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This is the title of a book from earlier days (before1989) in seakayaking and is describing seakayak explorations along the Scottish coast.
Days in which nobody could think of a GPS, a GSM, a satelite telephone or other modern gear. But the kayakkers of these days turned out to be very skilled in navigating without al this.
As I read the book long ago, it comes sometimes back into my mind togeter with the wist to read it again. So I tried to buy it, but I did not succeed. Even a secondhand one stayed out of reach.
BUT: as a suprise a good friend of mine, Hans Ammerlaan and a collector of ancient kayaks books, phoned me on the 1th of april:
""are you still interested in The Argonauts... ? Yes of course!! You found one for me? OK, just buy it!""
After some hours, I must confess, I thougth " could this be an 1-april-joke ?" No...., I never saw Hans think of jokes like that.
So, Yesterday there it was, Hans dropped by and brougth me the book. Unfortunately I was not at home and he had it carefully dropped in the postbox by lowering it with a rope.
THX Hans!!!
So now the reading can start. What I especially remember from the book is an impressive tour where a couple of the leading seakayakers from the time dit meet themselves after having decided they could manage to paddle home after a gale did come up.
They felt immense small and lonely in this see and did learn they should ever respect the sea.
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Last wednesday-evening I was paddling a Baidarka with a kinetik wing-paddle for a tour from home to the kayakclub and back; in total approx. 20km.
For this occasion I took my GPS with me for recording speed. At first I adopted as a target to paddle at 8-8,5km/h, because it felt quit relaxed this evening and as an experiment how I could maintain this.
At a certain moment my GSM came to life: ring-ring: Jos here!; Where are you?
Jos was paddling in the northern part of the "Alkmaarder meer" and we made an appointment to meet somewhere in the middle. From that moment on I let go my speed-target and decided to go for the highest speed possible for the distance. At first this was something between 9-9,5km/h. After a while however, when coming in some kind of a cadence, I noticed I went down to 8-8,5km/h, although it felt as if I was working harder than before. Strange!
As I heard my paddel blades bubbling cq. cavitating while pulling through, I tried to concentrate on tecqnique and forget about speed. This worked: as the cavitation noise disappeard, my strokes were longer again and with the correct body-rotation, I reached the 9,5km/h easily again.
5 minutes later: I spotted 2 clubmembers ahead of me and automaticaly I started thinking of overtake them.
And again the speed dropped an again I succeeded, after realizing this, to concentrate again and to speed up.
Later in the evening I was paddling home again. As it was later than planned, I was very eager to arrive at home and tried to go for the highest speed I could reach.
But again I was was only cruising at 8-8,5km/h. This time however I could not forget my desire to go fast AND thus my speed did not become higher.
Partialy this could be due to getting tired, but as paddling felt different now, not as fluently as before, I concluded that the maximum speed you can reach, is partially also a mental issue.
When you are too eager to go fast, you can't.
May be the message should be: relax your mind and just go!
So there is still something to learn
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While Willem Molengraaff and I had been testing quite a lot of seakayaks during the last 15 or 20 years, we only noticed that there are not very much testreports on seakayaks available on the internet.
Of course we know the reports in The Seakayaker Magazine. They seem to work with a standard group of testers and they make a structured summary of the remarks they recieve from the testers on the kayak.
But besides that we did not find any structured tests of seakayaks in the world.
Of course there is paddling.net where everybody can posts his or hers comments on a kajak in the review-section. This is of course very interesting, but you not always get a complete impression of the kayak.
Than there is the Norwegian magazine "Paddling" where, since 1 or 2 years, testreports are now published. The point is: you must be able to read Norwegian and these tests are not available in the "world wide web".
As I can read norsk I am thinking of subscribe to this magazine. Only have to investigate how to pay without to much administrative costs for crossing the money over the Dutch border.
But now something has changed as I noticed that there is Douglas Wilcox testing seakayaks as well and publishing reports on his weblog
SeaKayakPhoto.com.
I am happy to mention 3 tests from this collegue in testing:
Rockpool - Alaw and Alaw Bach
P&H -Quest LV
Valley - Nordkapp LV
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Hans Heupink sent me some pictures of me in addition on my post from 29 jan. Thx Hans!
It's about Siem giving me instruction in rolling.
The backward roll:
The forward roll:
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As a kayaktester I look at the behaviour of seakayaks in respect to whether they show lee- and/or weathercocking.
Last week I had an email-discussion with Axel about leecocking of seakayaks.
Axel wrote at a certain moment that he feels that most seakayaks show leecocking when the wind starts exceeding 6Bft.
We had both a different theory to explain this.
Axel explained it as a difference between paddling fast (in less wind) and slower (much wind): As a result of your speed the pressure-points of the wind on the side of your kayak changes resulting in lee-or weathercocking.
My explanation of the mechanism is that, when you are paddling with a normal balanced kayak in this kind of wind, there are waves. And when you pas a wave your bow is likely to be lifted a little bit in the air.
At that moment the wind can push the bow aside. That's just it!: this is the leecocking in strong winds. The stronger the wind and the higher and/or steeper the waves are the stronger this effect will be.
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The NKB (Dutch Kayak Organisation) organised this weekend a workshop with 4 sessions in which Freya Hofmeister gave instruction in "The new way of rolling": the relaxed way.
That sounded good to me as well as to 7 other clubmembers of KVU: So 8 of us subscribed together. KVU must be an enthousiastic club, for with the 8 of us, we claimed 25% of the whole workshop.
Anyhow, Freya started to explain and demonstrate what we were going to do and learn: It seemed all extremely easy and relaxed.
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During the last weeks I have been busy with collecting and studying all the notes I made while testing the Skim Distance. To compose a test-report from these, that is kind of an art.
But I like that and I see it as the ultimate challenge to write an objective report.
Once I have a first draft I like to discuss it in detail with Willem Molengraaff. Since he had to stop paddling and testing, I appreciate him acting as a kind of mentor. He has so much experience and I also like to keep him involved with the testing. We did this too long together to stop talking about kayaks all at once.
So there we are, thursday evening 25 januar in Nunspeet, discussing my first draft.
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Click on the map for an enlarged version:
With thanks to Arjen Meurs making this map.This winter already belongs to the warmest during last centuries in Holland. A pity when you would like going skating. For Seakayakkers however, winterpaddling becomes a lesser extreme sport this winter. The temperature in Holland might be alright for paddling but the wind quite often exceeds force 7. This happens more than normal and you expect those windy days more in autumn.
Even last night the SW-wind was recorded having blown at force 9. Because it was predicted to decrease in the early morning, I didn't cancel the tour for today.
As the sea might be very rough after a night like that because, as the say in Scheveningen , "the wind is in the water", we went to the IJsselmeer to start our little tour in Monnickendam with destination Marken and Volendam. Quite a safe area to paddle with the availing SW-winds.
We were with 5: Peter, Gilbert, Wieger, Ajen from Bunnik and myself. Having started the wind was not decreased yet and was still blowing at force 5 with strong gusts.
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Yesterday the winter begun. This didn't stop me to think about paddling. Also Rob and Annet liked the idea and joined me.
We had hoped for some kind and friendly weather because the predictions went that way. Although the weather was quite nice with an easterly 2 Bft wind and a temperature of 5°C, we never saw the tiniest part of the sun.
We started at the coast near Bakkum in NoordHolland and headed for Egmond aan Zee; paddling along the coast.
We paddled the gentle sea on the ripples, made by the easterly wind blowing into the sea. It is strange, Rob said, to compensate for weathercocking in the direction of the beach.
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Saterday I had a real cosy morning with Willem Molengraaff..
We met halfway the dam between Lelystad and Enkhuizen to discuss the Skim Distance, the kayak I am testing currently, in a final session of the test.
Our meeting point was ideal today because the small sandbeach was protected by the dam against the wind, blowing at about 5 Bft from SW.
Seated in a small beachtent we discussed the test so far, as well as technical details of the kayak.
As the water was nearby I had the opportunity to try the outrigger-strappings en the paddlefloat re-entry; something I forgot last week. It felt quite cold really, as I took only a long-john, a shirt and jack with me. Brrrrrr!
Also Willem wanted to paddle and tried the Distance as well.
So there we are, just finished in time for winter really starts and also just in time to return the kayak to Peter Grobbee, who needs the kayak back.
And now the writing of the testreport can start; seated next to the stove in a warm room. No more coldwater sessions!