Here’s an interesting piece of video footage from a company that specialises in aerial video footage from an awesome remote control helicopter carrying a DSLR to shoot video. You can see a photo of the amazing helicopter rig on their website. A step up from the usual GoPro/bullet camera footage!

Following on from my earlier article about the Open Day at Liquid Logistics, Steve Mead, one of the instructors and multi-media whizzkid has put together a short video round-up of the day. It gives a nice flavour of what proved to be a great fun day on the water. I crop up a couple of times running the Intro To Sea Kayaking sessions and thankfully manage not to cause the camera lens to crack!

Intro To Sea Kayaking - Isle of Wight

Liquid Logistics Open Day

Heading Out On Session

Saturday was spent with the folks at Liquid Logistics on their first Open Day. The event was run from Bucklers Hard and included various taster and training sessions, demonstrations, ergo machine competitions and the Woodmill Mobile Shop with a fleet of demo boats.

All Sorts Of Boats On The Water

There was a superb atmosphere around the site with folks getting stuck into activities on and off the water. I ran three Sea Kayaking Intro/Taster sessions pretty much back to back and really enjoyed working with the folks who came along. Everything from complete novice to more experienced paddlers looking for some sea kayak specific tips.

Sea Kayak Intro Session

Huge congratulations to the Liquid Logistics team for running a really good event, in particular Tom Foster (newly nicknamed TBM) who organised and ran the day. It would be great to see this event become a permanent fixture on the calendar.

Intro To Sea Kayaking – Isle of Wight Sea Kayaking

Sunday comprised of an early start, picking up Rich Pearsall and catching the 6:45 ferry from Lymington to Yarmouth and making our way over to Isle of Wight Sea Kayaking in Freshwater Bay. Rich had been working with Owen Burson on a UKCC Level 2 coach course with Sunday being the final day of the course. I was over to run an Intro To Sea Kayaking day.

Stunning Weather & Conditions

My group of four clients had a range of experience from complete beginner to an experienced Open Canoe Paddler looking to build sea kayak specific skills.

The forecast was for SW winds building from F1 in the early hours to F4 much later in the day. Combined with an incoming tide from 10:00am to 7pm the aim was to work our way out of Freshwater Bay and along the cliffs towards the Needles.

After some basic skills work in the bay ensuring folks were in suitable boats for their experience we headed out in some beautiful conditions along the cliffs. Unfortunately the wind picked up strength earlier than forecast and seeing the wind shadow in the distance we made the decision to turn back earlier than planned and take our lunch break back at the Freshwater Base.

Lots Of Laughter On The Water

After some much needed food we headed out onto the water again. Two of the clients were interested in sit on top kayaks as an entry route into paddling so spent time swapping between short and longer, touring sit on tops, playing in the small swell/surf that was now rolling into the bay. Meanwhile the other clients played in the slightly rougher conditions in sea kayaks working on balance and turning in rougher water as well as stern rudders. Lots of laughter later and a few rescues (some planned, some not so planned) later and it was time to draw the day to a close and debrief the group and say goodbye to some seemingly very happy clients.

The Superb Scupper Pro Touring SOT

The end of my course coincided with the end of Owen and Rich’s Level 2 coach course and we couldn’t resist heading out for an hours coasteering in the bay before Rich and I headed for the ferry home. All in all a cracking weekend.

Note: Thanks to Steve Mead for the use of photos from the Open Day.

Useful Links

Liquid Logistics – Liquid Logistics Website
Isle Of Wight Sea Kayaking – Isle of Wight Sea Kayaking Website

Gallery

Jim Krawiecki is already well known to many paddlers as the co-author of Welsh Sea Kayaking and the author of Northern England & IOM: Fifty Great Sea Kayak Voyages, both published by Pesda Press. There is also a really enjoyable podcast with Jim on Simon Willis’s Sea Kayak Podcasts website.

Recently, Jim has been releasing video shorts of his paddling exploits and they are superb. Jim has struck a great balance between good quality footage and keeping the videos natural and ‘un-produced’.

I’ve included Jim’s most recent video within this post but if you’d like to see more it’s worth taking a trip over the his Youtube page.

Useful Links

Jim Blog: jimskisblog.blogspot.co.uk
Jim’s Youtube Page: www.youtube.com/user/jimkrawiecki

Liquid Logistics 2 Star Training

I’ve been quite busy on the weekends coaching in recent weeks. Working for/with Isle of Wight Sea Kayaking and Liquid Logistics. A couple of weekends ago I spent a very enjoyable, if rather wet, day working with Liquid Logistics coach Stuart Watson on a BCU 2 star training course.

The current BCU 2 Star award requires candidates to learn and demonstrate skills in both a kayak and a canoe. The type of kayak and canoe used is very flexible and often determined by the longer term aims of the candidates. On this particular course, all three paddlers were looking to develop their sea kayaking skills so we had a great day playing in sea kayaks and standard open canoes (paddled solo).

Practicing Skills

Having spent so much time in Sea Kayaks over the last few years, I’m always pleased to have the opportunity to get back in an Open boat, even if we had to battle some pretty stiff wind in the afternoon.

The folks attending the course were super-committed and had heaps of enthusiasm and self motivation which allowed us to push the skills during the day. It was also great to work with another coach for the day. I’ve been lucky to work with alongside a number of coaches over the last few months and always pick up new tricks and tips or different ways of approaching something. Having known Stuart for a while now, this was my first time coaching with him and I was very impressed with his style and approach to the day. We made the most of opportunities to try new ideas and discuss various skills and techniques and the various methods of introducing them to paddlers. Great stuff.

Starting A Session in Sea Kayaks

Unfortunately, family commitments prevented me from joining the group for the second day, although hearing the rain pounding on the roof when I woke up on the Sunday morning I was a little glad to be tucked up in the warm!

Liquid Logistics run a decent programme of intro, One, Two and Three star awards through the course of the year. You can find out more by checking out their website.

4 Star Assessment - August 2011

Recently, however, I met up with a couple of the paddlers I had guided on that trip whilst helping run a REC First aid course with Owen Burson. They asked if I had seen the photos of the trip. I can remember us sitting on the beach at Scratchel’s Bay for our lunch stop and watching a couple of folk doing some rope access stuff up on the cliff tops.

Playing Before Lunch

It turns out that the guys playing with ropes knew the paddlers from the IOW Canoe Club and had taken a few shots of us playing in a little spot on the headland where the limited swell produced some lumpier conditions. I’ve now got hold the photos and it’s great to have a photographic record of the day. There were a few training and assessment groups out on the water but our little group stands out in the photos as all the paddlers had red boats with the exception of me in my all white Cetus.

Looking Down On The Needles

A couple of nice shots of us on the water and a stunning view down onto the Needles. Brings back memories of a superb day on the water.

The first drysuit I bought was the original Palm Aleutian Drysuit which I reviewed back in 2009. About 12 months or so I was one of a number of folks asked to provide updated thoughts and feedback to Palm as they began the process of updating the Aleutian Drysuit. I was really interested to see this video and look forward to seeing the new version in the flesh when it hits the stores at the end of May.

There are a number of upcoming events for sea kayakers, some local to the Solent and some further afield. Here’s a few details in case folks are interested.

Isle Of Wight Sea Kayak Symposium: 25th-27th August

Registration for this even opened yesterday. The registration pack is available from the Isle of Wight Sea Kayak Symposium website.

Liquid Logistics Open Day: 12th May

There are still a few places left for the sessions at this event, or pop down for the social side for free. I wrote up the full details in this article.

Kayak Essentials Symposium: 20th-22nd October

The Essential Sea Kayak Festival is organised by Kayak Essentials, Green Adventures and Oswestry Adventure Education. Based on the world-famous island of Anglesey, the event will offer an exciting range of coaching sessions, workshops, trips, tours and presentations – matched by lively evenings of entertainment. Details can be found on the Kayak Essentials Website.

Seapoint & SE Sea Symposium: 19th-20th May

On 19/20th May Seapoint Canoe Centre based in Seabrook, Hythe, (in the South East of England) will be hosting the first Seapoint and South East Sea Kayak Symposium at Folkestone. Jeff Allen will be along giving workshops in incident management. Other workshops include rolling sessions in a local school swimming pool. In the week following the symposium the centre will be running a Sea Kayaker Development week in association with Howard Jeffs; the week will include 3 star training and assessment and Coastal Navigation and 4 star training. On the weekend 26th-27th of May there will be an introduction to expedition sea kayaking. For more information see Seapoint’s website www.seapointcanoeandkayakcentre.co.uk.

Mike Holgate has been hard at work, with the aid of a number of contributers, putting together a new digital magazine/newsletter which is available for free download from the Qajaquk.org website. The spring issue make for some interesting reading and is very much a grass roots affair.

It’s great to see Mike pushing to raise the profile of traditional or Greenland style of paddling through the website and magazine and although very much in it’s infancy at the moment, Mike has big plans for both the site and magazine.

My aim is for this to be a non-profit making organisation and eventually becoming a charity in the same way as organisations such as Qajaqusa. To do this I need your help.

It’s also great to see some local names from the Solent/Dorset area featuring in the magazine. If you would be interested in getting invovled please let Mike know by dropping him an email here.

Links

Qajaquk Website – Qajaquk Website and Magazine Download

Valley have two new sea kayaks on the way, in the form of the Gemini Twins. Both kayaks are 14’10″, and feature a 3 hatch layout on the deck – rear, front and deck-pod. However, subtle and not so subtle differences in the rest of the design produces differing handling characteristics as explained by Peter Orton, Valley’s designer, in the video below. The models on show are:

• Gemini ST (Sports Tourer: 14′ 10″ x 21.75″ – 35lbs)
• Gemini SP (Sports Play: 14′ 10″ x 22″ – 40lbs)

Really interested to see and paddle these boats to see how they handle!

Video