Last week there was sunshine. In the UK. Even in depths of North Wales! Well, what better time to get out and put the new FX PFD to the test?
I’m so impressed with this buoyancy aid, the freedom of movement is incredible and the amount you can fit in the pocket while it stays out of the way blows my mind! OK, that’s perhaps a little dramatic… but seriously, it’s like Mary Poppins designed this!
It’s proper safe too (and not just cos it keeps to the first rule of safety: Look Cool), the shoulder straps are sewn right down to the waist making them integral to the whole system and less likely to fail when you really need them. Most other manufacturers just sow to the top seam, even on their top spec “rescue” buoyancy aids!
First of all I owe Palm a big thank you for taking me into the team and helping me survive one more year as a white water kayaker. I have a really hard-work year behind me as I believe I have kayaked on average 1 to 2 times per day every day this year. Unfortunately mostly for work but still kayaking is a huge part of my life and I could not handle the costs of the gear overuse without the support of Palm and Dagger Europe. I do have to admit that even if I kayak on a certain level, I mostly kayak in a basic level gear, such as Vortex jackets, because they offer me the most freedom of movement and a refreshing feeling of lightness. I really don’t enjoy paddling in thick and heavy gear during the hotter days. Also for this reason, the one piece of gear that I appreciated the most this year was the Spark immersion suit.
Anyone that has tried paddling in a dry suit knows that it is a piece of gear that can replace numerous jackets, neoprene pieces and under layers. Dry suits are easy to dress, comfortable to wear and fast to dry. There are a lot of variations of kayak dry suits out there, each with its own set of advantages and disadvantages. A spark suit is an extreme case of a lightweight dry suit. The material is a thin 3-layer fabric, which is quite unusual for a dry suit. But the truth is that most of our paddling consists of shorter trips in less than extreme weather conditions. I can imagine that I would prefer a thicker, warmer and more abrasion resistant suit for a multi day trip somewhere cold but for anything other than that I prefer the feeling of freedom. I have never felt anything else but excitement in up to a few hour creeking missions and during the long hours of work and multi times dressing up and undressing the same suit and under layer on the colder and rainy days. And now that the autumn weather hit Europe I simply can’t imagine going paddling with anything else.
Next to the soft fabric the two most notable things about it are the flexible T-zip, which is kind of becoming a standard for all the kayaking dry suits, and its neoprene neck and ankle gaskets (now that it’s colder I prefer the socks version). Especially the neck gaskets seemed to have been accepted with mixed responses. Nobody likes the way latex feels on the neck too much. A big advantage of Spark suit gasket is that it will never stick to your skin, it is not as nearly uncomfortable to dress up and undress as the latex and it will last longer. I also haven’t noticed any difference in how much water leaks through the gasket. There is one problem though. Unlike latex you cannot cut the neoprene gasket and make it fit you. I am fortunate that my Spark fits my neck really well. I prefer it a lot compared to latex but I can imagine a frustration of a big neck kayaker not being able to do anything to make it fit.
To conclude, I can’t recommend the Spark suit enough to an average kayaker. It is an excellent piece of equipment for a great price. As written, that comes with the warning. Try it out first to see if the neck gasket fits you well. If it isn’t too tight you’re free to buy your new favourite piece of gear.
A lot has happened in the last months so here’s a taste of it: Some photos from the Adidas Sickline race and Učja creek, which is one of the best continuous class 5 (and more) technical creeks you can paddle and it is just 5 min away from my home. Thanks to Tony Demarco and Ryan Vekins for some photos. GoPro photo stream was made at Učja creek.
Here’s also a video of our trip to Switzerland this spring that was made by my friend Andrej Bijuklič . I was testing the Spark for the first time in some of the clips. I haven’t had the Dagger Mamba “speedboat” here yet so you’ll fiond me paddling the blue Burn.
2012 is getting off to an exiting start for myself, Fran Kohn, Dave Hollins and Niamh Stack as we are just about to set off for a month of boating in Colombia.
Bags packed and ready to go…
I’m taking the new Mamba 8.1 on this trip which I’m really excited about because it seems to handle really well both with lightweight day kit and a full boat for multi-day adventures. We have a long list of rivers we’d like to get done: some of which may involve jungle hikes and sleeping in hammocks or bivis. We can’t wait!
I’ll be updating the Palm blog as often as is possible on these kinds of trips, so stay tuned and I hope to bring you tales and photos from our adventures!
Features footage from our drive from the Uk to Galicia, time on the Frieira Dam Wave on the Spain/ Portugal border and then the footage we have from our weeks creeking in Portugal.
