John Myers wrote: > The Brits > make some lovely boats and the Romany is certainly one of them but it is > beyond me why the won't lighten up. > > John I tend to agree ... why don't Valley, PHI, NDK etc don't use epoxy and vacuum bagging ? ... I suspect that they need to expand some more into the lucrative North American market to promote a bit of investment. I think it's widely misreported (on the web for example) by US dealers of British boats that the British market is huge, and everyone over here goes kayaking. Tosh. Sea kayaking is a tiny tiny minority sport in the UK, and I would be very surprised if more valley or NDK etc boats are sold here than abroad ... It also amazes me that prominent BCU instructors manage to fund their retirements by giving wee demonstrations across the pond .... but I digress .... An acquaintance of mine was doing more than his usual rock hopping and seal landing than usual at the start of last summer's paddling, the reason being that he had finally decided to replace his very worn out 15+ years old knordkapp and thus a few more scratches weren't that critical. (although pointing this out through the groaning crunches that its second hand value is still more than it cost him new ...). After much trial of more recent designs he had decided on ... another knordkapp. He still hasn't got it yet. The knordkapp bit is rather irrelevant, the not yet bit more interesting. I was wondering all summer why the new boat hadn't appeared, and I mentioned recently that I was also thinking of investing in a valley pintail for Y2K. I was advised in no uncertain terms to wait .... the gossip apparently being that Valley are planning some major changes to their construction techniques with the aim of making their boats a lot lighter. Not that I would ever gossip, noooo not me ..... Cheers Colin Calder 57º19'N 2º10'W *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
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