The Crux in north Wales

Another call to Adrian Trendal at Ogwen cotage asking very nicly if he wouldnt mind coming out for a few photos. PontC was looking a little low (ok... so there was hardly any water atall) but one of the shoots was still running nicly and I really couldnt wait for the rain to test my boat.

The Crux is alot shorter than most creekboats I have paddled in the past (certainly shorter than the critical mass), but what it loses in tracking it gains in manoverability... Welsh rivers are generaly low volume but require alot of manovering so I'm hoping where this is where the Crux will really show its true colours. Its certainly the nicest boat over drops that I have ever used, it re-surfaces predictably and boofs really easy

Just thought i'd post up the photos, they also feature my newest set of Lendals

191cm, double torque, XPS carbon shaft
20 degrees feather,
kinetic XTI carbon composite blades,

The new setup really suits me. I've been using the double torques and composite XTI's for a while now since doing the first testing when Nick@Lendal sent them too me. I've really loved the blades, powerfull yet stil predictable they are the blades i have been looking for, though I must admit I miss the overall power of the KineticPowers it was a small price to pay for the all round versatility of the XTI's.

New boat

Mid Hammer and stuffing up the line


Boof off the top

OK.... so as a few of you know I've recently changed sponsor... the reasons for that I'm not going to discuss on here but to say the least I wasn't unhappy with the dragorossi boats. I was happy paddling them for quite some time and they fitted my requirements.

However all things have to change and when the offer came through from Necky it made a lot of sense to switch. Having paddled their vibe, chronic and orbit fish play boats I knew the boats pretty well, the problem was my limited knowledge of the crux... I had paddled the older design (the blunt) but the crux was a bit of an untested venture for me.

As you can imagine I was quite exited to take it out as soon as the man in the van dropped it off :)

There was bugger all water in the rivers so I rushed myself to the nearest artificial WW course (tees barrage). The boat responded really well and certainly didn't let its short length (well... much shorter than the critical mass) hold it back in anyway. The hull was certainly very responsive and half an hour of flat spins and blunts proved to me that it could work its way around (and out of) a hole as well.

The last thing for me to test was the "boofability" factor.. I wanted to know how well the boat went off drops (and how much it would save me if I cocked up the line)... My local drop was picked as the test point and once the police divers had moved on I was able to have about 6 runs down... on each run the boat felt comfortable and responsive.

all in all I'm happy :) change can be a good thing!