The re-building of the club continues — here’s our update for this Spring of some of the work done and the next steps and plans for the Ventura Canoe & Kayak Club.
Boat Trailer
As noted in the Fall update, the club was gifted with a small boat trailer. With the assistance of Chris Figureida from Cycle for Heart, this small trailer has been transformed into a lightweight sprint canoe and kayak trailer. A HUGE thank you to Chris for his work and help with this project! We can now easily transport 16 or more boats, including K2 and C2s!
Merv and Victoria Larson continue to provide the club with storage of the trailer while we work on getting it updated with “gear boxes” and securing a space in the yet to be completed dry storage area in the Ventura Harbor. THANK YOU to Merv and Victoria!
Boat Repairs
We’ve also been busy reconditioning two older C1s built with the Ventura Olympic Canoe Club’s “Advantage” design back in the late 1980s and early 1990s. With the changes in the width requirements since these boats were made, we’ve been able to cut these two boats down and make them much more narrow. Paint on the hulls, epoxy and varnish on the gunnels and thwarts, and rebuilding the floorboard systems in each boat will make these two vintage canoes excellent boats for new paddlers. This design is more stable than modern boats but perfectly suitable for racing by young bantam or juvenile canoe paddlers.
Next Steps
As noted above, we have more work to do on the boat trailer — specifically getting some storage boxes built and mounted on the bottom for holding paddles, PFDs, knee blocks, seats, and foot braces. The trailer will be a mobile boat house for our club and we hope to secure a space for it in the dry storage area being updated behind the Harbor Master’s office in the Ventura Harbor. If anyone can assist with this effort, or knows of other possible storage locations we should consider at the Harbor, please contact us!
If the work continues as planned and scheduled, we hope to begin recruiting paddlers as early as July when the water has warmed up some. If you’re interested in trying sprint canoe and kayak, please use the contact link above and let us know! We’ll make arrangements to get you in a boat now, too!
