fitness paddling: exercise, train, race by kayak & canoe

It's basically a one purpose boat. I wanted a kayak to do the Blackburn Challenge. The surfski is fast but it's unstable and I can really only manage it in maybe 1 1/2 foot waves without more practice on choppy water. I wanted a kayak with a design similar to the Huki but with a deck and sprayskirt so I could roll if the sea is rough. Initially I thought of having the Mystery made as a strip boat ... but I'm a little short of cash because I'm renovating the kitchen. And Dave thought it would be a really cool project to try to build. So designing the boat has been a lot of fun! It's truly an experimental boat. SOF are not normally used for racing.

Dave Isbell is a SOF kayak builder. Check pictures of his beautiful baidarka.

Are SOF kayaks used for racing? Well, maybe not in Blackburn Challenge yet. However, the Greenland National Kayak Championships include racing, see Alison Sigethy's Greenland Adventure. Folding kayaks were raced in 1936 Olympic Games. Birgit Fisher promotes her Nautirad ICF K1 folder for training and racing. Folding kayaks are doing fine in WaterTribe expedition races.

Peter Unold wrote some interesting comments on Harvey Golden’s new Kayaks of Greenland book in his blog. He is finding similarities between traditional Greenland kayaks and modern ICF racing kayaks:

While I was never into the whole Qajaq/Greenland culture worshiping thing, I figured it would be interesting to learn about the origin of our sport. I was not disappointed and have nothing but praise for the book. For once there’s actually a book on kayaking which rises above the level of banality.

I remember Martin Nissen once told me about qajaqs with the characteristics (beam / speed / tippiness) of modern days race kayaks. Now I know what he meant. Some of the qajaqs described in the book (37cm beam!) has far more in common with ICF racers than your typical sea kayak barge. And why not? The hunters were professional paddlers hitting the water as often as possible. This is not unlike race paddlers who train every day (twice a day for the national team paddlers). Not that this really is related to the typical modern day incarnation of the qajaq culture…

I am thinking about traveling to some distant races by air with a folding kayak. Long distance driving is just getting too expensive and time consuming. I can try this approach with my Feathercraft K1 Expedition, but I would like to have something much lighter and faster. Birgit Fisher's folding racing K1 built by Nautirad would be too extreme for me. So, the only solution (and more affordable one) seems to build a foldable racing kayak by myself using, e.g., Tom Yost technology.

Books about traditional and skin on frame kayaks:

• Kayaks of Greenland by Harvey Golden
• Building the Greenland Kayak: A Manual for Its Contruction and Use by Christopher Cunningham
• Building a Greenland Kayak by Mark, M.D. Starr
• Eastern Arctic Kayaks by John D. Heath
• Hooper Bay Kayak Construction by David W. Zimmerly
• Building Skin-on-Frame Boats by Robert Morris
• Qayaq: Kayaks of Alaska and Siberia by David W. Zimmerly
• Wood and Canvas Kayak Building by George Putz
• Baidarka: The Kayak by George B. Dyson
• The Aleutian Kayak: Origins, Construction, and Use of the Traditional Seagoing Baidarka by Wolfgang Brinck

Related posts:

• Kayak Building as a Winter Project? Stripper, Stitch-and-Glue, Skin on Frame ...
• Folding Kayaks in 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin
• Folding Racing K1 Kayak from Birgit Fischer and Nautiraid