“once upon a time there was a big oak tree…” oh, but that’s another story…

At Canoecopia I took a bit of time to talk to Ben Lawry and lust over a new Anas Acuta. Of course I come from the chop shop view. You cut out the seat and replace it with foam. Well those days are past. The folks at Valley Sea Kayaks have a newly redesigned ergonomic seat that is removable with the turn of a few screws. Ben told me it was so comfortable that I’d never want to remove it… Maybe.  At least the new design makes it easier to accomplish if I did fancy taking the seat out.

The other big innovation he wanted me to see was the new skeg system. Their plan was to take a fresh look at a way of doing things that had not changed much over the years and see what happens if they actually just re-engineered the whole lot. The goal was to get  most of the kinking points out of the system, make it easily serviceable, and make the hardware fit into both composite and roto-molded boats. It’s certainly a good idea to give it another go over.  (Remember when when a wire skeg was supposed to solve all of life’s problems? ) We’ll just have to wait and see if this is really the end of the dreaded kinkmonster. (No, don’t start calling your spouse a “kink monster” now!” I’m the one who’ll get the angry emails!)

And here’s this for your daily slightly related entertainment…

“There’s something different around this house.” He said., “There’s something different.”
- I took today’s title from the new Valley catalog
and that had me wiggin’ out on Rag, Tag and Bobtail for a moment…

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