Nikki Rekman Sales Logo Wear has Arrived!!!

We are super excited to have received our first shipment of Nikki Rekman Sales Logo Wear.  

Introductory offer is $10.00 for Men's T's, $13.00 for Women's T's.  Regular price will be $15.00 for ALL T's.

Current stock:

Men's T's - Grey Medium, Grey Large, Black XL
Wo's T's - Grey Small, Grey Large, Grey XXL, Brown XL - XXL*
Hat's - Olive and Brown $15.00

Contact us to place your order.

Prices do not include HST or shipping

Military Style Caps - Olive and Brown - $15.00

Women's T-Shirt - Brown and Grey

Back of Hoodie - Special order only $40.00

Olive Cap and Men's Charcoal Hoodie

Men's Grey T-shirt - $10.00

Mike Darbyshire in Action at Skooks!!

Check out Nikki Rekman Sales team paddler, Mike Darbyshire on his SUP board at Skooks this past weekend with the crew from Hurricane Riders!

Mike is also wearing a couple of new pieces from Kokatat Watersports Wear.  The Kokatat Jackson Collection, Icon Drysuit and the Maximus Prime PFD.  Both items will be available from your local retailer in January 2013.  Not too be forgotten, Mike is using his Nitro paddle by Werner Paddles.

Another River SUP Paddler Sings the Stingers Praises

Welcome, Guest blogger, Luke Vollmerhaus.  

Luke works for Aquabatics Calgary a proud Kokatat Watersports Wear and Werner Paddles Dealer.  He is also a member of the Nikki Rekman Sales Team.

 

Smooth. 

For a paddle that might seem like an odd descriptor but for the Werner Paddles Stinger it fits perfectly. 

With each stroke this blade eases into and out of the water without the slightest suggestion of a catch. This enables the paddler to take more confident strokes in the complex balance situations presented by White water SUP boarding. In a sport as progressive as this you don’t want anything holding you back and the Stinger does just the opposite, accelerating your skills better than ever!

Here’s the physics behind the feeling: Your classic wedge shaped blade delivers a powerful forward stroke and is by far the most commonly used style as SUP boarding started on flat water and ocean environments. The down side to this design is that as soon as you get the tip in the water you immediately have a very significant portion of the blade in the water. This can cause something called a ‘catch’ where you suddenly have a large amount of resistance against the blade. If this resistance isn’t perfectly in line with your intended stroke (due to something like say… river currents) then it can pull you off balance and land you in the water. 

Werner has conquered this issue by inverting the wedge shape of the paddle so if you only put a little of the blade in the water you only get a little bit of resistance. The angle of the wedge also makes sculling braces much easier as it doesn’t bury the blade in the water as easily so your paddle stays high and utilizes maximum leverage and surface tension.

I got in a September surf session on Harvie passage in Calgary to test out this hot new blade and it was all it was that Werner promised and more!   

This paddle is a huge step in the progression of white water SUP.

Keep a paddle in the water!

Luke

Jackson Kayak Dealer Summit

We are very excited to be headed to Tennessee for the Annual Jackson Kayak Dealer Summit in Rock Island State Park.  From what we read the park is gorgeous and features the Great Falls of the Caney Fork River - an imposing limestone gorge. There are scenic overlooks, waterfalls and deep pools for fishing, rock-hopping and of course there will be paddling! The park is located at the confluence of the Collins and Caney Fork Rivers.

Image/Animation by: Tim Curtis

This year’s Dealer Summit will have:

• On-water (Fishing/flat-water, white-water) clinics
• SUP clinic
• Marketing/PR clinic
• Sales Clinic
• Outfitting kayaks clinic
• How to develop your own team clinic
• Factory plant tour
• Fun competitions
• Cajun Dinner party @ the Foglight Foodhouse
• After party @ the Jackson Ranch

We are happy to have  representation from two of Western Canada's Jackson Kayak Dealers, Chris Ryman from Endless Adventure in Crescent Valley, BC and Laura Demers from Western Canoeing and Kayaking in Abbotsford, BC AND Jeff Turner, our Sales Manager from Kokatat Watersports Wear

I am sure we will have lots to report when we get back so stay tuned!!!

Don't forget we still have TWO Jackson Kayak whitewater demo boats available for sale, the Villian S (red) and the Fun Runner 60 (green).  Contact me for more details.

More photos from Battle of the Paddle

 THANKS Karly for the photos!

BC's own Norm Hann and Mike Darbyshire photo: Karly Cox

A contemplative Mike Darbyshire photo: Karly Cox

Setting up for the race photo: Karly Cox

Karly Cox and Lina Augaitis

Photo: Karly Cox

Mike photo: Karly Cox

Team Canada!!!

Trip of a Lifetime - Antarctica

I still, can hardly believe it, but when the opportunity arose for Mark and I to take a trip to Antarctica well, we jumped at it.

We are super stoked to be heading out with One Ocean Expeditions.  I started working with Aaron and Cathy Lawton when I first started repping...way back when.  They are a premier outfitter using only the best gear in the business.  Equipment is supplied by Kokatat Watersports Wear, Werner Paddles, Seals Sprayskirts and others.

This winter we fly from Vancouver via Dallas to Buenos Aires to a small city on the southern tip of Argentina called, Ushuaia.  It is commonly referred to as the most southern city in the world.

In Ushuaia we will board the Russian vessel, Akademik Ioffe for our One Ocean Expeditions - Antarctica adventure.

On this particular trip we will spend 18 NIGHTS / 19 DAYS with stops in the Falkland Islands, South Georgia, the South Shetland Archipelago and finally Antarctica.

We chose this trip with One Ocean Expeditions because we hope to do (weather permitting - it is Antarctica remember) what we love most - paddling and what a magnificent place this will be to visit and paddle in!  The crew has paddled over 3,000 nautical miles in Antarctica so who better to introduce to us and many others, such a magical paddling locale.

The opportunities to be active on this trip are endless; hiking, paddling, snowshoeing and more.  Armchair adventurer's no longer - YOU can experience this very adventure yourself.  Check out One Ocean Expeditions and if that does not convince you, keep watching our blog for trip updates and Coast and Kayak Magazine for a future trip report.

Kayaking with guide, Mark Scriver photo: Gabe Rogel

You can check out our last trip report, paddling down the Grand Canyon, in Coast and Kayak Magazine's Spring 2011 issue HERE.

And remember...DO EPIC SHIT!!!  THIS one's going to be epic and we are counting down the days.

Battle of the Paddle Report

Congratulations to all the Canadian Paddlers who participated in Battle of the Paddle - way to represent!

Battle of the Paddle 2012 Recap by Mike Darbyshire

My second trip to the Battle of the Paddle certainly did not disappoint!  I got a chance to paddle with the best paddlers in the world and some of my Canadian SUP colleagues!

 I was again amazed at how easy it is to do a weekend trip down to Southern California.  It is a little more expensive but in the same amount of time it takes to go from Vancouver to Tofino you could be on a plane, in a rental car and surfing without a wetsuit in Southern California.  Yes it is a little bit more expensive when you factor in the flight, rental car and hotel but it is a pretty reasonable extended long weekend.

We headed down to the beach in our rental van with myself and Karly and other members of the Canadian Starboard Team: Gary Parsons, Shannon Bell, Lina Augaitis, Yannick Michaud and Sarah LaFerte.  We got to the beach and found members of the International team and North American team unwrapping some of the brand new 2013 boards.  After seeing the catalogue about a month ago I was excited to finally see the boards in person.  More info about the 2013 boards to come in a future post.

The weather looked great for the weekend and the swell was forecasted at about 3-5 feet with a long period.  Perfect conditions for the race, not too big, but enough to really make it interesting. I have never been more nervous leading up to a race.  I didn’t want to come all the way down to California and disappoint myself with a poor performance.  My goal was: make it to the finals and have a fun race.

 With a higher tide for the first heat the waves were little bit smaller and breaking closer to the beach.  This meant the challenging section of this heat would be the boneyard.  The boneyard is a shallow rocky section on the right side of the race course where waves break right at the almost 180 degree buoy turn.

I started the race next to fellow Canadian Norm Hann and we managed to both get off to a good start towards the middle/front of the pack.  We made it out to the first buoy turn in good positions. Being near the back of the pack gets pretty clogged up around this first turn so it was great to be near the front. I had a pretty clean race with only one fall and I managed to squeak into the finals after passing a few paddlers on the last lap of the qualifying heat. Norm managed to pull ahead of the little group I was in and was able to paddle a good clean race as well, making it through to the finals.

The Open race took place on Saturday in between the Elite Qualifying heats and the Finals.  Over 400 Stand Up Paddlers in one race setting a new Guinness World Record for the biggest Stand Up Paddleboard race ever.  Some of our Canadian crew paddled in the open race and did very well:

Karly Cox:  2^nd for Female 12’6: 19-29

Lina Augaitis: 1^st female overall (despite what the results say)

Gary Parsons: 6^th overall – First Male 14’: 50-59

Tim Quarles: 4^th in his category

The tide dropped a lot for the finals of the Elite race in the afternoon.  This made for a pretty gnarly, rocky beach and some more hazards in between laps.  I made a poor choice an started near the right side of the beach that was scattered with rocks just below the surface.  Normally a good start is one of my strong suits but after hitting a few rocks with my fins and falling a couple times I had to start the race from behind. Shallow conditions also meant that I bashed my Werner Grand Prix off of a few rocks but it held up very well throughout a rough weekend of racing.  I know there were more than a few paddlers who had some broken paddle issues (Cyril Burgiere in particular).

I ended up near the back of the pack off the start and wasn’t able to make up much ground on a field of truly elite paddlers. I was finally able to relax on my last lap and really appreciated how much fun the day of racing was. I caught some great waves in my last couple laps and passed a couple paddlers in the transitions.   I’m not used to placing 65^th in any race, but against a field like that I can’t be disappointed! I’ve got some work to do for next year and I’m looking forward to trying to better my results in 2013!

As if that wasn’t enough that was just day one. Day 2 held the Distance Race, Kids Races, SUP Surf Relay and an attempt to break another Guinness World Record, this time for the most surfers riding a single wave.   I chose not to paddle in the distance race and spent my morning surfing and checking out some new boards, paddles and other exhibitors.

I paddled out on an 8’5” Starboard Pro to watch the start of the distance race.  A mass on-water start for the 10 mile race is pretty neat to watch first hand. I caught a few waves while everyone was racing and then headed to the finish line to watch Danny Ching paddle into the beach uncontested for the victory.

The final event of the weekend was the spectator favorite SUP Surf Relay.  I was reluctant at first because I was sore and a bit tired but we had to represent Canada and put a team together.  Each paddler on the 4 person team had to do 2 laps of a short sprint course in and out of the surf.  There were almost 50 teams and our Canadian Team of Norm Hann, Gary Parsons, Lina Augaitis and myself managed a 10^th place finish which is very respectable!  As most relay races are, this one was full of fun, carnage, swimming and laughs.  Turns out Lina was right and it does end up being the best way to cap off a great weekend.

Big thanks to all of my sponsors for helping me out throughout the season and for helping me get down to Battle of the Paddle.  I am already looking forward to next year and I hope to see even more Canadians in the mix for 2013!  Thanks to Starboard, Deep Cove Outdoors, Werner Paddles and Nikki Rekman Sales for all your support!



We also have a great trip report from sponsored female SUP Paddler, Lina Augaitis that she posted to her blog HERE

Lina celebrating her 1st place prize for the Open Race with Sparky and Gerry Lopez

Team Canada!  Lina, Gary Parsons, Shannon Bell-Parsons, Mike, Karly Cox and Norm Hann missing Yannick Michaud

Hope to have more photos from Mike and Lina to post soon!