Hey all,

I’ve been rather lazy on the blogging front over the last while up until I saw this thread over on the UK boating site UKRGB. It starts of pretty simple looking to identify a type Prussik knot and as all online forums seem to splits into a couple of different directions with all sorts of information / miss information popping up.

There were a couple of things which I found interesting. Firstly it confirmed to me that boaters and ropes / rope work are strange bedfellows. There seems to be an assumption in the wider paddling community that if someone can paddle ( X ) grade river they are automatically totally up to speed with the rope stuff.

Secondly and the thing that struck my interest is that kayakers seem to have an aversion against using out of the ordinary such as “mechanical devices” or tools which might make things easier.

I have constantly heard people preach the K.I.S.S . principal but I wonder have some of these folks closed their minds to their own detriment, are we missing out on using the right tools for the job?

I thought I would share a bit of kit I have been using for a few years now and I honestly think its a savage tool that can complement almost any WW kayakers tool kit.

Its called a Robot and manufactured by an Italian company called Kong.

“KONG ROBOT DESCENDER: A versatile piece of gear in the vertical world. Some of its many uses include a belay device, rappel device, ascender, in place of a pulley in a z-drag system and the list goes on. It can accommodate ropes between 5-13mm in diameter in a single or double configuration. It even works great with ropes of different diameters”

These are usually used by mountain guides and cliff rescue teams in the Alpine regions but due to the fact it is so versatile it has quickly become an invaluable part of my paddling kit .

The specs stack up like this:

Material: aluminium alloy

Weight: 158 g

Dimensions: 52 x 148 mm

Max Load: 22 kN

Rope diameter: 5-13 mm

It weights in about the same weight as a standard steel crab or about twice the weight as an alloy carabineer. Size wise its not much bigger than a large paddling wire gate crab and fits nicely into the pocket of my PFD.

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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 »