ron-t kayaking blog

06 October 2012 .............. Falls of Lora

Another gamble this morning - the predicted tide height was 3.5 metres - usually too low for any surfing. However it paid off - the loch was much lower than yesterday, and the tide height was way down. Beside the north pier there was a small wave which worked, but not worth spending time at.

The real deal was out in the middle, I caught the first wave, and there I stayed - not sure for how long, but maybe somewhere around 10 minutes.

It wasn`t the easiest of waves to stay on as I couldn`t surf the middle of it, it just didn`t seem to work somehow. But if I sat just on the river right edge of the wave, I could get a good ride. Move just slightly to the left, and it was too flat. Move just a wee bit to the right, and a strong diagonal current pushed the bow round to the right, and it was quite a fight to get it round again.

All the time I was on it, the wave was slowly flattening, and eventually I lost it and couldn`t catch the other waves. I went round again, but nothing.

So it was a 10 minute wonder, but definitely worth the trip.

The Romany Surf RM is very good at surfing, but if it strays off line, it is sometimes a bit of a struggle to get back on line, basically because it is too big a boat for me. I wonder if it is possible to get a boat that is just the right size, surfs like the Romany RM, edges and carves like an Anas Acuta, and is easy to do self rescues in like the Avocet RM. Can someone please invent one !

PS - it also has to be very fast, highly manouverable, and preferably be under 5 metres in length. That`s not too much to ask for is it ?

I do think that it is an area of boat design that is a bit neglected - I am sure there are loads of smaller paddlers out there who are paddling boats that are just too big for them. A too big boat is fine if you just want to glide along flat water. But if you want to play a bit, then size and fit become very important, and a correctly sized boat is much more fun to paddle.

Some manufacturers do produce smaller versions of one or two of their boats in their product range but generally I would say there is limited availability of smaller boats.

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