Top Secret

Hazel is working on something very exciting. Can you guess what it's going to be?

Composite Creeking

Last week the rivers were all very full here in Devon and so I decided to add some spice to one of our local runs which when high is a good grade 4+. To make it more of a challenge I ran it in a 3 metre glass/kevlar composite Pyranha Stunt Bat built in 1993. Compared with modern river boats this behaves in a comletely different manner due to its rounded hull and narrow profile. I had to relearn old turning techniques and indeed run the rapids in a different way. I also had get to grips with the tippy feeling of a rounded hull. I chose a big water day so there would be less rocks to hit however there were more holes of which some gave me a good deal of sporty action. The best buzz about this boat is the feeling of real speed as it fires down the rapids and of course the bemused looks of other boaters (in creek boats) as I pass them by.

Steve Whetman

Team Rider Ben White's latest

Its not quite the broken nose footage i'm still waiting for that to turn up! But heres what we were up to before work this morning...

http://www.ben-white.com/pages/Gallery/Recoil.htm

Some times when its grey and dull outside it really isn't that depressing! A week of rain has meant swollen rivers all of the North of England, taking the opportunity we grabbed the new Pyranha Recoils and went for a pre work spin...

Ben White

Someone gave me this vintage book today. First published in 1936. Nice one. Strangely it suggests that the highest point one should ever get in on the Dart (our local river) is well downsream of the lowest point we'd ever considered getting out!

Spraydeck(skirt) Sizes Debacle

Like pretty much all our competition, we make about four types of neoprene spraycover, in about four sizes. Unlike most of 'em we also do some more specialist products like special skirts for squirtboats, surfkayaks, kidz boats etc.

And we thought we were pretty cool because these all worked really well and (most) everybody thought they rocked.

But here's the thing. Kayak manufacturers seem to have forgotten that they have to design their boats to work with existing spraycovers, or else supply their own. Most of them don't supply their own in any meaningful way, which I take to mean that they realise how difficult it is. So why do some of them just make some random cockpit shape and ship it out into the market place expecting us (and every other softwear manufacturer) to work some kind of miracle and make everything watertight?

It's REALLY annoying for us as spraydeck designers but it must be doubly so for the boater who needs a deck for their new kayak... we sympathise.

F%^&* Lifetime Warranty

I'd like to say that much has been written about our (unique to this industry???) lifetime warranty but, well... it hasn't, has it? Despite being printed on the swing tickets of everything we've sold for the last two years, it doesn't seem like anyone's got their heads around it yet. Which is a shame. I'm gutted in fact. In a field where durability is most people's biggest concern when making a purchasing decision, one would assume that a lifetime warranty offer would be of interest to most buyers. Apparently not. In the two years since its introduction there's been no significant impact on the number of warranty enquiries, and most of the (thankfully) tiny number of people who do contact us with a problem have been blissfully unaware of our policy on these matters. Which in BLACK & WHITE is basically this:

IF YOUR KIT IS FAULTY, WE WILL REPAIR OR REPLACE IT FOC. IF YOU HAVE TRASHED IT, WE WON'T. NO CALENDARS, STOPWATCHES OR ANY OTHER TIMEKEEPING INSTRUMENTS WILL BE EMPLOYED IN THE MAKING OF THIS DECISION.

If you have any queries about this, please ask. If you think I'm BSing about the whole thing I'd be glad to hear your views, too. If you think I should stop typing and go boating now, our thought processes are fairly closely aligned... and I'm off now. Enjoy.

Introducing the latest addition to the Nookie Team. Here's Helen's baby Joe modelling an exclusive micro T. He hasn't actually been seen kayaking or surfing yet, but it wouldn't surprise me if he sneaks out for a session when Helen thinks he's asleep. We're going to get the ESP paparazzi on his case and see if we can catch him shreddin'.

Here's a shot of the Welsh Surf Team in Nookie clobber - we've got a 5 page report in the Ceufad- Welsh Kayak Magazine- with a cover shot of a kayak with a large prominent Nookie logo across the front!
I'm off to Sri Lanka in 3 weeks, so I hope to be able to send blog reports for you guys from outta there.
Nathan Eades

Just because it's kinda funny - Hazel beta-testing a new whitewater shell. It's November, in England - it's freezing. And she still claims to love her job ;)

Sometimes blogging can lead to browsing, and then to unexpectedly finding photos of oneself. Here's one I found on the Valley Sea Kayaks website... That's fine, but then someone pointed out that Knoydart have used the same photo in an advert. What? Could they not find a photo of anyone paddling in Knoydart gear?

I'd just like to thank Nookie for donating towards the raffle at the Wet West Paddlefest. We managed to sell around 2000 tickets for the raffle, and approximately 300 people turned up! Even better, we broke even and made a slight profit to go towards next years event. For a full report, see the blog section of my site (below), or keep an eye out for Scottish Paddler.
Thanks once again for your generosity; without you the event would not have been such a success!
Thank you,

Martin Higgs (and the rest of the WWPF organisers).
http://www.bigwethuck.co.uk

We were looking for a way to demonstrate the awesomeness of our failsafe krab park system. Sure, it never failed while we were flailing around in the water making our rescue video. But we thought y'all deserveda more graphic demonstration. And once you've crashed into the water at freakishly high speed a few times you can start to get a taste for it. Check this out - another Youtube snippet featuring some of the last week's footage... again, it's probably best if you don't try this yourself.

Another instalment of our 101 things to do with a powerboat. Waterskiing and wakeboarding are all very well. But Bill's been doing that since he was 7, and we wanted to try something new. It turns out you can have a whole bundle of fun with a surfboard. All photos courtesy Steve Childs.

The trouble with doing all the stuff your mother told you not to, because it would all end in tears, is that your mother was probably right. All good things come to an end, don't they?

***My mother, on the other hand, has always assured me that a bit of water never hurt anyone, so I'm exempt from exercising common sense and allowed to keep on playing in it (Bill)***

Here are a few of the pics of Bill surfing the Sneaker kayak on the wake of a 150hp Explorer powerboat. Do not try this at home, the kayak was about two feet from the propeller a lot of the time...


To watch a 'lil bit of youtube video of the above escapade, click here
Music courtesy of the Voom Blooms, thanx guyz.

Friday 13th - Part V

Day 5 - another day in the life of...

Ever wondered happens when you get up, yawn, stretch (here's James demonstrating the finer points of the technique, all photos SJC btw) and then...


have a hearty breakfast of bacon and copious amounts of leftover Chinese (protein and carbs for a long day on the go)...

load cameras and all these other toys ...

into big boats that can do this?

Well, check back L8r as the pics come thru. Friday the Thirteenth wasn't a bad day for us at all...

Day 4 - Every week has to have a tedious day, doesn't it? Today was spent at the Bat Cave planning the week's gargantuan finale, and doing some R&D. Which should have been cool, but there was some kinda network problem that meant no one could get on the internet or the file server, which between the two pretty much precludes getting anything done. So in my capacity as on-call janitor I got to spend much of the day scratching my head and swearing. I made it all work tho. Eventually. And the plan for the morrow is a most excellent one...

There are no photos because everything at the Bat Cave is too secret. Shhhhh....

Day 3 - we made a river rescue video. And went whitewater kayaking. The above pic, featuring James and me about to rescue damsel in distress Hazel, is a video still. The other is me old-skool cartwheeling the new Pyranha Ammo, photo courtesy of Steve Childs.

Day 2 - we went surfing. Well, we did some work, insofar as we took photos and video. But that mostly involved me going surfing in the unbelievably cool and retro Sneaker surf kayak lent to me by Valley (thank you Jason). It was perfect. Pics courtesy James Weir ;)

Day 1 - we made a video about spraypainting logos onto your stuff. Or other people's, truth be told. Very childish. Here's a rough-cut. We'll edit it more later. The genius of this day's work was two-fold. Firstly we shot it very close to the pub. Secondly, we sprayed logos onto all the things we needed to feature in the rest of the week's work. Like I said - genius.

Nookie Film Week

Joined by the incomparable Mr. Weir for a week of creating great things. I was hungover to start with, and a week of creating doesn't start without a couple of beers ;) However, we have ordered excellent (to us) weather and fine dining of all kinds, and we shall be a force to be reckoned with, albeit with slightly hurty heads.