There is another method I favour but I can’t find my jig I made up some time ago and in all reality most people haven’t got the time or inclination to make something too complicated for a one off replacement.

For this "how to" I have decided to use the method as set out in the Kokatat Gasket Replacement Kit, on first impression I know the instructions come across as a bit complicated and all over the place as it just doesn’t read that straight forward. But once you read it a couple of times and with the help of this little guide you will be back in action in no time.

What you need:

- Replacement Seal

- Aquasure glue

- Craft Knife / Scissors

- Sandpaper

- Acetone

- Double side sticky tape

- Latex glove

- Cardboard

- Compass, ruler

First things first, get yourself some good quality cardboard and cut out the discs as described in the instructions.

Once you have your cardboard cut take the cling film and cover the large disc but keep it tidy.

Having replaced many neck seals over the years I am in full agreement with Kokatat when they say “The simplest, safest and most effective method of dealing with deteriorated gaskets is to cut the old gasket off, leaving the base adhered to the fabric, then gluing the new gasket to the old gasket base. Kokatat strongly recommends this method, unless the gasket left on the garment is badly deteriorated (gummy) or there are already two or more layers of repairs.” So unless it really has to come off do not be tempted to fully remove the existing seal.

Take your scissors which will need to be extremely sharp and remove the existing gasket leaving a generous lip to which you can attach its replacement, be careful we are playing for keeps here so any slip of rip could be costly.

Once the seal is removed it should look a little like this.

As my Kokatat GMER Drysuit’s neck seal is attached from the inside I decided to deviate from the instructions a bit as I think it yields better results that following the external fixing method as per the supplied directions.

From here turn the top of the suit inside out and get your large cardboard disc ready for action. Not forgetting to take the time to clean the latex with a solvent and give the surface to be glued a light sanding.

As per the instructions place some double sided tape around the outside of your large cardboard disc which is now covered in cling film. The cling film is there just in case things don’t go quiet to plan and prevents the glue bonging the seal to the cardboard.

Place the large disc in under the neck seal, once remove the backing for the tape so that you can fix the drysuit to the disc. The ides it to try get the area you will be bonding as flat and as firm as possible. Take your time and do it right, it will pay dividend in the finial result.

Now its time to get the replacement gasket ready to be attached. Insert the 8” disc inside the “bellows” section for the gasket.

Now flip the replacement gasket over and get the cardboard ring you prepared earlier ready. This means placing double sided tape all around the perimeter of the ring and placing it over the end of the upturned gasket.

Now you remove the backing from the tape and carefully offer the gasket up against it ensuring to make it as flat and wrinkle free as possible. You prepare the latex surface to be glues like we did earlier with acetone and sand paper.

Its at this point where I made a rank amateur mistake on the tutorial front by forgetting to take a photo of the next step. But fear no with some dodge photo shop all will be ok.

Now were are at the business end of thing as its gluing time. Put a moderate amount of Aquasure on the prepared section of the Drysuit / Cag. be careful not to put an excessive mount on as this can leak out everywhere and cause you no end of grief.

Once your glue is on you can now place the replacement gasket on top, the seals are designed to fit in place perfectly and with the aid of the cardboard ring its super easy to place correctly. Place it confidently and press around the whole rim to ensure a good bond that is air bubble free.

Right that’s pretty much most of the hard work done, all we need to do now is place a flat weight on top of the setup as it dries over night.

The Aqua sure takes 8 hours to dry but takes a full 24 hours to be fully cured. DO NOT RUSH THIS, if you are really caught for time get yourself some Aquasure accelerator-Cotol 240 problem which cuts curing time down to two hours. I find I get best results if you let the glue cure in some where that is moderately warm as opposed to a damp shed or the like hence the above photo my my living room floor.

Once the Aquasure has had time to set its time to remove the weights and start taking the cardboard forms out of the gasket.

Start with removing the cardboard ring first, as I used a double sided tape which was a relatively low tack (i.e. cheap and not too sticky) after cutting the ring with a scissors it pops off easily leaving the tape on the gasket. It only takes two minutes and a little bit of patients to take the tape away from the latex. We can not remove both the small disc in the bellows and the large disc that is inside the drysuit.

A good result with gasket will attached with no wrinkles / bubbles and evenly glues the whole way around. I have no doubt its 100% sealed.

And that’s that, all I have to do is trim the seal a fraction so I’m not choked to death when I put it on. If this is your first time using these replacement gaskets give it one of two wears before you trim massive amounts of latex away as they do stretch. As I have used this particular replacement seal previously I know I have to remove 3/4 rings to allow me to be able to breath .

There you go that’s now tow different ways in which you can replace a damaged neck seal on your drysuit, I think this way is a little trickier and there is more preparation involved which tends to put people off but I think this way yields far more consistent results. I promise the next seal I replace I will dig out the jig I made up which is a gem to use and they you will have all the trade secrets to help you save a few buck and minimise your time off the water with a damaged gasket.

Right I’m off on my bike for a bit with my fingers crossed so that we have a repeat of the last couple of weeks here in Ireland and get loads of water and I can enjoy using what is without doubt the best quality dry suit money can buy.

If you have any hints / tip or comments on gasket replacement please pass them on for myself and other to try out and use.

Adrian

So there I was in i-canoe picking up some extra throw bags for clients to use on courses, I already have a load but like the idea of being able to have a good variety for people to use as it give them to make their own mind up on what features / bag size etc is best for them to invest in themselves.

I was just having a browse through the other stock of throw bags in stock and caught sight of the NRS Guardian Waist Throw Bag. To explain until earlier on in the gear I opted to use a Salamander Golden Retriever as my waist bag of choice backed up with a bigger HF bag in my boat. Some how I managed to misplace my Salamander bag along the line so had being making do with a few different solutions from the Palm to the HF Swifty Rescue belt most recently. I just wasn’t feeling the love for anything I had tried so was about to invest in another Golden Retriever but after having a bit of a look and play with the NRS offering I decided to give it a punt and see how it worked out.

On first impression the bag is neat, tidy and well made and the “feel” of a quality bit of kit. The bag consists of a waist mounted belt / sheath which has a Velcro & zip closure to reveal the inner removable bag.

The part of the set up you actually throw feels really compact without ever coming across as too small or flimsy, and I can confirm after using it myself all day on a River Safety Rescue course that it flies straight and true really easy which is something allot of today’s bigger bags can suffer with. I know the diameter of the rope at 6.4 mm will seem thin to allot of people but for me and the fact I only use this as a just in-case bag fits my needs perfect.

One of the things I really liked was that once you put it on you totally forgot your wearing it as it never once feels bulky or gets in the way between your lower back and the boat, sadly the same cannot be said for the Palm and HF offerings along the same lines.

The set up comes with a couple of little features the although small I really liked. The bag all thought compact is super easy / quick to reload and what’s better you can take it out and replace it in the waist belt without having to remove it belt itself with no faff at all.

The belt also have some handy karabiner attachment points a feature which HF also provide, I was skeptical about these at first but now I am coming around to the thinking that they can be really useful. The other thing which I was really pleased about and I know my mates will get a laugh out of this is how over size the length of the belt is, I’m thinking this down to NRS main market is to the USA and there large frames. I always disliked that the HF belt was rather a “snug fit” when you are wearing thermals / dry suit/ spray skirt combo, the NRS belt can be make go pretty much huge as you like. I would say once you find an ideal fit for yourself use a hot knife to trim off the excess.

The blurb from NRS is pretty simple:

The Guardian Bags are worn on your waist, so whether you’re in your boat or scouting a rapid, the throw bag is always at your fingertips.

• Features an internal throw rope in a bag that pulls completely free from the waist belt.
• Throw bag contains 55 feet of 1/4″ polypropylene rope, with a maximum tensile strength of 950 pounds.
• The Guardian clips securely around your waist with an adjustable belt with quick release buckle.
• Webbing loops along the belt are provided for carabiners.

Rope knots reduce tensile strength. For this reason, we make no claims regarding a rescue bag’s strength. Maximum load indicated is for the rope alone.

How to double pump 101 from Adrian Shanahan on Vimeo.

Hi,

A few days back on of the guys from the UKRGB Bren (aka Peakfreak) posted up that there are no videos online that just explain the “double pump” and any that try assume too much previous knowledge from the person looking to learn.

I had being thinking of doing up a few wee how to tutorials but was being a bit lazy about it, I took this as a bit of motivation. I hit a part of the local river two cameras and tripod in hand. Sadly after I had uploaded the footage to my laptop I some lost it all , a fecking disaster so I flew back down to the river with my younger brother Keith “shaky hands” Shanahan and managed to get only 6mins of raw footage before the battery died. I managed to salvage this after all that.

This has kinda inspired me to put a bit of effort in and knock out a few more hoping to improve on the quality.

Stay tuned……

Adrian

This is one of those things that always seems to crop up either after the annual pilgrimage to the Alps or after a big dump of rain after a long dry spell. Contrary to what allot of folks seem to thing these days kayaks are large designed to paddle down rivers avoiding rocks and obstacles as opposed to being rock ramming machines. So its not too uncommon after head on collision with a rock to get a bent nose or a split in your boat.

Thankfully its not the end of the world as in most cases a boat can be repaired, depending on where/ how the kayak is damaged you can get it back to to being pretty close to being full strength again.

This example that I did is of a weld that had been done before that split again, I won’t mention the previous welder but it was his first attempt . In fairness I was there the day it split again and it was a fairly solid thump. So here is a very basic “how to weld your boat”

Here is what I use.

If you click on the photo above you will see a the secret weapon of the whole operation, the modified blow torch. I saw this first used a good few years back and reckon its the best bit of kit for the job.

Patent pending on this bit of custom kit

You will notice the spoon, the idea of that is to prevent the naked flame coming into contact with the plastic which cause carbonation & in turn significantly weakening the plastic.

Step one:

Use your craft knife to clean the split and to make a nice smooth surface to begin your weld on. Be careful not to go nuts here and take way too much plastic away & making the gap massive.

Of course if you are the proud owner of an NRS Wingman that also works a treat.

I then use my drill to bore a hole at either end of the split, 6mm ish bit pending on how wide your split is.

Step two:

Now we need to borrow a strip of plastic from elsewhere in the boat to help fill the gap. I always reckon some where around the side of the cockpit rip works well. Be sure that where ever you take it from is not some where you will catch your hand / dry suit when getting in and out of your boat.

Step three:

Now depending on the type of split I have often placed a small block of timber inside the boat and screwed into it from either side of the crack to strengthen the repair. I didn’t think that was necessary this time but it does work very well.

So now is time to heat up the whole front of the boat around the area that is being worked on, the heat gun does a good job of this. the plastic should start to soften up around 130 deg C if your want to be super anal about it but its fairly easy spot when the plastic starts to look “glazed”.

Step four:

Now this is where the interesting stuff starts to happen, now a word of warning don’t put your hand on the boat to see how how it feels! You will burn your self and it kinda hurts. So get the strip of plastic you cut out earlier and hold it in the your pliers and heat it up so its hot but not melting.  Now place this strip in your split.

Step five:

Now fire up your blow torch and give it a few seconds for the spoon to heat up. If this is the first time using your torch spoon do expect a few sparks/flames as the torch burns any impurities of the metal. From here on it is all down to feel and touch. Use the back of the spoon to melt the filler strip and the plastic either side of the weld.

The idea here is to bond the whole lot together as opposed to just filling the gap with melted plastic. Slow and stead will win the race here so don’t be afraid to crack out the heat gun to keep the working area warmed up.

I often use a metal chisel to help me work the plastic into the split and to try keep things tidy, it can get a bit “gooie” around the weld but stick with it and don’t be tempted to add too much heat.

Step six:

With any luck you have now managed to fill the split in your boat without melting it into a big blog or setting the plastic on fire. What I do now is use the heat gun again to heat up the whole area again to the “glazed” look and use the back of my chisel to dress the plastic into something that looks nice and tidy. Less is more here. Now we want to leave the now the hot front of your boat to cool down nice and slowly while bonding together. Don’t stress if it doesn’t look perfect just yet we will address that next.

Step seven:

Once the boat is now cool to the touch we can make it look a little prettier, hopefully if you were tidy doing your weld this won’t take a min to do. Use the heat gun again to heat up the repaired area to the point where the plastic is just becoming soft and then using the back side of the chisel to smooth out the area. The thing here is we are just working on the top layer of plastic and not wanting to heat the plastic right through.

It’s hard tell from the photo but this turned out pretty well and I reckon its a solid weld, if you have time and you want you can strip out the whole inside of the boat and try access the weld from the back to repeat the process. In my experience of doing that it’s super hard to work in such a small space without using a pencil blow torch.

Here is how mine looked from the inside.

I reckon that’s just about right and that this boat will go on to live many more days on the river.

In wrapping the whole thing up its probably easier to learn not to smash your boat into rocks that it is to repair it. But if you do damage it don’t panic too much I have seen all sorts of things brought back to life with some time and effort.

Anyway try it at your pearl… and sure as I was told when I first tried it years ago…”Its always better to learn on someone else’s boat”.

Best of luck,

Adrian

So I have broke the onlyish kinda rule I set my self when I started this blog thin up, “to keep it updated regularly”. The only positive is that I’ve had loads of stuff on as of late which included some boating & good times.

Clifden Fun Rodeo 09

So for the few weeks leading up to the weekend of 20th/21st of June myself , Bowsie & some of the NUIG/GMIT kayak club crew were busy making plans for Event 2 of the IFS league which was to be held in Clifden Co. Galway.

The idea of the event was was pretty straight forward, “lets get everyone over to Clifden do a training / freestyle event lash a BBQ & beach party in the middle of it all and hope every one has a savage time”. From the feed back we have gotten I say it’s safe to say we did what we set out to do.

We had to limit the numbers to 50 for the competition itself but the training day was open to more and the BBQ was all comers welcome.

After the feature had stopped working on day one we held a quick flatwater rodeo so all the folks cold show their skills to the judges. This was only put in for a bit of “Fun” but I did notice allot or serious faces in the eddy & even heard talk of “ride plan’s”. It was a great spectacle showing off a variety of paddle spins / self reasuces / huge loops and epic cartwheel sequences. In the end Ger O Reily in his pink boat took first place.

That evening were had a BBQ out in the dunes in Dunloughin (or however its spelt), Colm Healy /Ethan / Michelle / Donna cooked up a storm on the BBQ’s making sure everyone was stuffed to the gills with food before they had a social drink. We had DJ Shmenda ( NUIG Oldie) was manning the decks of our make shift mobile night club and blasted the tunes out late late into the night.

I reckon Caitriona O Brein’s photo sums up how most people felt the next day.

After a clean up of the camp site we headed back into clifden to set up for the competition itself!

There was a super turn out for the event with some great runs being put down across all of the classes, a special mention has to be made to Conor Bredin & Adrian Durrant who put down some some nice entry loops.

All in all it was a cracking weekend and folks who were there are really looking forward to hitting up Cork for next months event. There will be a full rundown of results & league standings on IFS in the next day or so, but here is an over all of the weekends scores.

On a personal note I would like to thank everyone who made the event possible, all the guys in NUIG , the people who traveled, the time keepers , judges , scribes, River Deep mountain high, Peak UK, DJ Shmenda, to Bowsie for going to going to bed early so he would be fresh to judge on Sunday and thanks to all those who said thanks.

I-Canoe video night for Irish Freestyle team.

Adrian D & Colm in i-canoe decided to run a bit of a video / social night in the shop to show case the entries for a video comp they had run along with trying to raise some funds for the Irish Freestyle Team who are heading to Thun at the end of the summer. I didn’t make it to the night myself as I was across the far side of the country at the time but I’m informed that it was great craic and loads of prizes were given out.

Well when I say I wasn’t there myself…. Mr Healy owner of i-canoe decided to show a bit of film he made a couple of weeks ago of a spin we had on the Dargle where I had a “paddle malfunction”. I reckon whit friends like this who need enemies…lol Anyway have a laugh at my expense.

After we had gotten of the Dargle we made a quick dash across to Laragh we we got a speed / dusk descent of the Avonmore followed by a pint in Lynamhs. Not a bad round up to a funny evening of after woork boating.

Prior to that paddle incident on the Dargle I had being using Select W1 paddles and really liked but finally gave in to the temptation of Foam Core Werners. In waiting for my custom Werners to arrive I had put my Select’s up for sale not thinking they would shift quick with money being tighter for everyone these but two days later and I had to fall back on some 10 year old Rough Stuff Tempests which were long long past their best before I brought them on the Dargle that evening.

Happy days yesterday when I package arrived in i-canoe for me of two new sets of paddles, 191cm Double Diamonds & 200cm Sho-guns . I know some of ye are thinking 200cm that’s massive but trust me its the forwards for rivers ( or more like back to Slalom style paddles) . Initial impressions apart from they fuel my Carbon fetish is that they feel, super light , rigid & responsive. I am really looking forward to getting some quality river time with them as opposed to the canal outside the shop.

A day out for the dogs..

Last weekend Tullamore Canoe Club held an open day for members of the public to come along and try canoeing and kayaking which also doubled up as a social gathering for friend to catch up and try some new boats. Colm and myself headed along for the day and brought loads of different boats from wild water racers / crossover boats and the worlds newest boat manufactures “Big Dog Kayaks”.

We had a couple of different sizes of the Havoc (playboat) and one of the Kaos ( river play) there on the day and folks were lining up to see how they handled. Most people seemed quiet impressed, myself and Colm had to wait until the very end of the day before we got a shot in them. I had spent the the the previous while doing some freestyle coaching so when I eventually managed to get a go I was pretty spent. What I would say is that the sizing is quiet strange and the outfitting would need a bit more tweaking before I would be happy with it, overall not a bad boat and it give the impression that to would be responsive and loose on a wave.

Last night we had them on the canal with our team looping monkey AD just to make sure they go big on the loops.

So that’s about it for now, there has been loads more happening and the next couple of months it looking good with the Cork Rodeo coming up , a trip to Canada boating and a trip to the World Freestyle Champs in Thun also, not to mention what ever summer boating the Irish weather allows.

Fair play for reading this far, chat to ye later.

Adrian

]]> http://adrianshanahan.com/wordpress/index.php/2009/06/bumper-blog-update/feed/ 0 http://adrianshanahan.com/wordpress/index.php/2009/06/as-seen-on-tvlol/ http://adrianshanahan.com/wordpress/index.php/2009/06/as-seen-on-tvlol/#comments Mon, 15 Jun 2009 11:15:55 +0000 Adrian Shanahan http://adrianshanahan.com/wordpress/?p=345

Hey,

As some of you might know I am a member of the Irish Freestyle Committee and that our National Team are in preparations for the upcoming World Freestyle Championships In Thun Switzerland later in the Summer. RTE’s magazine program Nationwide decided to do a a small piece on the Freestyle Team and Freestyle kayaking as a whole, this was a bit of honour for us as we are the only sport/ discipline to get covered twice.

As this was Filmed at relative short notice and that the team are currently spread from Uganda to the Ottawa I drafted in some help form friends / Sluice locals and those of the national team that were in striking distance of Dublin.

Fellow team i-canoe member James VdB took some shots on the day

The piece aired on Irish National last Friday evening to approx 500,000 + and was received well among both the paddling / non-paddling community.  My only regrets are that there was not some more kayaking shown as a few of the guys managed to go huge on the evening but this wasn’t shown, there were also a couple of more interviews shot too which didn’t get aired ( one of which included the single best “why do you kayak” answers I have ever heard ).

I’d like to thank all those who made this posible in no particular order Cyril & crew from Riverside Television and all the paddlers Jim Keohe, Fran O D, Adrian Durrant, Emer Farrell, Ronan Brennan, Caoimbe Farrell, Brian “Bowsie” Cahill, Eoin Farrell, Niamh Cleary, Cake boy. Also to James for his savage photos and to all the parents who took the time to ferry the juniors about.

The show can be view from inside Ireland on RTE’s Player service right here (alt here ), for those of you without an Irish IP address I have hosted the video on my site here . If you just want to get straight to the freestyle piece just fast forward to 13mins.

Update Feb 2010…

I finially got around to sticking this bit of film online

I’m really looking to traveling with the team to the Worlds this year & thank all those who have helped in their preparations to date.

Adrian

]]> http://adrianshanahan.com/wordpress/index.php/2009/06/as-seen-on-tvlol/feed/ 0 http://adrianshanahan.com/wordpress/index.php/2009/06/how-to-replace-a-latex-neck-seal-101/ http://adrianshanahan.com/wordpress/index.php/2009/06/how-to-replace-a-latex-neck-seal-101/#comments Tue, 09 Jun 2009 10:37:09 +0000 Adrian Shanahan http://adrianshanahan.com/wordpress/?p=307 Hi,

So very recently I loan my cag to a client and we had a bit of an oopsie with the neck seal when it was being taken off. This happens loads of folks & and I know people panic and think it will cost a fortune to send it away to be fixed. With a little bit of concentration and less that 20mins you can have the job done and ready to rock and roll for full use 24hrs later.

Now to be fair I have done a bunch of these back in the days when I worked in an outdoor shop many many moons ago but its seems more daunting that it actually is. The folks in i-canoe hooked me up with a Kokatat neck seal repair kit which has everything you need to do the job, the seals come in two sizes so everyone is covered.

< p>

So as you can see in the kit you get:

• The replacement seal
• Small section of sandpaper
• UV protection solution
• Aquasure glue
• Instructions

There a a bunch of different ways to go about this and I chose not to follow the instructions provided by Kokatat as I had my own way of doing it. So in addition to the kit I also need a craft knife ( or in my cast my NRS wingman) and a method of stretching out the neck of your cag. I have always favoured the use of this specialist bit of kit.

I’ve always used a traffic cone in the past to stretch out the neck of my cag and make the repair easier for me, sadly when the way the Peak creek Cag is made it doesn’t allow it to slide far enough down the cone to get enough of a stretch. I could have resolved this by padding out the cone higher up with some towels but I was feeling kinda lazy& there happened to be a small bucket right beside me that looked like it would do the job just fine.

< p>

So as you can see from the photo I slid the cag over the bucket and using a sharp craft knife I trimmed away the damaged neck seal while still leaving about 35mm of the existing seal. All you have to do now is slide the new seal over your cone/ bucket so it rests pretty close to its finial position. And then lift back the edge as per photo ready for sanding / gluing.

The Next step is just to take the small piece of sand paper you got in your repair kit and give the part of the latex you intend on gluing a very light sand just enough to create a key for the glue to adhere to. Now we are ready to get with the gluing, so open up the tube of Aquasure and apply an even bead around the existing next seal. Be careful no to go to close to the edge or you will stick your cag to the bucket when you pair the new seal.

So once you have applied glue the whole way around the seal it should look kinda like this, the next bit is super easy as all you have to do is fold the new seal on to the now glued section. The trick here is not to be afraid of it and just do it, once it sitting on it rub around the joining with your thumb to make sure you get a good seal and press out all of the air bubbles.

Now were are almost done the new seal is sitting perfect and we have no glue seeping out on our cag. I always like to add an extra bead of aquasure around the seam as it just a nice bit of reassurance and can’t hurt.

Right that’s the job done. The glue sets in 6ish hours but I always like to leave it a little longer before I take it off the cone/ bucket and then give it  an additional 24 hours to to make sure the glue is fully cured. Your cag will now be ready to rock and roll and be 100% dry again.

This is one of those things I reckon every one should try as its pretty easy and only takes 20minutes max, I think it took me longer to write this post that to fix the seal.

If you have any questions fire away.

Laters,

Adrian

EDIT: I have written another guide for a different method which you can find here

</P�< p>

</P�< p>

So a while back I did up a bit of a guide for one of Irelands best play spots Clifden on Irish Freestyle ao I thought I would stick it up here so it wouldn’t get lost in the depths of cyberspace. One of the reasons I did up this post was folks are always asking me the same questions…Where is it, how does it work, can you camp, where can you get good online tides. So I am going to stick up the relevant info and hopefully that will answer any questions, and with the lack of water and the good weather there is no better time to get over to one of Ireland’s premier playspots.

When does it work.

As Clifden is tidal it changes when it works, it works about two hours before Galway harbour high tide ,only Spring tides (full moon / new moon)which are twice every month. The tide has to be above 4.26 meters ( 14ft old money) but comes into its own 4.72 (15.5 ft ). So how that all comes together, look at the tide time table for spring tides and make sure thew are big enough.

Take two hours of the time in this case its 15:52 and get to Clifden and be on the water ready to enjoy yourself. Clifden is usually a pretty friendly place to paddle and great for paddlers of all abilities with swims not being a big deal as the saltwater lake it flows into is not dangerous and gear is easily recovered. What I will say there are a few 5.4 meter tides which while not particularly dangerous it’s not for the faint hearted. But still worth the trip for the more adventurous paddler.

Where to stay

There are two hostels in Clifden village and loads of B&B’s around the area which a quick Google search will give you relevant numbers.  Loads of people when the weather is good make a camping weekend of it and make there way out to Dun Loughan a camp / surf spot a short drive from the playspot.

Here is a google maps link of where it is Now before you blame me for getting lost it can be tricky to find for your first time.

Jackie did an good article for Playak a while back which you can find here which has more info. ( but don’t ring her looking for tide info ) See the attached PDF for 2009 Galway tide time tables. (Information not copyrighted for non comercial use from UK Hydrographic Office)

Any questions just ask or if you have more info to add fire away.

Galway 2009 tides click right here

Adrian

Just a quick note on this:

So of you may know I am currently part of the Irish Freestyle Committee this year and part of our job is to help promote freestyle kayaking and help introduce new people to the sport. I decided to run a “river freestyle” training  day on the river Boyne. Now to be honest the Boyne is far form a freestyle feature meca but there was just enough to allow us have a quality day on the river going over all sorts of things.

We had almost 30 people on the water so the banter was flying and a good day was had by ever one who was there. One of the big things for me was that there was a visible improvement in skills from all the participants on the day, we covered everything for cartwheels / loops / spins & and even some river safety too just to keep the day well rounded. Its fun days out like this that remind me why I was attracted to freestyle all those years ago.

A couple of things I learned on the day we that there are only so many cartwheels you can do before your shoulders feel like thae want to fall off & that every one loves a free t-shirt.

I’m not sure how it happened but everyone seemed to happen but everyone forgot their camera, must have been too busy pulling awesome moves..

I would like to give huge thanks to all the coaches that gave up their time to make the day possible and also to Colm from i-canoe for making the organisation easy for me.

Laters,

Adrian

Colm after a long long day on the river

“Stretching  those legs”

“Smiles & good times all round”

So a couple of weeks ago I made what could only be described a an armature mistake when out paddling, just before the get one of our group ask if they could borrow my river knife to cut some foam. So I took it out of my pocket and unclipped the lanyard it was attached to, they when I got it back I just stuffed it into my PFD pocket and was on my way. Fast forward a short while later I jumped out on the bank to set up some rescue, and when taking a sling out of my PFD pocket my knife flew out in what seemed like a comedy slow motion and straight into the river, where it now resides permanently.

The knife I had I was pretty fond of I had bought it while working in France a few years back, I had a spare Peak UK river knife but I just never liked it! So I dropped into the folks at i-canoe to check out what they had in stock and catch up with the lads. They stock NRS kit which I have always thought was well designed & put together right. The first choice was do I go for a sheath knife or a folding type which I have always favoured.

The 3 models to choose from were the Wingman / Pilot / Co-pilot, I whipped them all out of their boxes and took some photos to help you get a better idea of their scale.

The Co-Pilot is by far the nicest of any of the sheath knives that I have come across, its compact but just the right size while never feeling bulky. If you are the like the Idea of having a knife on the outside of your PFD this is the bit of kit for you, the sheath clips perfectly into lash tabs that are on most rescue vests.

I have to say I was very tempted by the Co-Pilot but in the end I decided to to stick with the folding style that I’m used to. The Wingman is a super bit of design, it is super compact so that it will fit nicely into your PFD pocket but when its open its just the right size to do the job when you most need it.

There was one only one improvement that could be do to make this knife better, its not the easiest to open with one hand should you ever need to do that.  I’ve resolved this with a little bit of tape and 5 minutes, check out the picture below.The bit of tape also allows you to open the knife with you teeth if you are really under pressure. Just a note for the left handers out there, the belt clip on the knife can be whipped off and changed over to the other side with relative ease to make it more ergonomically for the left hookers.

Last but by no means least in the line up is the Pilot knife. Its a full size knife which comes in just over 7 inches long, I reckon its a bit long for kayaking use but for rescue professionals / divers / sailors this is a serious but of kit for you. The construction is super solid and due to its one piece design I could never imagine you breaking this knife.

I think that what river knife paddlers carry with them when out boating is the one piece of kit that never get much thought, the thinks to look out for when you are looking for a knife should include.

• Blade, is it serrated or smooth or a combination of both, the combined is best as have the best of both worlds.
• Knife tip, is it blunt or pointy. Many a person has done a bit of unintentional self harm with pointy blades, pointy blades can be helpful of you ever needed to puncture cut something like a spray skirt ( A sharp blade can make up for this ).
• How are you going to attach it or where are you going to put it?
• What is it made out of, lots of river knives are made out of polished chrome which wont last long in a river environment. And even some blades that are stainless steel they are still not up to the riggers of river use. All of the NRS knives above are made from  420HC Stainless Steel  which is perfect for what we boaters demand of it.

All in all I reckon NRS have you pretty much covered no matter what style of knife you prefer to use, one of the best thing about them aside from there design & savage build quality is that they are super value to with the Wingman coming in at just €25 and the Pilots costing a little bit more at €35.

I can’t stress enough how important it is to have a quality river knife and more importantly how and when to use it.

That’s all until next time.

Adrian

]]> http://adrianshanahan.com/wordpress/index.php/2009/05/the-cutting-edge/feed/ 2