[Paddlewise] Skin & Frame [ ex Old Man & Sea]

Doug:  Your post on faded ol' paddlers and their Kleppers rang a bell with
me:

Snip
. They are almost always "low-tech," well-adjusted, sea-savvy
paddlers. They usually, from what I could quickly ascertain,
seemed...well...connected with nature in a special way. I don't know how
else to put it. I hate to admit it (because I love stiff kayaks so much) but
I think the Klepper paddler (Foldboat, Feathercraft, etc.) have a sensation
with the rhythm and undulations of the sea that I just don't get to
experience
snip

I have a choice of a hardshell or a Klepper, and invariably if I want to
just 'go for a paddle' or 're-connect' with nature after a week in the
office, it will be the Klepper that  is the boat of choice.
Don't know quite why;  but the old skin and frame puts you in contact with
the sea in a way which the plastic fantastics and the glass fibre boats do
not.
Sure, if I want to go real fast, or do my macho man thing,  I will take the
19ft glass boat, but it somehow gets in the way of a truly back to nature
experience.  Coming to glass boats out of folding boats probably has biased
my perception, but I often think hardshell paddlers miss something deeper
when they quietly dismiss folders as something 'low tech' or 'slow' or 'old
fashioned' or whatever.
And as you know, there is nothing low tech about Kleppers and Feathercrafts;
they just take a different approach, but wear on their sleeve their skin and
bone heritage.
Regards,  Peter Rattenbury
Wollongong, NSW


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