Today I took my new Ice Kap down to the HASK (Houston Area Sea Kayakers) picnic and boat demo on a little spring-fed lake in SE Houston. What an awesome experience. The first paddler (Robert Stark), our commodore and a taciturn guy not noted for wild hilarity, came up from his first roll laughing and from the second saying, “did you see that — amazing! The first roll, I put all the energy in that I usually put in to roll my Valley Pintail, and I nearly turned myself over again! This is sweet, what a great boat.” He says this is the first boat he’s ever paddled that he likes better than his Pintail. Chris is about 5’10” and easily 200 lbs, but he squeezed himself in, sinking the boat to the black sidewave line. When he edged (he’s an aggressive and very experienced paddler, BCU 4), the water lapped over his skirt to his waist. He inadvertently flipped but of course he popped up like a cork. His comments: “This boat is a rocket! so fast! so maneuverable ….  This is one of the best boats I’ve ever paddled.”

Others were equally ecstatic. One guy who didn’t seem particularly interested in paddling it at first — he’d already paddled may other boats in the lineup — came back from paddling the Ice Kap raving, “This boat is entirely different than any other boat here!” and went on to wax ecstatic about the responsiveness, speed, maneuverability, the fit, etc. etc.

 And on and on. The most gratifying was hearing people telling others, “Did you try the Ice Kap? It’s amazing, it’s really wonderful, what a beautiful boat!” Words like amazing and wonderful and design and sweet and rocket and fast and beautiful.

And of course, the cap was the weight. No one could believe how light this boat is. Guys would lift it over their heads and say things like “Hey, this makes me look strong!”

Needless to say, I didn’t get to spend a lot of time in my boat, but I tried two rolls, not having rolled a boat in at least 5 years — my old sea kayak is so tough that unless I’m totally in sync and have perfect coordination in the layback, it just doesn’t happen. Well, I shouldn’t have come up on the first one – I did everything wrong, but I did. Then I quit trying for a sweep and went back to the good old C to C that I learned back in the day at NOC and popped right to the surface. VERY cool!

I stayed an extra 30 minutes after the picnic officially broke up because the groundswell attention on the Ice Kap meant there was something of a waiting line of people who wanted to paddle it.  I’m looking forward to taking it surfing, something I never dared to do with my old boat. But I love surfing a whitewater boat, and this boat gives me almost the same feeling of maneuverability and control as my whitewater playboat! Thank you, thank you, thank you Sterling.
All best, 

Linda Day