Greetings, Although I've been a routine "listener" of this great group of paddlers for over a year now, I'm only now getting around to introducing myself. I happily own a folding sea kayak, the Klepper Aerius I 2000. It's of the single-mini class of kayaks, if I'm not mistaken. A modest picture of it is on my web page, http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~meehan. I took possesion of my boat back in 1997, after consulting with Ralph Diaz first, of course. :-) As he had explained to me, this boat was of two models, the designs of the first version having been lost in a fire at the Klepper facility. So they apparently reconstructed the design, which is what I now own. It really is a pleasure to paddle, and has a very nice glide to it. Lake paddles in northern New England (I live in the Boston area) are more to my liking, rather than the sea. Part of this is due to my Klepper's length of 12.5 feet, which doesn't seem suitable for the open waters. Also, the design of the spray skirt necessitates that I apply a velco strip permanently to the beautiful wood of the coaming, which conflicts with my impression of the boat's aesthetics. If there are alternatives to this design, I'd love to hear of it. I seem to recall that Klepper used to make a tuck-under spray skirt. If there are any New Englanders out there, perhaps we can meet for a paddle some day. My most memorable paddle was out onto a lake in New Hampshire one August evening to sit back and enjoy the Perseid meteor shower. At the time, I had been introduced to the Folbot line of kayaks in the early 1980s as a teenager. Aside from kayaking, I work as a physicist at the Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, MA, where I contribute to the exciting field of x-ray astronomy. I played a part in building an x-ray telescope observatory that has been orbiting the Earth for about two years now. I look forward to continuing my kayak education by reading these informative posts. Sincerely, Gary Meehan *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
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