Howdy folks,

So I thought I would do a little how to of some of the knots I reckon are good to have in your “skills tool box” as a white water kayaker. I know some people will say ah but sure I know all I need to at this stage but in my experience I have seen kayakers who I’m surprised managed to tie their shoe laces/board shorts yet alone set up any sort of rope system. I don’t just mean those who are new to kayaking but some folks who are very solid boaters paddling some of the pushier rivers around.

I have picked three simple knots which have loads of uses, for this little instalment I’m not going to go into scenarios but just stick with the straight forward how to tie them.

For me there are 3 principles of the knot.

• Easy to tie

• Easy to untie

• Fit for the purpose you intend

So first up the figure of eight.

Just a quick note on this:

So of you may know I am currently part of the Irish Freestyle Committee this year and part of our job is to help promote freestyle kayaking and help introduce new people to the sport. I decided to run a “river freestyle” training  day on the river Boyne. Now to be honest the Boyne is far form a freestyle feature meca but there was just enough to allow us have a quality day on the river going over all sorts of things. Read the rest of this entry »

Howdy,

So a couple of weeks ago I made what could only be described a an armature mistake when out paddling, just before the get one of our group ask if they could borrow my river knife to cut some foam. So I took it out of my pocket and unclipped the lanyard it was attached to, they when I got it back I just stuffed it into my PFD pocket and was on my way. Fast forward a short while later I jumped out on the bank to set up some rescue, and when taking a sling out of my PFD pocket my knife flew out in what seemed like a comedy slow motion and straight into the river, where it now resides permanently.

The knife I had I was pretty fond of I had bought it while working in France a few years back, I had a spare Peak UK river knife but I just never liked it! So I dropped into the folks at i-canoe to check out what they had in stock and catch up with the lads. They stock NRS kit which I have always thought was well designed & put together right. The first choice was do I go for a sheath knife or a folding type which I have always favoured.

The 3 models to choose from were the Wingman / Pilot / Co-pilot, I whipped them all out of their boxes and took some photos to help you get a better idea of their scale.

The Co-Pilot is by far the nicest of any of the sheath knives that I have come across, its compact but just the right size while never feeling bulky. If you are the like the Idea of having a knife on the outside of your PFD this is the bit of kit for you, the sheath clips perfectly into lash tabs that are on most rescue vests. Read the rest of this entry »

With the May bank holiday weekend rolling around and there not being any quality water around at all I was going to be around Kilkenny for the weekend. As the sun was shining myself and fellow Kilkenny paddler Mickie Brennan decided to hit up the little known King’s river 5km from Kilkenny city. Its a nice little class 2+/-3 that would be a super little training ground for introduction white water skills. We got back to basics trying to use every little feature available to practice almost everything we could think of, sure it wasn’t the most exciting boating either of us had ever done but with a little bit of competition going on between us to add a competitive element to the day it was good times all round.

Me and my game face lol.

Getting my best side surf on.

Mick approves of my demo.

Ferry glyding 101 from Mickie.