Age.


Read: Quetico Park - 12,000 Years in the Making | CANOEING.COM Nature & Environment

Four Aces: The Unbeatable Chestnut Wood-Canvas Canoes

i

by Mike Elliott, Kettle River Canoes
Ogilvy, Bob Special, Pal and Prospector: These four canoes from the Chestnut Canoe Company set the standard for the industry and are still held up as icons more than thirty years after they went out of production.
 
The Chestnut Ogilvy – Although never as popular as the other three, fishing guides on the salmon rivers of New Brunswick helped create a working canoe that was unmatched for its purpose.  They needed a river canoe they could stand up in all day long.  They were often poling the canoe upstream through shallow rapids, so the canoe had to be stable and tough with a shallow draft so as to avoid many (but not all) of the rocks.  They came in six models that ranged in length from 16’ to 26’ – real, honest working canoes.
The 16’ model had a 36” beam and 13½” depth at the centre.  The ribs were 3” wide and had only ½” space between them.  This created what amounted to a double-planked hull.  The rugged nature of the Ogilvy comes with a price in terms of weight.  The 16’ has an average weight of 84 lbs. and a carrying capacity of 850 lbs.  It has a flat-bottomed hull with full entry lines and moderate rocker in the ends.  This makes for a canoe that is slow and steady.  It is exactly what you need when working shallow, rapid rivers.
 
The Chestnut Bob Special – Before I talk about the canoe, I’d like to clarify the name.  According to Roger MacGregor in his book “When the Chestnut was in Flower”, Harry and Will Chestnut were real history buffs.  The telegraph code for the 15’ 50-Lb. Special was BOBS and made reference to Lord Roberts, a major figure during the Boer War in South Africa. Over the years, as this wide, light-weight canoe became more difficult to keep under the weight limit of 50 lbs (the average weight is 58 lbs. while the carrying capacity is 700 lbs), they changed the name.  I have seen a variety of Chestnut catalogues call it “Bob’s Special” or “Bob Special”.
Many outdoor enthusiasts were looking for a lightweight, stable canoe that would allow them to enjoy fly fishing or just a quiet paddle on the lake.  With a 37”beam and 12½” depth at the centre, the Bob Special is very stable.  At the same time, this canoe is surprisingly quick and maneuverable in the water.  Unlike the Ogilvy, it has a shallow-arch to the bottom of the hull.  This combined with moderate rocker and fine entry lines in the ends made it a pleasure to paddle.
 
The Chestnut Pal – It is no accident that this canoe was the one that Bill Mason turned to for use in most of his films.  It is stable, yet quick; steady, yet agile.  At 16’ long with a 36” beam, 12¾” depth at the centre, weight of 72 lbs. and a carrying capacity of 700 lbs, the Pal is as close to being a perfect recreational canoe as you will ever get.
The bottom is a shallow-arch hull and tumblehome extends through the entire length of the canoe.  The fine entry lines and moderate rocker make it very easy to paddle.  In his film “Path of the Paddle: Solo Whitewater”, Bill Mason demonstrated very well that the Pal is not designed for Class 3 rapids.  That said, it is a great general-purpose canoe and is the canoe of choice for many generations of canoeists – even if they do call it a Chestnut Prospector. 

The Chestnut Prospector – This is the real deal – often copied, never matched.  A quick search on the internet produces at least ten modern canoe companies with a “Prospector” in its catalogue.  However, the Chestnut Canoe Company found the winning combination.
They were made in five lengths from 14’ to 18’.  The 16’ model has a 36” beam and a 14½” depth at the centre.  It is a large-volume canoe (the 16’ model weighs 76 lbs. and carries 850 lbs.) that dances through rapids and laughs at rough water in big lakes.  It is a fun canoe to paddle solo, but it really comes into its own when loaded for an extended wilderness trip.  The hull has a generous arch to the bottom and although there is good tumblehome at the centre, the hull flares about 4’ from the ends in order to throw water away from the canoe while hitting big waves in rapid rivers.
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And it looks so easy...

by Avery "SwinginFish" Ellisman

I was born and grew up in So. Cal, and lived close enough to the Pacific to ride my bike to the Ventura pier where, in addition to tormenting seagulls, I tossed “shiny sinkers” for bonito at a very early age.  As time passed, my interest in the ocean broadened, and at 14 I was trolling jigs in the local marina from my own little 10’ O’Day Sprite.  Not surprisingly, the sailing interest soon gave way to surfing, which became an obsession that lasted some 20+ years, saw me through - and extended - my adolescence, and aside from shaping me into the chick magnet I never was, helped me develop a fairly appreciable respect for the Ma Nature.  Read More

The 10 All-time Greatest Sea Kayaking Expeditions

By Dexter Mahaffey

 To take to the sea in a kayak is to know humility. To cross the sea in a kayak alone is to know God. It’s no wonder then, that sea kayak expeditioners are, by and large, a modest bunch. They’ve been there and back, and are a different sort from the rest of us. Undoubtedly that’s why so little is known about the great sea kayak expeditions: The practitioners aren’t all self-promoters. But the tales bear telling: surviving for months on cans of condensed milk or staving off starvation by eating toothpaste; crossing the ocean alone with no radio; facing a heaving slurry of sea ice in the surf zone. The greatest sea kayak expeditions brush up against the limits of human endurance and mark the frontiers of the human experience.

They are:

1. Franz Romer’s Atlantic Crossing, Portugal to Puerto Rico, 1928
2. Hannes Lindemann’s Atlantic Crossing, 1956
3. Paul Caffyn’s Australia Circumnavigation, 1981 
4. Ed Gillet’s California to Hawaii Crossing, 1987
5. John MacGregor’s Rob Roy Expeditions, 1860s
6. Derek Hutchinson’s North Sea Crossings, 1975, 1976
7. Frank Goodman et al., First Circumnavigation of Cape Horn, 1977
8. Peter Bray’s North Atlantic Crossing, 2001
9. John Dowd’s Indonesian Journey, 1969 
10. Jon Turk’s Japan to Alaska Expedition, 2000

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Cool Stand Up Board Vid

Sailing a Tin Can

My first time sailing a canoe: the naïve approach 
Ed Maurer, Dunedin, Florida

It has been almost 40 years since I first sailed a canoe, and now is the time to share the experience. I’ll ask the reader to do the same when the time is right, especially if it’s a good story.

I was with my Boy Scout troop out of Miami. We went for a canoe trip into the 10,000 Islands area of Florida, a place where the land and sea fight for preeminence over the very southern tip of the state.

We paddled a mélange of canoes out to an island, maybe just a couple three miles or so. We made camp on ground barely above the high water mark, scattered with coral and transient soil. Plants consisted mostly of sea grape and whatever weedy stuff grows in such inhospitable conditions good only for crabs, mosquitoes and the ubiquitous sand fleas. Read More

Capsize Your Boat ~ Bailing and Flotation

An all too likely event can be controlled with the right knowledge and gear
Hugh Horton, Contributing Editor, Harrison Township, Michigan 

After I gybed back to the swamped sailing canoe at the Killbear Canoe Rendezvous in September ‘05, I thought of Roger Taylor’s series about seamanship. The swimming sailor’s tube style pump wasn’t getting it done. Wavelets instantly refilled what dozens of pump strokes had squirted out.

I sailed up, held her against my boat, Walela, and used Walela’s bailer. In two dozen scoopfuls, she was left with a quart or so under the floorboards, along her ribs and lapstrake planking. Wind was offshore, and I drifted a couple boat lengths away. Her canoeist, a young man, tried again to climb in over the stern. But the boat was still too unstable, so I came back and steadied her. Just the afternoon before he’d gone over in a lighter, onshore breeze. But Lake Huron was warm, and he swam her in. Read More