We are just back from the annual Kanumesse trade fair in Nuremburg Germany. Its a special show because (as far as we know) its the biggest kayak trade only event, anywhere. Usually at trade events paddlesport is pitched alongside the great and the good like North Face or someone selling propellers for Sunseaker yachts but at this show its purely about paddlers which is cool.
The Palm mannequins were doing the robot dance again this year
Always plenty of new stuff to see, so here are some of our highlights for the year ahead:
Immersion suits – We have done a lot of work on the Stikine and Torrent models to improve durability and performance. New features like the Kevlar elbow pads (on the Stikine) and neat details like zipper covers and super slick welded socks finish our suits off to what, we think, will become a new industry benchmark. The 2009 suits (Stikine, Torrent, Element- with pee buddy as standard, and Aleutian) will be made from a new XP250 fabric which we’ve had in the field for about a year now with the ever demanding Gene 17 coaching team.
a little teaser of the new suits - available at the end of the year
Paddle wear – We launched another product in our Approach line at Kanumesse. The Velocity is a latex sealed entry level jacket to compliment our huglely popular Vertigo semi dry model. Breathable, tapped throughout and with twin waist and outer seal covers its a great starter piece.
New Velocity Approach jacket
Footwear - Its been hard to keep quite about our joint project with Merrell. When the worlds biggest footwear brand chooses you to work with on a completely new watershoe you want to shout about it. We’ll now we can – two models, the Gradient and Eddy will be in the shops come spring and we can happily inform you that they stick like …. we’ll you’ll see. Needless to say folks were clamouring around to check them out and they made the front page of the shows daily magazine!
Gradient (lft) and Eddy (rt) - sticky stuff!
Dagger – Two new models and a load of improvments on fit out for our Dagger kayaks brand. The Axiom river boat was regarded by many as the best new WW boat there. Showing clean lines and we’ll tested principles it is set to become a classic river crusing machine taking over where its predecessor (the RPM) left off. Its very new skool, old skool so get set for a tail dipping style revival on your favourate runs.
The Axiom - 4 sizes of river fun!
The Alchemy touring boat is a bit of a departure from the normal ‘journey’ style tour boats. It’s wide-ish beam and adjustable skeg will make it ideal for begginners and help tracking, but its designed to move once you get it on edge so search out those rock gardens, waves and river channels to explore its potential. A perfect boat to grow into as a paddler.
The Dagger stand- the new Alchemy is the Red boat at the top
So that’s about all from Kanumesse 08, we are now busy getting all of the new items into production and onto the shelves. We look forward to hearing what you get up to using them!
A big thanks to HF for organising with usual efficency and also thanks to all the dealers who travelled to see us.
FlowFree is North Wales based coaching and guiding company set up by Palm paddler Lowri Davies and her brother Jon Davies. The company offers everything from freestyle coaching and steep creeking courses to ladies only sessions and core skills development. They specialise in bespoke courses, run to suit the individuals enrolled, including one-to-one coaching which have recieved excellent reviews. To find out more about what FlowFree could offer you, check out their website: www.flowfree.co.uk
This year was my first time at Wet West Paddlefest and after hearing a lot about it, I was excited to find myself in the country with nothing clashing in the diary. I was also pretty keen to try out the Mamba 8.0 creek spec on something that would test it properly! So we packed up and headed north – camping out at the Falls of Falloch.
Hucking off the Falls of Falloch before breakfast – Photo: Tom Laws
Tom Laws on the Falls of Falloch – Photo: Lowri Davies
Chris Georgiou going for an alternative line on FoF – Photo: Lowri Davies
Not a bad christening for the three new boats, fresh from Dagger’s HQ! Happy that we were now awake, we headed to Glen Etive to find a sea of multi-coloured plastic enjoying good levels on the Etive and tribs. A run down the Etive and a blast down the ever hilarious Allt a’ Chaorainn and another run of the Etive with the rest of Team Palm/Dagger seemed to be a good way to start what would be a great weekend…
Tom Laws on Crack Dawn on the Etive – Photo: Lowri Davies
Chris Georgiou on a chunky Right Angle – Photo: Lowri Davies
The Green Machine almost reaches the bottom of Right Angle before it’s left the top! – Photo: Lowri Davies
After catching up with friend from far and wide at the Ice Factor centre on Friday night, we settled down for the night: 3 people, 2 thermarests and 1 van. Saturday’s organised release was on the river Garry – but fancying ourselves some more rock slidey fun, we headed to another of the Etive’s tribs – the Allt Mheuran. This trib involves a much more arduous walk-in but with a fun team and enough water, it was definitely worth the effort!
Team runs with High Fives – Photo: George Mortimer
Chris Georgiou on the final drop of the last crazy-fast chute – Photo: Lowri Davies
After paddling down it every which way, it only seemed right to try it on our bums, in trains and surfing down it. We also tried to see how many people we could fit on a Nomad – videos of these silly antics will no doubt end up online somewhere soon!
Photo: George Mortimer
Tom Laws, Tim Ripper, Chris Georgiou & myself – Photo: George Mortimer
Awesome fun – like being 10 years old again!
Saturday night was party night – with a mixed uptake of the Superhero themed fancy dress. My favourites were Flash Gordon, Borat, Banzer dressed as Ed Smith, Ed Smith dressed as a thunderbird and the couliflowers (for sheer randomness). Oh and who can forget Mad Andy dressed as a gorilla?! The party suffered a little from a small venue which closed quite early, but it was good to see everyone. Quote of the evening: “Go spoon yourself, Spoon Girl!”.
Sunday hosted the much anticipated Morriston release – well at least it did once they remembered to switch it on! As ever with organised events like this, there was plenty of carnage to entertain the crowds as hung over paddlers took to the water, not always with the skills to meet the lines. Luckily no-one was badly hurt. It was the first time I’ve had the opportunity to paddle it and really enjoyed it – some really sweet lines and fun little drops.
All that was left at the end of all that, was the long drive home with the two PK monkeys.
Tom and Chris prepare for the long trip home…
My photos from the trip can be seen here.
Generally I liked the Mamba. It is forgiving and seems to be a good shape for the female form. I chose the 8.0 as it is more comparable with my current river runner (Medium Burn) and I prefer my big boat to be big enough to carry plenty of kit, but when I paddled it I definitely thought the 7.5 to be big enough for a person of my size for general UK river running.
Happy Paddling, Lowri
