Peter’s Paddling Blog

Finally I got around to use the Surf Machine for what it was designed for. During the weekend 13 paddlers of various backgrounds met up in the small township Klitmøller located at the west coast of Jutland. The best surf spot of Northern Europe as some like to call it(No question that there are places in the UK with better surf conditions).

Saturday conditions were rather brutal with a force 7 onshore wind and a strong current pushing us into a stone reef. We stayed away from the outermost breakers as they were really too nasty looking.

I can now testify that a surf kayak is frightening fast. This also means that if you can’t control the kayak(and I can’t) you’ll get slammed in a number of extraordinary high speed crashes. Now I know why the surf kayak community calls it getting obliterated. Boy did I get obliterated! I’ve done a number of surf sessions before, but never has my upper body been flung around underwater like it did Saturday. It felt like some giant grabbing my legs and violently shook my upper body. No swimming all weekend though.

Sunday conditions were way calmer which allowed for a bit more of control during the surfs. We were sharing the breakers with 15-20 board surfers which in itself was totally unproblematic. This is only the second time I’ve experienced board surfers in Denmark.

We shot some videos but nothing fantastic. When I was filming I was freezing my butt off in my icy cold wetsuit. Lesson learned.

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I used a Greenland paddle Saturday and my Knysna wing Sunday. None of these were really optimal but good enough for now.

Having a surf kayak with fins is not unproblematic. No matter how hard I tried to be careful during launches and landings, the fins really took a beating. Not that they broke or anything.

We have now founded a Danish Kajaksurf Google Group to organize our surf activities in the future. Perhaps paddlers from our neighboring countries will be interested too.

In less than three weeks we’ll meet in Klitmøller again for a new session.

Saturday I picked up a surf kayak in Copenhagen. Build in carbon, weight 8 kg, three fins, space for my long legs, I got it second hand for a good price and it’s red even – Hurray!

The kayak was manufactured by Radical Moves which no longer seems to be in existence. They apparently had a strange way of naming their kayaks. The model I got is a Hooker!

I haven’t actually been surfing with it yet but used it for the Monday rolling session in the sea kayak club. The kayak is average for back finishing rolls. I could only handroll it with some effort. Forward finishing rolls are fine. I consistently forward-forward rolled it with a throwing stick.

Surf Machine

Surfing in real surf kayaks is very much in its infancy in Denmark. I doubt there are 20 surf kayaks around in all. So I did some research to find out what surf kayaking really is about.

I was surprised discover that Surf kayaking is not a discipline organized by ICF the International Canoe Federation. Rather the international competitions are organized by The World Surf Kayak Association. Still at least one national canoing federation, the BCU has taken surf kayaking under its wings

The annual Tour de Gudenaa race is coming up in less than two weeks so I have limited time for playing around in the new kayak.