New tools (or rather, toys)

Within the last two weeks, lots of new gear for the trip has arrived from various kayak dealers and sponsors. Most significant are the new paddles from Werner and Lendal, and Jespers new kayak (more on that part later from Jesper).

The feel of paddling with the Lendal paddle (straight carbon shaft with carbon Kinetic Small blades on, 210 cm long) is quite different from the Werner camano (straight carbon shaft with fibreglass blades, 215 cm long). The powerface of the Lendal Kinetic blade is almost flat, where the Camano's blades have a pronounced rib along the centerline. My impression is that the Werner blade has more catch, and less tendency to flutter during the pull phase of the stroke. The blade tends to stick in the water when ending the stroke, thereby making the effort to begin the next stroke a little larger.

The Lendal, on the other side, feels much more smooth to paddle - both catch, pull and exit from the water requires less "grip" and effort on the paddle's shaft. During the pull phase, the Lendal blades have a tendency to flutter - with some hours of practice, i figured out much sliding away from the boat was required to avoid the flutter.

...so, that was only forward-paddling experiences. Next comes rudder strokes and rolling/bracing performance - but more on that later.

...to be continued.

What about a bigger challenge?

What about a bigger challenge? Read more on Patrick Winterton's current project, which is not paddling around the Faroe Islands, but from Wales to the Faroe Islands.

"On the 1st of May 2008, Patrick Winterton will start his most challenging expedition to date, kayaking from Aberdovey on the Welsh coast, around Ireland, up through the Hebrides and onto the Faroe Islands. Following 'Scottish Extremities' and 'Stevensons' lights' Patrick will make a third and final film on solo sea kayaking. 'Celtic Tiderace' will focus on the little known islands off the coast of Ireland and will follow the story of St Brendan the navigator, a 6th century Irish saint. After reaching the Butt of Lewis, the northern point of the Hebrides Patrick will attempt to be the first paddler to kayak across 300km of open ocean to the Faroe Isles in a standard sea kayak."

Patrick: All the best wishes from us on your journey - We hope you reach Thorshavn safely.

Training status

A quick update on the training and preparations going on for my part (More to come from Jesper soon)

Several short trips (1-3 hours) on the water to try out gear. In these trips, i try to put in some interval training (sprint/relaxing intervals) but need to put more structure into that. In general, these trips are not "flat water conditions going for it when there is wind/waves, and trying the kayak in surf on the danish west coast.

Long trips on the water: Paddled a solo trip in the Valley Avocet, a 48km in good conditions in less than 24 hours (including biouvac on the beach, and a short portage of kayak and gear. It was warm, and i had to eat and drink plenty (more than anticipated), but kept the body running without problems.

Other training: Daily 1½ hours of cycling, occassional running and doing strength exercises at home.

We have an idea in the pipeline, to train some navigation in tide/wind-induced currents in Lillebælt to improve our experience with route-planning in these conditions.

Equipment upgrades

(See below for updates, added 10. june 2008)

For the past two weeks, new gear has been arriving. First of all, Jesper and I agreed to buy new kayaks for the trip. It makes good sense that both paddlers in the team use kayaks that are equally fast, so we avoid the situation of one paddler struggling to keep up with the other for all of the trip.

So - first new kayak is a (used) Rockpool Menai 18, which is now waiting to get the large seat exchanged for a smaller one. Apart from that, it is one mean load carrier, and from the experiences so far, it performs well on the water.


Next, we got a new GPS - Garmin GPSMap 76CSx. I'm using it this week for a round of geocaching to get familiar with it - next step is to get it in a waterproof bag (seems to be necessary even though it says "waterproof" in the manual), and take it for a spin on the water.

Update Tuesday 2008-06-10 on Kayak and GPS experiences:
Today, i recieved the seat for the Menai 18 - it fits perfectly and provides a much improved contact with the boat. This weekend, i had the chance to surf some waves on the danish west coast, which gave a good impression of the Menai's performance in rough water: Very forgiving and relaxing to paddle - the only thing i missed was some more edge control - the boat requires some effort to put on edge (compared to my Valley Avocet) - but i expect that this will improve with the new smaller seat.

Last week, i went geocaching for a couple of hours with the new GPS - it is a great tool (and toy) and after some hours of practice, using it becomes quite easy and natural. One of the neat features is that it can be configured to display information with really large digits, making it readable even when sitting in a dry bag in front of the kayak cockpit. One 'gotcha' that i needed an hour or two of paddling to figure out though, was that the built-in magnetic compass isn't useful (i ended up turning it off) when the GPS is not horizontal.

Happy paddling!
Tue

What's in a name?

Choosing a name for a kayaking trip in the first place is somewhat difficult - but we find that it matters because, in many aspects, the name is the first thing people see or hear about the trip.
For this trip, the name "Sea of Flames" came from the website of Axel Schoevers from the Netherlands, who posted a great trip report of a trip around the Faroe Islands. In our opinion, the name illustrates both the great experiences that are waiting, and the amount of respect and careful planning needed to paddle around the Faroe Islands. Thanks, Axel, for the inspiration!

Dry suit testing and maintenance

This weekend, Jesper and I recieved two brand-new Kokatat Expedition drysuits for the trip, and had the first chance to try them out in the surf. The overall impression is really good, the quality and the attention to detail that went into them are amazing. One thing we discovered was the importance of greasing up the metal zippers - without some sort of lubrication, they simply get stuck which (as Jesper can probably testify) isn't ideal when you're wearing the suit and need to get it off.

Judging from this weekend's experiences, my guess is that the zippers need maintenance at least once or twice week when the suit is used on a daily basis. I went to the local diver's store and bought a stick of zipper grease, which seems to work really well. But what if you're stranded somewhere without that sort of stuff? What else works, and are there some substances to be avoided?

Difficult landings

A complete circumnavigation of the Faroe Islands is approximately 450 kilometres of paddling - not a overwhelming distance if it was to be paddled on flat, protected water. But we expect that the paddling will be anything but that. Rough seas, swell and wind is going to be on the agenda, so we'd better be prepared for it.

So, how do we go around training for the trip? Well, as the saying "train as you fight" proposes, it makes good sense to paddle in conditions similar to what we can expect to meet, and get familiar with that. The danish west coast provide the rough seas, swell and wind, but the difficult landing spots are harder to find.


On today's trip, i found one though. It is a section of the coast south of Hirtshals in Northern Jutland, Denmark. After paddling out of the large harbour, the outer part of the harbour produces massive chop and reflecting waves for around 1km, followed by a section of the coast with car-sized boulders in the midst of the surf zone.

After scanning the coastline for a few kilometres, we spotted a few places with some safe surf, and had a great time playing in the waves. And at the end of the trip, just as we approached the entry to the harbour, the ferry from Norway arrived, kicking up the waves reflecting off the harbour.


So, to wrap it up, making the most of the following weeks and months of paddling is important to get physically ready for the trip. What are the possible approaches? Probably a mixture of:

• Paddling in "realistic" conditions (rough seas, wind, surf).
• Paddling long distances (50+ km/day for several days).
• Training long crossings, navigation and getting acquainted with all the gear.
  
• Physical exercises "in the backyard" to gain body strength.
• Eating properly, getting enough sleep.

Now, i'll make an attemt for the last bullet on the list. Goodnight!