British South Island Expedition - March 2000
We tested 5 eskimo kendo evolutions and 3 eskimo quadros, various Lendal
carbon fibre shafted kinetic and asymmetric mania blades, DES.UK.COM drycags
and spraydecks plus a range of outdoor gear from Mountain Hardware. The
South Island of New Zealand provides a tough test for paddling gear, with
both steep, isolated creeks and powerful higher volume runs. The consequences
of gear failure in the mountains or a blown deck or broken paddle in the
midst of Nevis Bluff would have been extremely serious. In addition, the
quadro was designed as a versatile playboat, not to run creeks like the
Perth. The fact that all of our equipment performed superbly despite being
pushed to its limits is a credit to the designers and, of course, underpinned
our choice of this equipment in the first place.
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Kendo Evolution |
A big improvement over the older kendo; faster, more responsive, especially
when surfing. Solid and reliable, and as expected bloody strong. Still
playable on really big water features with the flatter hulls allowing flat
spins and other new moves. A superb river running boat, with the lack of
central buoyancy allowing kit space and reducing entrapment worries.
Biggest problem area was the backstrap. This provides little back support
and is inferior to others on the market. Excellent footrest, however
when pulled really short the ends of the metal sidebars sit right under
your knees. Throwline holder is an excellent idea and very well placed.
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Quadro |
For more fun on the river the Eskimo Quadro was the boat of choice. Its
edges make it much more unforgiving than the Kendo, and it is slower, plus
on harder stuff you may end up seeing the sky more frequently than is comfortable.
However, for flat spins it is awesome. For other freestyle moves
it is not that great however. It is not quite slicey enough to easily
perform cartwheel moves and is noticeably faster than the Kendo once planing.
The foam block footrest design was generally thought to be a good concept
for the new playboat shapes. However, the concern remained that these
blocks may fall out should the paddler take a swim. Same concerns
as for the Kendo with respect to the backstrap.
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Kinetic and Asymmetric Mania
blades |
Superb, solid and reassuring were all words that cropped up a lot. Overall,
the Lendal blades were perhaps the teams most liked piece of equipment,
exactly what was needed for hard, steep creeking where the consequences
of a broken paddle aren't worth contemplating. Everyone who had used the
standard Mania blades on our previous trip to Turkey
preferred the blade shape of the kinetics or asymmetric Manias, commenting
on the positive feel in the water. The only real comment was that the Nylon/carbon
composite blades need to be lighter to compete with glass/carbon composite
blades.
Paddlok system:
Excellent idea. The piece of equipment everyone wanted to buy.
Lots and lots of interest generated by the system, we demonstrated them
at both the Mangahoa and Wairoa paddling meets and rapidly drew crowds
of locals.
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Spraydecks
and cags |
General comment that kept resurfacing - ``this gear is much better than
I thought it was going to be''. Initial impressions of the equipment tend
to be biased by the generally poor cut, unimaginative colouring and funny
looking (thin or mottled) material. That said, the decks are really
solid, not one has blown off in over a year of hard use. After a
year of hard use (around 2 months of paddling days) the cags have basically
worn out but have otherwise held together well.
Dean Maragh of DES.UK.COM responds; "We are pleased that you feel
that the DES gear continues to provide excellent value for money and have
proved themselves to be up to the job in your most demanding conditions.
We feel the cut of the cag does not restrict paddling techniques (good
and bad) and having limited colours in the cag makeup helps to keep costs
down. The decks continue to be our best seller, particularly the custom
decks for unusual boats and for those requiring latex protection and latex
sticking power."
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Jackets, Fleeces and Tents |
Perhaps the end of summer in New Zealand was not the ideal climate in
which to test the latest outdoor gear. Still, we tried. This stuff is expertly
designed, well built and looks incredibly reliable. Style-wise we kept
drawing attention and immediate respect in gear shops so can't be bad.
Although we had a few trivial concerns everyone was incredibly impressed
with the Mountain Hardware equipment, if you want the latest, top of the
range gear then you can't go far wrong with this stuff.
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