P&H Hammer Kayak Review

Photo: Dan Caldwell — P&H Hammer Kayak Review

A review of the P&H Hammer sea kayak by Adventure Kayak magazine.

Three years ago, the P&H Delphin was considered radical. Since then, the pioneering playboat has gained significant traction amongst the traditionally conservative sea kayaking community. P&H Sea Kayaks owner and designer Graham Mackereth admits his design team had no idea the Delphin would be so well received—only a hunch that the timing was right for a sportier sea kayak.

Now, the Delphin has set the stage for an even more radical design, the Hammer—prompting P&H to define a whole new category in their line-up: ocean play.

Given their pedigree—Mackereth founded Pyranha whitewater kayaks in 1971 and acquired P&H in 2003; and designers Rich Taylor and Robert Peerson split their time between modeling kayaks for rivers and sea—it’s no surprise P&H are leading the way in this emerging niche.

One of the first things you’ll notice about the Hammer is that it’s built like a whitewater kayak…

P&H Hammer specs

Length: 13 ft  8 in

Width: 24.5 in

Weight: 50 lbs

Price: $1,799

www.phseakayaks.com

This article originally appeared in Adventure Kayak, Summer/Fall 2013. To continue reading the full review and watch an exclusive video review, download our free iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch App or Android App or read it here for free.

Daily Photo: Fall Favorites

Photo: Kaydi Pyette — Daily Photo: Fall Favorites

Where’s you’re favorite place to go canoeing to see the leaves change color?

Want to see your photo here? Send it to [email protected] with the subject “Daily Photo.”

Launch and Load

Gear

Photo: Virginia Marshall — Launch and Load

“C’mon, it’ll be fun,” I promised. The idea for a no-carbon, paddle-and-pedal circuit on our local rivers and roads had hit me Friday afternoon. There was just one problem: I had assured Vince a relaxing weekend and the no-emission adventure comprised a near marathon. “It’s not that far,” I added. He looked at me doubtfully before grabbing his bike.

Whether you’re putting pedal to the metal on a long pavement portage or traversing rooted trails, glopping mud and sugary sand dunes with kayak in tow, there’s a kayak cart that makes the job easy.

Check out the Summer/Fall 2013 edition of Adventure Kayak, where we video review four field-tested kayak carts for every transportation need. Download our free iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch App or Android App or read it here for free.

Take Your Canoe For One Last Paddle This Season

Trips

Photo: Flickr user treewoman8 — Two great events to get you on the water this fall

Fall is a great time to get out on the water; mild temperatures, beautiful fall foliage and best of all – no pesky mosquitoes. Check out these fall paddling events and get some extra time on the water before winter hits.

Paddle Florida – October 12th – 17th, 2013

Paddle Florida is a non-profit organization that is devoted to promoting water conservation, wildlife preservation, springs restoration and waterways protection. Paddle Florida will be hosting five week-long paddles along protected waterways in Florida.

The first event takes place October 12th – 17th on the Suwannee River. The trip takes place along 73 miles, with stops at various county and state parks. The cost is $275 USD per adult, meals and shuttles are available for an additional cost.

For more information check out www.paddleflorida.org

Cumberland 101-Mile Race – October 19th, 2013

Kentucky’s first marathon race for canoe, SUP, and kayak paddlers, the Cumberland 101-Mile race begins in Somerset, KY, going from one end of the 101-mile Lake Cumberland to the other. Racers can take part in the 101-mile race, a 50-mile race, 36-mile race or 12-mile race.

The race begins at 7am, and racers participating in the 101-mile race will be arriving at the finish line well after dark in the light of the full moon. Cost for the event is $101 USD. For more details contact Event Coordinator Susan Powell on their contact page: http://www.cumberland101.com/contact.php

Whitewater High

Stories

Photo: Anna Bruno — Loading boats is all part of the learning experience at World Class Academy

Catching my breath in the eddy alongside Mundaca on Chile’s Futaleufu River, I smile as I watch one of of my students drop in again and again for a voluntary beatdown. The crowd cheers as she flips. The bright yellow of her boat flashes as it tumbles end over end in the frothy pit. She pops up grinning behind the wave, throwing a fist in the air in celebration.

We’re at the annual freestyle competition at FutaFest. Low water levels caused event organizers to move the competition last-minute. The notorious Mundaca is a big-water class IV rapid with a busy entry full of laterals, waves and hydraulics capable of throwing even the most seasoned Futa paddlers off line and into the jaws of the nearly river-wide hole downstream.

In lieu of a traditional freestyle competition, competitors walk to the top of the rapid three times and throw their best downriver moves. After three attempts, competitors get 30 minutes to ride the feature as many times as they want. Even the local paddlers are nervous. Yet, here’s this 17-year-old American girl, grinning as she drops in—because it’s fun.

I can hardly believe that the kayaker fist pumping and chatting in Spanish is the same student who swam this rapid three days in a row last year. She had spent days on the verge of tears at any mention of Mundaca. Her fear was so intense that we spent an entire class period looking at the rapid so she could read the line more clearly…

To read more about Anna Bruno’s experience with World Class Academy check out Rapid, Early Summer 2013. Download our free iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch App or Android App or read the rest here.

Dagger Jitsu Review

Photo: Chris Gragtmans — A review of Dagger's new Jitsu playboat

This whitewater kayak review originally appeared in Rapid magazine.

It’s not always easy for companies to garner award-winning status with each new product release. Some of the biggest brands in the world have had a few products I bet they’d like to forget about—Crystal Pepsi, Apple’s Maps App, and McDonald’s Arch Deluxe. The important thing is to learn from the past and move forward, and that’s exactly what Dagger has done with the Jitsu.

The first thing that stands out about the Jitsu is its all-new contour ergo Outfitting. Cool graphics on the fabric aside, the most attractive feature of the entire system is the rotomolded seat with leg-lifter. This framework stiffens the kayak’s hull, making the boat bouncier on waves. It’s easy-to-use ratcheting leg-lifter holds your legs and knees up where they should be, aggressively braced for throwing your entire body into big aerial moves. Drop in foot blocks and foam shims on the hip pads and you’ll become one with the Jitsu in under 10 minutes.

The Jitsu is noticeably more in harmony with today’s freestyle moves than its predecessor, the Agent. The medium 5.9 Jitsu is a little over two inches shorter, an inch wider and has seven more gallons of overall volume than the medium 6.2 Agent. The outcome is a boat that is easier to throw around. And, thanks to the added width and volume, the Jitsu floats higher in the water, remaining stable enough to actually run rapids.

We first previewed the Jitsu last summer on dry land with Dagger Pro Team Manager, Chris Gragtmans. “Our two main goals were to create a boat that was dynamic on a wave and still able to do the whole realm of hole tricks,” he told us. He also emphasized the edges, stating that “the double step carve rail is a pretty cool concept and the boat definitely feels like it goes edge to edge on a wave really well.” Getting the Jitsu on the water we found Gragtmans was bang on. Reminiscent of Dagger’s Crazy 88, released nearly 10 years ago, the Jitsu loves to carve and easily transitions edge-to-edge, making zipping across the face of a wave a delight. This also makes rotational moves like blunts and airscrews whip around like a rice bale throw.

Its minimal stern rocker and abrupt tail end, or as Gragtmans puts it, “really defined parting line,” give the boat maximum speed on a wave— perfect for explosive aerial moves and grabbing smaller catch-on-the-fly waves. The tradeoff is a need to keep weight forward during spins, backsurfs and heavy landings—otherwise the stern may initiate an unintended back loop.

Dagger should be excited with this new release. The Jitsu vaults Dagger back to the leading edge of the freestyle scene and should definitely be on your list of boats to try if looking for a new play machine.

Check out our video tour of the boat with Gragtmans here.

Dagger Jitsu 5.5 / 5.9 / 6.0 Specs

LENGTH – 5’6″ / 5’9.5″ / 6′

WIDTH – 25″ / 26″ / 27″

VOLUME – 48 / 57 / 63 US GAL

WEIGHT – 29 / 31 / 34 LBS

PADDLER – 90-155 / 140-200 / 165-245 LBS

MSRP – $1,049

dagger.com

To read the rest of this review of the Dagger Jitsu check out Rapid, Early Summer 2013. Download our free iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch App or Android App or read it here.

This Year’s Gauley Fest Another One For The Books

Photo: Sierra Stinson — Gauley Fest celebrated it's 30th anniversary this year

It was a wet start to the weekend for Gauley Fest, with about an inch of rain coming down per hour, but that didn’t stop nearly 2,500 people from attending the annual event. Although attendance was down 20 percent from previous years, the rain didn’t deter the hardcore Gauley crowd. “Boaters are used to rain, the wet conditions didn’t slow anyone down,” says Mark Singleton, Executive Director of American Whitewater, “This is exactly the kind of core audience we throw the Gauley Fest party for.”

On the Saturday, the Gauley River peaked at 8,000 cfs (cubic feet per second), with 4,000 cfs coming from the Meadows, giving people plenty to talk about as the party got underway. Deals on gear were to be had from companies such as Werner Paddles, Level Six and Chaco, while big name kayak companies like Jackson and Dagger gave away brand new boats to an excited crowd.

This year celebrated 30 years of the event, which speaks to its popularity among the whitewater crowd. The party and giveaways are certainly highlights of attending the annual festival, but they are nothing compared to the main event – the river. “The reason so many people come is because of the river, it’s just in a class of its own. We almost lost that 30 years ago when a hydro project would have dewatered the upper 4 miles,” says Singleton, “It’s a reminder that if you love paddling rivers, you also have to be an advocate and protect what you love.”

Money raised from the event goes towards other stewardship projects American Whitewater is involved in, ranging from building a parking lot at the Upper Youghiogheny River in Friendsville, Maryland, to submitting recommendations for protecting rivers across the USA.

The six-week window in which there are regular releases from the dam result in some big volume water, attracting folks from all around the world. “You can paddle the river down to lower level, around 800cfs and below, but the river is really known for the big booming high water lines that come in above 3000cfs,” explains Singleton.

When it’s all said and done, Gauley Fest is an event you’ll want to attend at least once in your lifetime, and you won’t soon forget about it. “It’s a party with 2500 of your closest friends, what’s not to like about that?” Singleton quips.

Daily Photo: A Drop of Golden Light

Photo: Jennifer Cote — Daily Photo: A Drop of Golden Light

Adventure Kayak readers Patrick Walsh and Jennifer Cote were out on Quebec’s Meech Lake to enjoy some early fall colors last month. “Beautiful but windy day!” say the Orleans, Ontario, paddlers.

Want to see your photo here? Send to [email protected] with subject line Daily Photo.

Flushed: Moon River

Stories

Photo: Flickr user Rabinito — Why river running at night is a beautiful thing

There were four of us in hardboats that first full moon night on the Chattooga. Everything was strange—shiny and magical, the way river running by lunar light can be. When we dropped through the last wave into the approach above Seven Foot Falls, however, things went dark. it was a clear night, but the moon was no longer visible; hidden by rapid and ridge.

The trip had been going well. We’d all been guides on the river for a while and knew the Chattooga and each other, in some ways, better than ourselves. We’d stopped talking somewhere above Woodall Shoals, none of that pre- or post-rapid chat. When we made sounds, we made animal noises. Mostly, we were quiet. We’d been listening with hips, hulls and strokes to what the river had to say, and what the river had to say was, in part, translated by the moonlight reflected and flickering on its surface.

A river is the same river by moonlight as it is in the day, only naked, moody, evocative, less in your face. There’s nothing black and white about being on a river at night under the moon. The colors are there, but they are changed: hushed, shimmery, wavering. Trees that appear green in daytime become a soft violet; to regard them is to be less attuned to detail—leaves or bark—than to the whole…

To read the rest of this article, check out Rapid, Early Summer 2013. Download our free iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch App or Android App or read the rest here.

Open Canoe Technique: Creekin’ Rocks

Skills

Photo: Andrew Westwood — Andrew Westwood talks about how to use rocks to your advantage while open canoe creeking

Running steep, low volume rivers draws on both traditional water reading skills and a host of unique tricks designed to take advantage of exposed rocks. Using rocks to guide your canoe through rapids is an important skill for creek runs. Exposed rocks beside a drop can create a great launch pad and bouncing off a series of rocks can direct you to that hard-to-reach eddy. When river running, a canoeist who strikes a rock might say, “I meant to hit that!” at best, it comes off as weak justification for drifting off line. In creeking, doing so is part of the game.

Placement

A pioneer of many first descents of creeks in the southern U.S., Dave “Psycho” Simpson coined the phrase that went something like, “It ain’t if you hit a rock or not, it’s if you hit the rock and bounce the right way.” In low flow, steep creek, rocks often can’t be avoided—use them to assist your boat’s placement. Some of the best lines will use a mix of main channel water and boulders to descend a steep run. Rocks give you an advantage because they offer the opportunity for a quick change in direction that no stroke can match…

To read more about open canoe creeking, check out Rapid, Early Summer 2013. Download our free iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch App or Android App or read the rest here.