For those of you that aren’t familiar with James and the lads, for the last few years the guys have made nice wee films documenting their summer travels from Norway, Italy , Central Europe and next year to include Kenya. The Norway film is one I still enjoy watching every now and then.

James is also one of the key figures in making the Ettive River Race happen every year and the man behind planetpaddler.com.

The film had been kept under wraps  apart from a preview to a small bunch of folks in Sterling Canoes in Scotland until its showing in Dartmoor, I was extremely lucky enough and honoured that James let me see the finished production about a month ago. As with all the previous films I really enjoyed this one as its a nice mix of footage with nothing generic with a good soundtrack throughout.

See if you can catch my two favourite parts of the film, the body language of Ian at 14.28 and the entry to the Fukiwaire (9.02)

Cheers again to James, Ian and Giles for sharing their travels with us and best of luck to them in their preparations for Kenya. I’m looking forward to hooking up with the lads in Scotland very soon.

You can check out more of the guys stuff on James website HERE.

Adrian

With what seems to be the driest winter in memory and if the daily updated Facebook & Twitter status of the Irish boating community are to be believed paddlers are being driven to madness and MTB. I’m no exception to this and if anyone who has seen me on a bike they will testify that I’d be better off going mad than embarrass myself any further while biking.

So with that mass amount of time I have to waste these days I had to have something to help pass the time and slow my descent into madness.

I have started to notice more and more top quality video productions of boater x events and extreme races.

In all of these productions we see the use of cable cams and get massive and cool sweeping and tracking shots of runs down sections of river. Over the years loads of boaters have chatted after a few beers saying “we should so do something like that on the < insert river name here >.

I’m not sure if it was a moment of stupidity or inspiration but the other day I went I might have a go of doing a DIY one of those. I went to the the shed and in 30mins I had come up with a wee bit of a “proof of concept”.

Now I know what I came up with is as rough as a Bear’s rear end but it was enough for me to think it might be worth a bit more effort.

I came up with a bit of a list of features I’d love to have, not saying I could manage them all but sure what harm in thinking about it.

Power driven
Stable (gyros / counterweight)
Pan & Tilt movement
Video sender
Oh and the whole thing has to be radio control

My knowledge of miniature electronic and robotics is limited enough but sure I wasn’t about to let that stop or slow me down at all. Here was my first concept.

The two red areas would represent two 24v motors to drive the unit on the cable while the yellow thing would be a weighted pendulum to counter left/right swing. I wasn’t really able to get pan & tilt to work with this idea so I had to do a bit of re design.

I hit up Google to see if it could help me out a bit and this is my latest rough concept.

I have started to get a few bits like the RC gear and a couple of motors / servos so I can start construction soon as possible. Where I am a little stuck is how to engineer the centre 360deg swivel point, I was considering using a lazy Susan type thing mounted inverted but I know there has to be a better way.

I’ve been on the the folks over on Robots.ie but I know there is a mass of experience out there amound boaters so I would love to hear from folks whom might know more than me or have some ideas or suggestions.

That’s all on this for now but if things start to come together I may post a few updates. Lets all start praying from some rain before the madness sets in any further.

Adrian

I’ve been rather lazy on the blogging front over the last while up until I saw this thread over on the UK boating site UKRGB. It starts of pretty simple looking to identify a type Prussik knot and as all online forums seem to splits into a couple of different directions with all sorts of information / miss information popping up.

There were a couple of things which I found interesting. Firstly it confirmed to me that boaters and ropes / rope work are strange bedfellows. There seems to be an assumption in the wider paddling community that if someone can paddle ( X ) grade river they are automatically totally up to speed with the rope stuff.

Secondly and the thing that struck my interest is that kayakers seem to have an aversion against using out of the ordinary such as “mechanical devices” or tools which might make things easier.

I have constantly heard people preach the K.I.S.S . principal but I wonder have some of these folks closed their minds to their own detriment, are we missing out on using the right tools for the job?

I thought I would share a bit of kit I have been using for a few years now and I honestly think its a savage tool that can complement almost any WW kayakers tool kit.

Its called a Robot and manufactured by an Italian company called Kong.

“KONG ROBOT DESCENDER: A versatile piece of gear in the vertical world. Some of its many uses include a belay device, rappel device, ascender, in place of a pulley in a z-drag system and the list goes on. It can accommodate ropes between 5-13mm in diameter in a single or double configuration. It even works great with ropes of different diameters”

These are usually used by mountain guides and cliff rescue teams in the Alpine regions but due to the fact it is so versatile it has quickly become an invaluable part of my paddling kit .

The specs stack up like this:

Material: aluminium alloy

Weight: 158 g

Dimensions: 52 x 148 mm

Max Load: 22 kN

Rope diameter: 5-13 mm

It weights in about the same weight as a standard steel crab or about twice the weight as an alloy carabineer. Size wise its not much bigger than a large paddling wire gate crab and fits nicely into the pocket of my PFD.

So now we know that its nice and compact just what kind of practical applications does it have to us in a white water environment?

Kayakers seem to be obsessed with Z-Drags and all sorts of mechanical advantage set ups and this little tool makes those easy set up and extremely effective in their operation. The device works as both an auto locking calming pulley all in one.

Once you are set up like this you can operate it just as an auto locking 1:1 system or using a prussik and another crab and have an auto locking 2:1 system.

The use of the Robot for this kind of set up just makes it very easy especially when there are only a small number in your group as the auto locking function allows you to take breaks during each pull without loosing tension. It can be set up to use just as a “pulley” to reduce friction without engaging the auto locking if you so wish. For the demo there I didn’t add a pulley on the prussik end just to keep it gear light.

I would carry the Robot for that function alone but another great thing it does is works as a rappelling device, so if you ever have to portage a cliff or lower yourself down to a get your sorted there to.

All you have to do is make a sit harness with your sling / tape and your away, I also make use of the Spectra belay loop that comes on Astral WW PFD’s to make things even safer.

That’s just one way of using it as an abseil device there are a few more combinations depending on what dia of ropes you are using etc.

One of the great things is just how well it handles double ropes so that you can lower down a drop on a looped rope. You can even use ropes of different dia without any issues.

With the addition of a sling the Robot can also be used as an ascender in much the same way as you would set it for a 2:1 z-drag.

That’s only the tip of the iceberg as to what this device is capable of and with a little bit of learning and practice you will no doubt find endless more applications for it.

So the Robot covers a tasks that you would normally have to use a hand full of others.

In summing up I would say that we as white water paddlers should open our minds to learning and understanding new & possible more efficient ways of doing things rather than just accepting everything that is said to be “best practice” and taking it as gospel.

Needless to say I’m only covering some of the uses of Kong Robot, no amount of reading stuff of the net will make up of hands on experience or being showing by a quality / experienced coach. If you have any questions or comments on what you might like me to cover in the future fire away.

Adrian

Later this month(29th Nov 09) I will be running an Irish Canoe Union Level 3 Kayak Skills Assessment, the assessment will be take place on either the rivers Kings,Nore or Barrow with a final decision being made in the days previous to the assessment pending on water levels.

The Level 3 Kayaking Skills Award aims to enable participants to;

• Kayak safely and competently on river up to and including Grade 2 rivers as a member of a group.
• Be capable of negotiating obstacles likely to be encountered on Grade 2 rivers.
• Assist in rescues.
• Foster further participation in canoeing.

This assessment to open to anyone but it is suggested that you have completed the ICU Level 2 kayak skills previously.

I realise that very few people enjoy the pressure of assessments so I run these assessments as just another day on the river without making it feel like an exam. This non-interventions method helps you relax so you can enjoy the day and perform at your best.

A PDF copy of the ICU Level 3 kayak skills syllabus can be found..

The cost of this one day assessment is €40 (ask about student/un-employed discount) which includes the certificate administration fee from the ICU who will post certs directly to successful candidates. Spaces are extremely limited so If you would like to book on to this assessment or have any questions please drop me an email info@adrianshanahan.com .

Cheers,

Adrian