Wed - February 15, 2006

Folding Racing K1 Kayak from Birgit Fischer and Nautiraid


Birgit Fischer
Birgit Fischer is a legend of kayak sport. She won 8 gold medals over a record 6 different Olympic Games: twice representing East Germany, then four times representing the reunited nation. After both the 1988 and 2000 games, she announced her retirement, only to return for the subsequent games. She has been both the youngest- and oldest-ever Olympic canoeing champion (ages 18 and 42). In 2004 she was voted German sportswoman of the year. And, she is not retired yet ...

She has a website KanuFisch (in German). It is worth to check her photogallery which is not so easy to find. There are many celebrity style pictures with all her medals, but there are also several good pictures of her paddling or sitting in a kayak where you can see very closely how she is holding a paddle.

Birgit Fisher has worked with Nautiraid to develop a folding K1 kayak for easy transportation to training and racing. She started to promote that kayak last year. Some technical parameters: length 5200 mm (17'7") width 390 mm (15.35"), weight ca.13.5 kg (29.8 lb) , load 95 kg (210 lb), folded size 1040x400x100mm (40.95x15.7x4"), color black, racing seat from Plastex.

The kayak costs EUR 1740 in German Kanu-Connection.

After watching the video below, I would say that they need a little bit more practice in assembling that kayak.

Birgit Fischer and Nautirad



Actually, the idea of a racing folder is not new. Solo and double folding kayaks raced 10K distance in the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. The gold medalist in 1936 were Gregor Hradetzky from Austria in solo folding kayak with the time of 50:01.2 minutes and Sven Johansson and Eric Bladström from Sweden in tandem (45:48.9). I wonder what folding kayaks were used at that time for racing.


Posted at 12:51 AM    


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