The club has had a very busy summer! Here are some of the highlights –
Selling of Old Equipment
While we also purchased new equipment, we sold a great deal of our older inventory this summer. We found new homes for two surfskis, five kayaks, and one canoe, plus a few of our oldest paddles. This older equipment had largely gone unused – some items for several years – and all of it will now get regular use by new owners.
Getting more paddlers on the water is a big part of our mission. We sold this excess inventory at garage sale prices as our goal was not to make money, but to free up space and get these items back into use. (We still have a K-2 we’d like to sell should anyone reading this be interested.)
New Equipment
We purchased a new K-2 from Hungarian boat builder Hody Sport that should arrive in Seattle in a shipping container with boats bought by several other clubs on the west coast sometime in the next month or so.
The design of this double kayak is more suited for beginners with a more stable profile. We purchased a similarly designed Hody K-1 trainer last year which has been excellent for beginners to learn their balance and kayaking fundamentals. We hope the K-2 will do more of the same when we can get it on the water with our first year paddlers.
Club members have also purchased new boats — and some have sold their old boats to other club members, too. Coach Drew bought a new Latvian made Prestol C-1, Coach Lynn got a new-to-her British made Kirton K-1, and one of our multi-year paddlers picked up a very lightly used Nelo K-1.
While in Seattle at the Nationals, we also got an incredible deal from Ian Ross of the Ross Paddle Group on some lightly used Braca kayak paddles which we could not pass up. Three excellent club paddles acquired! Thanks Ian!
New Trailer
Because we planned on bringing home several new boats from Seattle, it made more sense to trailer our boats to and from Nationals this summer than to car-top them and then have to pay other clubs to trailer the additional boats we were getting back to our homes in Ventura. We really needed an upgrade to our boat trailer anyway as while it served our needs, it was certainly not safe enough to take on a long trip, or even on the highway at normal trailer long-haul speeds.
After a great deal of searching and planning, we purchased a new trailer with a wider base and more useful configuration, and had our excellent welding friend, who built our first trailer, Chris Figurieta, put our light and versatile aluminum racks from the old trailer onto the new one.
Our new trailer is safer, far more stable, and will serve our needs for many, many years to come.
Race Season: Ted Houk / Olympic Hopes Trials / Nationals
Summer is most certainly the heart of our racing season. National Team Trials were in Chula Vista this past April, and while we had one athlete competing at that regatta, our true peaking period was targeted at Nationals the second week of August, with another “unload” week at the end of June for the Olympic Hopes Team Trials / Ted Houk Regatta.
Both of these summer regattas were held on Green Lake in Seattle, Washington by the Seattle Canoe and Kayak Team at their newly refurbished boat house there. Coach Drew drove boats up on his car for the Ted Houk/OHR regatta, and with Coach Lynn, towed the new trailer in August. (Putting nearly 5,000 miles on the road in 6 weeks is a lot of driving!) Some photos of our time at Nationals below –
As usual, we set up our camp at each of these regattas with our friends from the Washington Canoe Club. It helps to have clubs we can share resources with given the logistical difficulty of having equipment at races throughout the United States. (We really should never complain either, as the Hawaii Canoe and Kayak Team and folks at Ikaika maintain trailers and equipment on the mainland and always have to fly a long distance to race in our sport’s regattas.) Thankfully, there is a great amount of sharing and support given between clubs today! Washington Canoe Club always makes us feel at home and we hope the same is true for them.
Coach Lynn had a spectacular Nationals getting four golds, two silvers, and one 4th and one 5th place finish in her races. Well done Coach Lynn!
