New Expedition Design - Rob Mercer Reports

Rob Mercer has taken our soon-to-be-released, Scandinavian designed expedition kayak on a 320km demo paddle, from McKay to Bowen in North Queensland. That's what I call commitment to a new boat...!

Reports from the first week of paddling are very promising. The boat is carrying an enormous load of gear - 36 litres of water as well as 50kg of camping & safety gear & food for 17 days - & has had to deal with typical August conditions in the tropics, ranging from a 40km paddle into a 20 knot headwind, to 25 knot beam winds, to a 20 knot wind blowing a 1.5m following breaking sea on a 35km crossing. Speed wise, it's holding it own against two 5.8m kayaks in the group, and hauling a lot more gear than anyone else, while handling the challenging wind & sea conditions well. Rob has fitted his sail & reports excellent handling with this added technical complication. He has never encountered a kayak with such a tremendous carrying capacity to provide such a comfortable ride in the wind-driven bump of North Queensland.

Prior to this trip, we'd previously taken the boat out unladen into some big conditions & figured it probably need a few pounds of gear to perform to it's optimum, & so it is proving. Weighing in at 20kg in full a carbon kevlar lay-up (hull & deck), with a 5.3m waterline, this boat promises to deliver a true expedition-ready alternative to the limited market available at the moment, all for less than $3000. Fibreglass models will cost even less - around the same as a good quality Polyethylene kayak.

Rob returns from his expedition around August 23, and will write a full review of the performance of this exciting new European sea kayak.