I was asked to join the p&h sea kayaks paddlers team as representant of paddlers in Switzerland. I run the sea kayak center (www.seakayakcenter.ch) a paddling school and a test center for Touring and Sea Kayaks.
Touring paddling is growing here like crazy, mostly people paddling on the lakes in our country, but some really get bitten by the sea bug too! Of course many people grin when I say I am a Sea Kayaker from Switzerland. The sea is actually closer to us than for many Germans who have ther “own” coastline – the Italian Medeteranian is approx 350 km from where I live in Central Switzerland. Ok, you lot in England can just laugh at that … but Sardinia and Corsica are fantastic areas easy to get to for a few good days paddling. Apart from that, various lakes in Switzerland offer great scenery. I live within walking distance to lake Zug, on which you get good views of the Alps most days. I love being out there, just outside my front door so to speak, playing around in my kayak, getting turning strokes as efficient as possible, or powering along in a training session.
I’ve been paddling a P&H Sea Kayak since I first sat in one on Skye about 5 years ago. It was a rental kayak I used on a course with Gordon Brown. I went home and ordered myself a Quest! I began teaching kayaking at that time, and was fascinated by the handling of the Quest on edge, also how comfortable the seat was over long periods of sitting. The Quest is actually too big for me, so when the Cetus came on the scene, with a slightly lower cockpit and even finer responses to edging, that was my boat. We have various brands of sea kayaks in our testcenter, but I still find the P&H Sea Kayaks the best choice for myself.
Last Oktober I sat in the prototype of the Cetus MV, which fits me even better, still leaving enough boat volume around for bigger water.
More about that here soon!
