A friend of mine bought an Epic V8 earlier this year. It's an 18 foot by 22" beam surf ski. He's been paddling a few different surf skis over the years (Fenn XT, think evo, think legend, huki s1x-special). This year for the blackburn he managed to get second in the fast sea kayak class, in what sounded like a fabulous race. He was second coming out of the Annisquam river, led from the Annisquam to Halibut point, second to straightsmoth, led to the dogbar, then was passed on the way to the greasy pole. I do like the names of the land marks ;-) He ended up 11 minutes faster than his previous best time. Which included doing the race in the Fenn, Evo, s1x-special, and an outrigger connection stingray. It was interesting to a very real case of paddling a 'slower' boat being faster. Because there's no need to brace, or for the core muscles to get tired out from balancing. The V8 is 3 feet shorter and 5 inches wider than the huki s1x-special. For myself, I got tired out and paddled poorly for miles 12 to 17. That'll teach me to paddle a fast boat (probably not). I should go buy a comfy boat and pick up speed... I was about 10 minutes slower than last year - I blame that primarily on conditioning with contributions from hydration and nutrition. It can't possibly be me getting older ;-) Kirk -- Kirk Olsen *************************************************************************** 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/ ***************************************************************************Received on Thu Jul 19 2012 - 11:02:48 PDT
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