NOOZ
Like any good kayak site, we need a blog to keep you all up to date o our adventures in whitewater medium, and that's what the Nooz is all about!
| Fall/Winter 09 update. Yes, I'm still here | ||
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Things have been really busy for me for the past few months, and honestly, I haven't been getting in much paddling. But I figure it's about time to update the ol' bloggy blog with some Nooz... I've decided to start a boat company- Blackfly Canoes. I'm not going to re-hash the reasoning behind doing this here, since it's on the Blackfly Canoes website. I'm pretty excited about it. The focus is on doing some "non-standard" open canoes, starting out with the boat that I designed and used to win the World Championships. Since I'm only making open boats, I'll still be paddling for Pyranha and I'm really excited about the new playboat they're coming out with, the Molan. Looks nice. Getting Blackfly off the ground has kept me really, really busy, ever since I got home from Gauley season in October. I've gotten out paddling a few times, Moose Fest, a few days at Scudders and Holtwood, the annual fall Tohickon release, squirting on the Potomac, but in the amount I've been paddling has really fallen off from the usual. I've spent a lot of good water days working on the plug, building molds, molding boats, making outfitting... It's all starting to come together, and I'm looking forward to not working 10 and 12 hour days and getting out paddling a bit more, now that we're into the depths of winter...  Matt Young below Fowlersville on the Moose. I took a break from plug shaping to join the Pyranha crew in New York for the annual party in Old Forge. It was nice to get out of the dust and go paddling for a few days- especially since it was nicer weather in upstate New York than in southern PA!  Nicole Mansfield stomping the classic Knife's edge boof on the Moose.  After Moose Fest, it was time to get the Blackfly plug all finished up. I did a lot of work from the boat I had at Worlds- first of all, I had to correct for the shrinkage in plastic by cutting the plug into pieces and making it bigger. I also shortened the stern and gave it less rocker, made the ends slicier, made the whole boat wider, and added integral gunwales, and spent a long time getting it at least close to symmetrical side to side. It took several weeks to get everything to where I was happy with it.  I had some downtime at a couple of points in the process, and got out to Scudders a few times. I still remember how to kayak after paddling C-1 and OC-1 for the past few months.  Cartwheeling the Ammo at Scudders.  Speaking of downtime, I made a trip down to Maryland in November to pick up foam for the boats from Sweet Composites- and also met up with Steve G and Stro for a not too cold weather Fishbowl squirtboat session. I love mixing business with pleasure. That's a lot of foam...  Molding the boats went pretty well. There were some problems with the first mold, but I got them sorted out. It's a learning process for sure. I had to buy a 900lbs box of plastic powder, since the company that molded them doesn't usually use that type of plastic- it ended up being enough for 27 boats.  Now I've just got to outfit and sell the boats. This is the first one I built out- my boat.  Another view of the outfitted boat.  Standard outfitting. I did manage to get the boat out to Scudders for one day between building the second mold and molding more boats. I didn't have the chance to really get the oufitting dialed in, so I was a pretty loose in the boat, but I'm pretty happy with how it handles. Here's a video of the Blackfly in action: Currently I'm in Maine for the holidays, taking a little break from boat building. It's a bit too cold to motivate me to go paddling, but I might go if we get a day over 30 degrees and I can find some open water. Around New Year's I'll be back in PA, starting on the first of the composite Blackfly's, and hopefully once again starting to get on the water a bit more. |
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