Ok, so we all know that this is a “NDK” fanclub house-hold. There is no denying that. However, as we spend more and more time learning traditional paddling and rolling skills we’ve realized we need a smaller traditional style boat. It took us all of about 5 minutes to decide on the Anas Acuta by Valley. Mary had paddled the Acuta last fall at the Norcal symposium (which is again coming up by the way) and fell in love. But before I joined her obsession I paddled the Greenlander, the Betsy Bay Valkarie, and 2 versions of the Artic Hawk which are all great boats. I quickly knew my personal favorites were the Acuta and the Valkarie. But I did not want a wood boat. I’m not an ultra-traditionalist, I just love learning new skills and traditonal paddling and rolling opens a lot of new doors. We knew we wanted fiberglass. So that’s how we came to the choice.

Now here’s the killer. If you can order a brand new boat AND it’s a good possibility you will not have that opportunity again, what color will it be? What extras do you want? Argggggg! Talk about cold sweat! In the end the only extra we wanted was a keel strip. Our boats tend to get drug around. We thought about a pump, but in many of the Greenland rolls and braces we often slide our legs down. The pump hose would get in the way. We thought about towing gear but again, this is mostly a play boat. When I do a rodeo rescue on my boat I often have to be a bit careful coming up over my cleat. Youch!! We didn’t want extra bumps.

So what color? Well, Valley has not seen my plan yet but hopefully it will look something like this: