Playak News Watch: Adrian Tregoning: Whitewater Kayaking – How to Get Started, Choosing a Boat

So you’ve always dreamed of paddling one of those small plastic boats down a steep creek choked with waterfalls or down some huge, remote river. Or maybe you want to get into a surf kayak and rip up the wave in a carving machine or bust some aerial moves at a river wave or hole. Whatever you want to ultimately do, starting off on the right foot is extremely important. Getting the right boat, paddle, advice, training etc. is all very important in making the learning curve as gentle as possible, both physically and mentally. Of course, the impact to your wallet will also be taken to the minimum through making sound choices from the onset.

After a bit of hard work, I finally completed this article! I hope this will help a lot of people... Sure it will! Feedback is always appreciated.

As per usual adrian.playak.com is first with the latest news... You will notice some images of Fluid's new river running creek boat. This is the first prototype and will be cut this week. When will the production boat be out? Who knows! It will take as many protos is required until the boat is perfect, so anything from 1 to 5 protos.. But the wait is always worth it, every time. Any thoughts on that one?

Nice one! I'll read the full article later but the new boat looks sexy! It feels like thats the boat that was missing in the repertoire of Fluid boats! Looking forward to this one! Any specs on expected length or anything?

tkretek wrote:

Nice one! I'll read the full article later but the new boat looks sexy! It feels like thats the boat that was missing in the repertoire of Fluid boats! Looking forward to this one! Any specs on expected length or anything?

Thanks Tom!

Nope, no specs.. Sorry. It's only a proto anyway so it might change a lot, or a little... Only testing will reveal.

Great article, Adrian! Very easy to understand--I'm sure it will help clear up questions for a lot of people. How's the new seat coming along that you are designing?

Thanks. Basically done a while back. Couple of things I'm waiting on. I'll also have to make a smaller seat. Still be a little while..

Thanks for doing this report for beginners. It will save people a lot of time and answer a lot of questions in advance.

I'm a beginner at whitewater, and I just got a Fluid Spice, a large. It seemed like the right combination of volume/weight, speed and surfing capability for not-very-fast, not-very-high-volume rivers like the ones near me. I thought about a Jackson Fun and paddled one for a day on whitewater, but I didn't like the rope-and-cleat outfitting, and I couldn't get the backband to stay up in my lower back -- it kept slipping down and giving me back pain. I like the Fluid outfitting much better.

I need to figure out the best way to configure my feet and thigh brace support. I'm 6'2", 32 inch inseam, size 11 foot. My seat is all the way back. I need both thigh support and a way to brace my feet, but there isn't as much room in the front of the Spice as in the Fun, and I'm having some difficulty figuring this out. Got any advice?

Hi Gary,

Ah, I just realised you're the same dude posting about spray deck size. Sorry I didn't respond, I don't have a lot of experience with deck sizes. Palm roto 4 size will fit perfectly. Last year or so Palm changed their sizes and the old roto 3 size became the new roto 4.. I'm quite sure that the Fluid boats all have almost the same cockpit sizes, I could be wrong. I've paddled a large Spice before and my deck was fine. Most other manufacturers have detailed charts on sizing. Check out Mountain Surf and Snap Dragon decks, they're awesome.

Send me your e-mail address in a private message and I'll mail you some photos of what I've done. I got a medium Spice and I'm 6', no idea on inseam but have a size 10 (US) foot. The large Spice is a very big boat indeed. What type of shoes are you wearing? If you're wearing some sort of shoes with a thick sole that is designed for use in water (but similar to a 'normal' shoe) then you will have problems in anything but a creek boat..

Cheers,
Adrian

Now that i read the full article i must say that it is really helpful! If i think about it, it took me a few months to get all that knowledge and understanding and now you can find it in one article

As it really is a big article possibly a few more headers could be helpful to find a passage again if one wants to go back to a specific section? Think the Surfboat section needs one.
Sorry to bother

For choosing gear an article could be nice.. For example i never got a good advice on what to get for the legs or pros and cons of different combinations like dry trousers and dry cag or long john and dry/semi cag or just neo for the legs or even these "semi"-trousers? Probably depends on the weather but some combinations are far more cost-effective than others (if this makes sense:huh: )
On the other hand maybe a series of short articles covering a type of gear could be nice and entertaining

Anyway, thats just my few unexperienced pennys

Pennies are pennies. Even millions are made up of cents. Never forget that..

I see I forgot to make the surf kayak heading in bold green, thanks. I think I may brush it up a touch, thanks Tom!

In a book format it would be much better and of course I would have put a lot more effort into it. I had my one mate comment on the way I gave patchy pieces of information before I even published it but I just decided to leave it the way it was and just gave a warning in the beginning.. It is free, afterall

Pennies are pennies. Even millions are made up of cents. Never forget that..

I see I forgot to make the surf kayak heading in bold green, thanks. I think I may brush it up a touch, thanks Tom!

In a book format it would be much better and of course I would have put a lot more effort into it. I had my one mate comment on the way I gave patchy pieces of information before I even published it but I just decided to leave it the way it was and just gave a warning in the beginning.. It is free, afterall

Old Thread.. But! I was just wondering what happened to the new Fluid boat?

I was at the factory in November last year and the design on the computer had changed a bit from what is shown on my site. It will come out this year for sure... Proto types need to tested properly and how many just depends on how many it takes to get them right. So maybe Fluid is not the quickest to throw a boat on the market, but then at least it's right. I guess patience is the name of the game

Thought there were some top-secret news you could share with us

Anyway, good things take their time

Tom

There is.........but then it wouldn't be a secret now would it. Sorry!

Patience Tom.. hehe

Great stuff man, thanks

Cool, glad you liked it