Aha, A Blog of some sort!

This is going to be a near verbatim copy of a post I made on C-Boats, just putting that out there.

A long long time ago, I promised to upload some pictures of my meltdown, after many many excuses to myself I’ve finally got round to it. [though I'm afraid you'll have to put up with my garden as a backdrop, it's kind of a state, but it serves my menagiere well enough]

The foam on the ends is for the benefit of the draconian rules at my local swimming pool (opposite my house, as is the menai straits, home to numerous seams accessable by strapping the squirtboat into a trad canoe)

The Meltdown in all its glittery glory

A view of the excruciatingly tight cockpit

And finally the uninspiring looking bottom

Click the pictures for full size.

I’ve learned something of it’s history after I met the creators when I went to borrow the Big Dog OC1, It was made about 17 years ago (so ’92/’93 time) by Valley Canoe Products (who now make sea and surf kayaks, along with owning Big Dog Kayaks and Elephant Gear), for a scottish fellow (whom I think was called Andy) around 3 years ago it was sold to a Devonian nicknamed Duckboy (AKA Adam) who had Dave of Downtime Kayaks (an ex P&H/Pyranha employee, who took on Valley’s squirtboat production) chop it down for better mystery performance, before eventually deciding he didn’t use it enough and selling it to a Bloke from hastings called Andy who’s big into his K1 squirting, and wanted to learn to roll a C1; having accomplished that he sold it to me.

I don’t know much about the period between the original owner getting it and when Duckboy bought it, but with Downtime Dave having refurbished it, it’s good as new.

It did have a five inch saddle with a 3 inch thick back block, but I’ve cut that down to 2 inches, with an inch thick back block, and added a lap strap to the existing thigh straps.

I’m currently waiting to hear from Dave if he’ll remove and enlarge the cockpit coaming to accomodate my thighs (currently the knee tunnels really bruise my legs)

A shiny penny to the person who can tell me what my title is all about.

Over the last four days paddling in scotland, I’ve had the use of one of the few big dog OC1′s yet moulded, something for which I need to thank Andy, Jason and Pete lots.

Ultimately, I’m highly impressed.

Fishladder Falls on the North Esk - Paddler: Joshua Kelly, Photographer: Jonathan Dempsey

The boat feels just like a C1 to paddle (with the exception of the occasional splash of cold water), and despite the increased width, hasn’t lost any responsiveness compared to it’s smaller decked brother. I noticed right away that with relatively low gunnels it was actually quite wet running, conventionally that would be  bad thing and I’d spend the rest of this post whining about it.  However I found that the boat ran as well if not better wet, the hull felt a mite twitchy and directionally unstable when empty, but with water anywhere up to the saddle it became rock steady and the tracking improved, without becoming sluggish or harder to boof, past saddle height and the water started to make the boat slow down, as is more conventional of a swamped OC1.

I have had a couple of niggles with it, Firstly on fitting straps I discovered that the saddle was wider than the space on either side, meaning that getting a length of pipe through was impossible, I used two pieces “meeting” in the middle instead but the result was a bit messy. Secondly it would benefit from having a fitted airbag (or a suitable bag cage) at the back as fully inflating the regular airbags provided, meant that anyone who used the footpegs on their furthest back settings had their feet almost pinned into the boat. Considering that I was paddling the second of three boats yet made, I think I can forgive such minor issues.

River Blackwater - Paddler: Joshua Kelly, Photographer: Jonathan Dempsey

Despite taking a C1 with me, I actually found the force turret to be so good as to make my trusty Gus almost surplus to requirements. The only time I needed to be decked was tackling big water on the Lower Gorge of the Findhorn (whereupon I discovered that it was 9km upstream, meaning my intended halfway boat swap was out of the question.)

Sorry about the lack of pictures, I should have some pictures and a brief video of the boat on the Meig in the next couple of days.

Demonstrating the Unique Portgageablity of the Force-Turret - Porter: Joshua Kelly, Photographer: Jonathan Dempsey