Winters here...or will be soon!

Not a bad start to winter down under - 18 degrees Celsius at first light!  I was getting over heated in a long sleeve rashie - though that may not be the case later in the week as we are about to get our first taste of single digit figures with the temperature dropping to 7 degrees Celsius by Wednesday.

My new Vadja paddle needed its first repair after our morning paddle.  The epoxy on the clamp gave way so I borrowed a mates Epic mid wing for the hit out and reattached the clamp, post paddle. This wasn't as easy as you would think as there was a two millimeter gap between the paddle shaft and the inside edge of the clamp which meant centering the paddle shaft took a bit of guess work and I hope I did a better job of gluing than the production company.  I will have to do some sanding to clean up the excess glue off the inside of the paddle shaft before a test paddle next week.  I have just added glue to my spares kit for our up coming trip!

The other modifications are now complete and I am happy they are functional.  The seat has been replaced with a bumfortable which has a 3 cm foam block under the rear of the seat to get a better paddling angle and to release the pressure on my hip flexors for those days in the boat.  The seat is attached via a strap of webbing which runs inside the seat and attaches to the standard Pace 17 seat attachment points.  If you were doing this modification to your own boat I would consider putting some closed cell foam between the seat attachment point, a thin sheet of fibreglass which comes down from the cockpit combing and the side of the boat.  Not sure if it is required, but there is a lot of flex in this material with any sideways pressure.

You could attach the seat to the floor of the kayak with velcro, but I have found that the seat doesn't move once you have pushed it back against the attachment strap.  I also like to have the seat floating so I can push it forward to store things behind the seat for easy access.

I have the pump setup behind the seat with the battery and switch setup in the day hatch area.  I used a sealed magnetic switch which runs off a standard 12v 4 point relay and small 12v battery.

The output runs behind the seat and I have it pumping out above the water line on the front deck. The base of the unit is glassed in so it sits nicely and doesn't move around.

Now I just need to work out how to fit in everything I need to take for 19 days on the water!

Another week closer

Another week has past and we have about four weeks left to sort our kit for an upcoming trip to North Queensland.   I have ordered the dehydrated and prepackaged main meals and have been working on the breakfast menu and doing some trials on how to make yogurt using the yogurt mixes you pick up at the local supermarket.  Lunches will involve flat bread and I might take some fresh eggs and supplement them with some tuna options.  All food to be supplemented with  fresh seafood when available!  We are on the water for three weeks in remote locations where we won't be able to resupply so we need to carry everything we need.

Yogurt Recipe

1. I half the 1 kg yogurt mix as I only want to make 500 mls at a time.  So mix half the pack with 250 mls of water (straight out of tap/water bladder) and top up to 500 mls.  Place in a sealed plastic container - shake well.

2. Boil some water and set this aside to cool for a few minutes.  In a separate pot, place the place the sealed plastic container with the yogurt mix.  Fill the pot with the hot water (try to get it around 80 degrees C) to halfway up the side of the yogurt mix container.

3. Place a lid on the pot containing the hot water and yogurt.  Wrap the pot in a small towel, followed by a space blanket.  Leave for 12 hours (i.e. overnight) and in the morning - fresh yogurt.

There are a number of different varieties of yogurt so you won't get bored with the different tastes and some fresh food makes a world of different when spending long periods on dehydrated food!

Some photos from an early morning hit out on the weekend.  We had a strong south westerly blowing all weekend so the paddle was a slog with beam winds both ways which were more of a hindrance than a help.

Pace Party

It was a Pace 17 only day out on the weekend as the wind turned on for a down wind paddle under sail.  Pace 17s were the order of the day with Flat Earth Sails being the sail of choice.  We paddled what is locally known as the "Cannonball Run", generally done from Victoria Point through to Oyster Point on the southern end of Moreton Bay.

The waves keep building the further north you go and just start to become interesting off Wellington Point before you have to shoot between King and Green Islands on a tack for Oyster Point.  The winds were pushing around 25-30 knots and the runs were fun at around 17-20 kms/hr.

The 25 km paddle is over before you know it so I prefer the longer run up to Redcliffe.  This paddle is a bit more on the edge as the fetch is longer and you can have over two meters of breaking swell running with only a few meters separating each wave due to the shallow nature of the bay.  It is easy to have runs well over 20 km/hr and you find yourself burying your bow as you come over the wave in front which puts a smile on your face if you can relax your white knuckle grip on the paddle!  You just need to watch the reefs as you come into Redcliffe as you won't see them with the swell pushing over them.

The sails are brilliant.  We did a few kms of paddling without sails to get a feel for the difference.  I could get on runs and get slightly slower speeds as when we were under sail, but the runs were shorter and you expended a lot more energy to get/keep on the runners.

Some lessons learned from sailing in these sorts of conditions is that up to 20 knots, you can let your boom rope off and leave the sail flap whilst turning into the wind to halt your progress - you can keep your sail up without too many concerns.  Once the wind is over 20 knots and you need to halt your progress, turn into the wind and drop your sail ASAP.  You will need to be facing the direction the wind is coming from to raise your sail again before turning and reefing the sail in once you have started to turn away from the wind.

If you leave the sail up in over 20 knots you risk a wind gust catching your sail and wrapping the sail around the mast and potentially blowing you over if you weren't paying attention.  The flapping of the sail can also cause the bolt that attaches the boom to the mast to come undone, which is what happened on the weekend.  We have now purchased some replacement bolts and nylex nuts to address that problem should it occur again on a trip.

Another good idea is to carry some spare cable ties in your PFD - they are useful for a number of different applications and you can carry out some quick repairs on and off the water.

There has been a number of people "borrowing" heavily from Micks Flat Earth Sail designs and coming up with competing products.  Some of these people had Mick helping them with their "home" sail projects and then to turn around and market their sails in direct competition is completely unethical. I can only encourage you not to support their narcissistic approach to doing business and do your homework before making a product choice.

Trip preparations are underway for three weeks of paddling in Northern Queensland.  I've completed all my boat modifications I am going to do.  Now I just need to prep my gear and test pack to see how I go fitting everything in for 19 days on the water with out being able to restock our supplies.

Why the need for speed?

So why the trend for faster sea kayaks tending to merge the design characteristics of racing skis with the traditional sea kayak?  Why allow for better leg drive and the use of a wing paddle in a sea kayak?  Is this what sea kayaking has come to, a new racing class?

There is obviously a market for the "modern" sea kayak or we wouldn't be seeing these hybrid designs hitting the market place.  For me it is all comes down to risk and the type of paddling you are doing. I personally struggle to see the worth in going for a paddle under 20 kms, so most of my paddles are in the 20 - 60 km range.

I paddled a Nordkapp for a number of years as my expedition boat of choice.  I have completed a number of longer trips and for the most part love the boat and the feel of it on the ocean but was always looking for a bit more volume in a boat to carry the gear required for longer expeditions.  For days under 40 kms, I think the extra effort required in correctional strokes for a skeg boat isn't an issue given you are paddling in under 25 knots.

I took the Nordy on a 96 km open sea crossing with no options but making a spec of an island on the Southern End of the Great Barrier Reef.  The conditions were less than favorable with our weather window closing and the conditions being 10+knots higher than predicted.  The wind got up to over 30 knots and the seas were in excess of 6 metres at times (4 metres of swell and 2+metres of waves over the top).  A tough day out.

I digress, but the point is that looking at the lessons learned from that crossing boiled down to boat choice.  A faster boat with a greater volume and a rudder  would have lessened the risks on that crossing.

My aim is to minimise any wasted effort on my forward stroke and to paddle as efficiently as possible, with an aim to be able to expend the minimal amount of effort required for propelling the boat at its "natural" hull speed.  I often paddle with a GPS and hit out for an hour, trying different techniques to ensure that I can keep the boat moving at around 9 kms/hr average which is around what I think the top end hull speed of a Pace 17 is.  Yes, you can push it faster but you won't sustain the effort over an all day paddle.

The faster I am able to paddle, equates to less time spent on crossings which equates to less risks.  This equation is relevant to the type of paddling I am doing on expeditions - island hopping in exposed waters.

As a case study I often do return day paddles over to Moreton and Stradbroke Island.  I have a number of different crossing points with the shortest being 16 kms, up to 30 kms for a one way trip.  The 16 km crossing has three points where the spring tides can run over 3.5 knots.  In my trip planning, I generally like to do this crossing over a tide change over (i.e. morning and afternoon on a 6 hourly tide cycle) - preferably incoming in the morning and outgoing in the afternoon.

I will paddle for 55 minutes and then have a 5 minute break as the usual hourly cycle on longer paddles.  This trip has a relatively busy shipping channel around 9 kms from the mainland which can be running at 4 - 5 knots on spring tides at peak flow.

I can do this crossing in under two hours including breaks and generally around the two hourly mark if we get held up waiting for a ship to pass.  The paddling average with breaks is a bit over 8 kms/hr.   A two hour crossing means I don't really need to consider tides and correctional bearings and the distance isn't an issue.

If I was paddling at recreational sea kayaking club pace which is around 6 kms/hr with a slower average - say 5 kms/hr - I have just turned my 1 hr 50 min crossing into 3 and a bit hours, maybe longer as we are dealing with more tidal flow.  The issue of more time spent in the shipping channel is a major risk to the crossing as the shipping channel is a couple of kilometers wide and you need to cross this quickly as the ships are moving at a deceptively fast pace.

I like to mix up my paddling so it isn't all about high speed hops across exposed waters as generally there is an island at the other end which needs to be explored at a more sedate pace.  What an increased sustainable paddle speed gives me is more options to explore by kayak on this wonderful planet we live on!

Vajda Paddles

I picked up a small mid-wing paddle in my move away from the Euro paddle.  These paddles seem to be similar to the Epic paddle with a slightly different paddle face shape (perhaps a shade longer and narrower) - but that is just my opinion from putting the two paddles side by side and shouldn't be interpreted like I know what I am on about ;-)

They also have the same ferrule locking system.  In a trick for new players, to tighten up the locking mechanism, undo the screw and take the locking lever off.  Under the lever is a hex screw which you need to screw in to tighten (try a half turn at a time and retest). The outside screw is only to keep the locking lever attached.

My first test paddle went well and my first roll worked a treat, but when I got off the water I had found the locking mechanism had slipped and the paddle instead of being set to 210 and 60 degrees had somewhat shifted to 206 and some obscure angle.

After locking the paddle shaft in place I still didn't have any difficulty rolling with the new blade shape and am still able to slow the roll down without the need for gills.

Without too much effort I found I can sit on around 9 - 10 kms/hr, noting that I would be expending a bit more effort with Euro for the same result.  The Euro is a larger blade (Werner - Ikelos) so the kick back is that it takes more effort to drive it through the water and more pressure on the body.  Part of the reason going to a more efficient paddle is for those longer days on the water where you want to be paddling as efficiently as possible.

The paddle is very light which is what you are looking for as you are swinging the paddle all day.  The downside to this paddle is that it may be a bit brittle as it is the stiffer shaft and surfing with it in overhead conditions may not be an option.

If you are going to buy one of these paddles, make sure you buy from Vadja themselves.  There is a rogue dealer running around who was affiliated with the company at one stage and is now using the label (albeit illegally) to badge paddles made to the same shape from what I assume will be a different factory.

I have done a few 20 km hit outs over the past couple of weekends and am fairly happy with the result at this stage.  We have had a large east coast low that went through last Friday night which left us with some nice swell running inside the bay so I ended up with some nice waves to surf at my local paddling spot inside the bay.  Almost had a tidal race going with flood waters pouring out on an outgoing tide and waves pushing in from the north east.

I've been flat out preparing for a trip which I am doing in June/July this year, up to North Queensland.  Plans are coming together and sorting out the paddle has just been one of  the things on my to do list.