Friday, August 29, 2008

Slalom or not?

Ever since seeing slalom videos on Youtube and reading online, I realised that the slaloms in Water-Venture don't look anything like the ones in the videos or pictures.
Modern day slaloms are between 3.5m to 4m long, low volume and have pointy ends. In fact, they kinda look like polo boats with pointy ends.
But, while trying to find out more about slalom paddling techniques, I came across an article that describes the original slaloms back in 1960s as heavy, high volume boats made out of fiberglass that weighed over 30 pounds (13kg).
Sounds familiar?
So it is possible that the kayaks in Water-Venture are slaloms of 60's design with some slight tweaks such as the addition of toggles and decklines.

Hmm.. come to think of it, David did mentioned it before when I asked why the slaloms at the club dont look like the modern ones.

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