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What is Airalite? I came across this name being a new material used for kayaks. In fact (expedition)-seakayaks are made from it.
Is Airalite a tecnique, a material are just a name? The fact is that every inquiry leads back to Perception, who probably adapted a new material in its building proces.
Looking at the details (see below) it is a promising material: strong with good charcteristics, but cheaper than glassfiber kayaks.
Looking at the information I found, I am just wondering how it works: It is described as a thermo-formed material. Being a packaging technologist I am thus forced to believe that the proces starts using a thick sheet of plastic that, after heating up, is sucked&blown into a mould.
That is of course a good idea because the production-time will be much shorter than with an glasfiber kayak; even shorter than a rotomolded kayak.
But thermoforming has also disadvantages: In the deepest parts of the kayak (most abrasive spots) the plastic sheet is stretched most and will also be thinner there. The same with sharp corners. So a kayakdesign demands special attention to the model (round shapes) thus preventing thinner spots. Also the qualitycontrol must focus on wallthicknesses.
Another disadvantage is that it will be deformed by heat (this is the result of a material being able to be formed this way, which means that the modelling-proces can also be reversed); the more heat applied to the kayak the more it is willing to go back to its original shape: the flat sheet of plastic.
And without a possibility of repair. But as the dangerous temperature is around 180°C, most situations in normal life are threatless. What to think of low temperatures? Perception tells us it will be more brittle then, but when not exagerating the use of the kayak, nothing will happen. We will see! What about the impact ice can have while paddling?
This thermoforming proces is suitable for most kayaks as the shape of a kayak is not very complicated when looking at two shells to be made: the hull and the deck.
But this is at the same moment a weak spot: how are these two shells connected to each other without the risk of separating under load or without the chance of leakage. This must be a very good glue: strong, durable with the characteristic of filling small holes at the spots both shells don´t have 100% contact with each other.
So my conclusion is that this is indeed a good idea to produce kayaks using the thermoform-proces, but I am curious if there are already some experiences with these Airalite-kayaks.
Who knows more about this?
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A few details I found at the WWW:
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As you may have read earlier in my weblog, I saw this winter a tidal creek at the most easterly point of the island of Terschelling. It stimulated my phantasy to paddle once into this at high tide. Not a simple idea because after starting at the main land it is difficult to arrive at the high tide, necessary to enter the creek.
However, I got some comments of people who did not see this creek before or people who investigated Google-earth and did not find any indication of it.
But: in my camera was still a picture and after having it developed I am happy to show a picture here.
It looks that big that I cannot really believe it just was created this winter.
Besides that it was also on this old map:
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Today, early in the morning, I returned the Vestvika to Bram, the proud owner and designer.
I left her at Bram´s With pain in my hart because I enjoined paddling her, especially the speed sensation she gives.
Not that I am ready now: I would like to paddle the Vestvika once more in big following, regular waves to investigate if I will encounter nose-diving or not.
However, at the moment I have a problem with my lower back (hoping it is only the muscles) and I think a few weeks of rest is a wise thing to do. That means: no paddling in the twilight zone of "to paddle or not to paddle". May-be even no paddling at all.
So therefor I returned the kajak, to give Bram the opportunity to paddle his own kajak again.
In the mean time I will start writing, which is quit a time-consuming activity as I will read all my notes and compose the testreport
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If I look back in my weblog, I see that I have done quite a lot of kayaking for the last 2 months.
The test of the Vestvika is most responsible for that, together with the weather, offering me good testconditions. Besides that I didn´t want keep Bram´s testkayak for too long and return it within an acceptable period of time.
So tonight: kayaking again!
Now on the Alkmaardermeer with Annet and Wietse. Our mission was to perform the X-rescue with the Vestvika and shoot pictures of it.
As I was the victum, I dressed in my steamer for long periods of immersion in the water.
The middle of the lake was a realistic spot to perform our exercise; also the best place with some waves to make the decor.
We practised the X-rescue in 3 different ways: the normal way with the reentry between the kayaks, the version with the reentry from beside the kayaks And Wietse´s version (the kiwi-X-rescue) entering from the aft deck lying on your belly.
After finishing we concluded we should practise this kind of thing much more often. For now we could´t stop playing and we rolled, re-entried and so on...!
And if all this was not enough for one evening, we finished with a small tour in which Annet and I also exchanged our kayaks: the Vestvika and Sirius HF.
This gave me also the opportunity the compare both kayaks.
All together a very informative evening.
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As I am currently testing the Vestvika from MSC, I needed also some heavy sea to test the kayak in. Part of my test-protocol is paddling and surfing in breaking waves because I need to know what a seakayaker can face when he or she has to navigate in breaking waves or surf when the weather has turned bad. Just to let them know on forehand how the kayak will behave in a situation like that in case they have ever to face these conditions themselves.
Sometimes I have to wait some time for heavy weather. However this time I was lucky. I followed the wind-forecasts on www.windfinder.com/forecast/ijmuiden and already a week on forehand, the expectations were windforces of 8 Bft on thursday till saterday. Honestly I thougth this was too heavy for a test. But here I was lucky again, for during the week the expectations changed in my favour: the whole week there was quite a lot of wind with the climax on friday with 8Bft. But saterday, testing-day, a windforce of 5-6 Bft was expected. Perfect, because "the wind is still in the water" and quite a lot of surf can be there.
Saterdaymorning 9.00h: Wietse and I were standing on the beach of Bakkum and Castricum. The surf looked impressive. May be it is because of this that I dressed myself in my steamer backwards: with the back on my breast. At the moment I wanted to close the zipper I just wondered: was the zipper always on my breast?? Last time I remember it to be on my back. Joking: I only have this steamer for at least 10 years already.
There is no other way then to undress again and go through the heavy cycle of undress and dress again. Don´t laugh, you there!!
First I paddled alone while Wietse shot pictures of me in the surf.
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Whow, what's that, I thougth when I stumbled over the "hydro skeg" at internet today.
Next thougth was: Shit! Did I decide finally, after years, to have a variable skeg built into my AnasAcuta and do I find 3 weeks after completing, a much better system.
It has also a name: Murphy's law, from good old, never dying, Mr. Murphy.
However that's life!
Now to business:
The Hydro skeg is a skeg that is not controlled by rope, or by a stainless steel wire, but by hydrolics.
That´s news and can be a great improvement because the rope controlled skeg is not very user-friendly and the stainless steel operated skeg can have the problem of damaging cq. kinking the stainless steel wire; for instance when landing on the beach while forgetting to retract the skeg.
Anyhow it is new and worth investigating it.
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Noorderhaaks is a small island in the NorthSea. In the past it was infamous and known as a hazard to all ships. Quite a lot of ships were wrecked on this big sandbank; smashed to pieces by the poundering surf.
This tells something about the conditions you could meet there as a seakayakker. In a NW-wind it is therefor not recommended to circumnavigate it, for conditions can be too challenging; especially on the NW-side.
So you have to take into account that there is a realistic chance planned trips must be cancelled. Because of this I never made this trip before.
However today I was lucky; my kayakclub planned a tour there and the easterly 5 Bft.-wind did not stop us this time.
The only thing was that we could face rough water on our way back in the Marsdiep where, at that time, a strong current against the 5Bft.wind can cause quite a heavy sea.
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Today Hans Heupink planned a tour in the Voordelta for the TKBN.
Unfortunately the weatherforecast was too bad to go out with a group of 20 kayakkers: wind NW 5Bft ; showers accompanied with gales of 7Bft and hail and thunder.
So HAns cancelled the tour; with pain in his hart. It was however for the safety of the participants.
Because I discussed with Hans the day before to participate, he called me, knowing I work on the test of the VestVika, if I would like to go out anyway, but in a small group.
I said yes because I always want to test a kayak on the dim border of "to paddle or not to paddle"
So there we are: saterday 10.00h in the morning. Hans and I stand there looking out over a windy sea. On the horizon we see the breaking surf at the Aardappelenbult.
First thing Hans did, interessted as he is in the speedmachine Vestvika, to lay down his Pintail next to the Vestvika. We are amazed how much slimmer the Vestvika is, compared to the Pintail; which also known as a slim kayak.
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Last Saterday was lost because I had to work than. However, today I compensated this by staying home for a day. A day I spent completely to "dry kayakking". It feels almost like a present, which is nonsense of course.
Anyhow, I had time for doing quite a lot of kayak-related activities.
Like working at my website and a couple of other sites.
Like customising the Vestvika again: just changing the footrest which turned out to be too tigth.
More important was customizing the AnasAcuta again. This was necessary now the variable skeg has been built in. It was nice: playing around with bits and pieces of foam for some hours, sitting in the sun in my garden.
Having done that, the skeg itself needs also some finetuning and I grinded the edges a little bit away for better "free running" of the blade in the housing.
After having finished all this kayak-related activities there was also time for the real work and I ended the day with a 23km-paddle to the kayakclub and back.
Yeah, it feels good, having done al this.
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Everybody has his habits: good, bad, strange, ... !
One of my habits is that I store a testkajak at home in the narrow corridor: a safe place. That is the way I am used to nurse the properties I borrow from persons.
A few days ago I used the same place to customize theVestVika-testkayak with foam. Doing that I am busy for a couple of hours, making a mess there with all the bits and pieces of foam around the kayak.
It is ready now and in the mean time I paddled the customized kayak and am happy with the result.
Most of the time I can't be stopped in preaching felllow-kayakkers how important it is to customize your own kayak to suit your own physics.
It is not the first time I am asthonished about the result, in such a way that a kayak can behave completely different (read: much better) than before the customizing.
Try yourself.