#331 st andrews day

Happy St Andrews Day everyone! Blow your bagpipes, eat haggis and where some tartan!

#330 wood

A nice piece of wood. Maybe going to try and make this a background pic on the blog with a bit of editing over the next few days.

#329 trailer

Freelanders can tow....... The Series is back.

#328 home again

Two days on the road and still not quite home yet......

#327 dude!

dude it is sunny honest!

#326 visitors

Had a couple of visitors at the shop today. They were quite happy watching boating DVDs.

#325 breakfast table

The girls where happy to have breakfast together in the sitting room with the kitchen to cold to stay in for more than 2 mins.

#324 door?

Came home and our patio doors and patio have disappeared and a massive wonderful space has been put in its place. Awesome!

Just needs heating. brrrrr

#323 argh!!!

Till tomorrow. It is another day after all!

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#322 river guide

Spent most of the day on the river get the details to write a guide for the shop to offer out to customers. I was out with Mike Spencer from Paddle Active.
Great GPS and mapping fun.
We paddled from Pitlochry to Dunkeld 14miles. The Tummel runs from Pitlochry and the flows into the Tay at Ballinluig.
Some great autumn weather, dry but cold. Fun day had by us both.

#321 rainbow

End of the world weather this afternoon. Mad rain but with sunshine from the south. It put up an amazing double rainbow. Full half circle rainbow was visible. Never seen a rainbow as clear. I took a few photos but they do not do it justice.

#320 ebay and bikes

Lots of items sold today on ebay. Also got the chance to get my bike started today as well. It's been a while. Never went out though the weather was minging!

#319 pool session

First pool session with the Perth Canoe Club. Had to get my coaching head on. Really enjoyed the night and looking forward to more Sunday sessions.

No pics. Sorry

#318 review

I was really looking forward to getting my hands on the Varun as I had spent a lot of time in the Seven0 and before that the Sub7. The Pyranha Varun is a great addition to the free runner/ river play category. It's a superb boat that does alot of things well. It will tick a lot of boxes for a lot of different abilities of paddlers. The hull shape comes from the Molan, which means that it has a lot of similarities with a modern short play boat. With the Molan hull lengthened it makes it a user friendly river playboat. Down river freestyle and river running fun is what this boat is all about. It has enough volume to run class III and IV whitewater with the right technique and confidence. It is very loose and slicey at the play spots. Advanced paddlers will be able to play their way down the river as well as having fun on the flat with cartwheels and stalls. Beginners and intermediate paddlers can surf all day and will find it easy to roll. It is boat that will handle high water River Tay runs and will be great in the summer months when the water levels drop. True to Pyranha's heritage of Play the River, the Varun, is a great option for this.


The Bow and Stern are really balanced and slicey. Beginners and Intermediate kayakers will be able to learn to do tailies and initiate double pumps for cartwheels with this boat while retaining confidence on the river with the extra hull speed over a short playboat. Advanced paddlers can throw ends in holes and in eddylines and bow and stern stalls are possible on the flat. There is good volume in the knee area to loop and do most modern tricks.

The Varun has a flat planing hull with an edge. The edge is noticeable but not to "trippy". The Varun carves in and out of eddies with ease and has an incredible river running ability. It is not an excessively wide boat, which makes it quick edge, to edge for carving, surfing and freestyle moves like blunts and cut backs. The hull has a great rocker break that stops the nose from diving too much on a steep wave. The hull speed was a nice surprise in such a short boat and a pleasure to paddle. If you are used to paddling a big volume river runner with loads of hull speed (like the Burn or Mamba), you will be surprised by just how fast this boat is.

For me at 6ft2in and 90kgs the medium is very comfortable, and easy to outfit. The Connect 30 Outfitting is solid and adjusts without too much trouble. The small and medium versions come with a foam block up front, and the large comes with 2 blocks that connect together. A little bit of bread knife carving is required. There are shims included with the hips pads that are very easy to insert, the seat moves backwards and forwards (tricky to move but once it is positioned, it is very solid), the foam is easy to carve, and the back band has an adjustor at the back and thigh mounted ratchets for fine tuning. The Thigh Grips move backwards and forwards for maximum contacted. The hull stiffener has a great buckle

Con's:

The Connect 30 Backrest tends to fold forwards when you are getting in on those tricky put ins. Although you can prevent this by tightening up the bungies that hold the backrest to the back of the cockpit rim or by holding it as you get in.
It would be nice if the Thigh Grips moved in and out as well as backwards and forwards.
The outfitting can take a bit of time to dial in. Unlike the inflatable outfitting in other brands you have to get the bread knife out to trim it up. Although once it is done then in my opinion it is better than the inflatable systems. Stick with it you won't be disappointed.
The Varun is not a full on play boat, and it is not for running class V creeks and rivers. Free runners (Varun, Jackson Fun, Wavesport Fuse, Liquid Logic Freeride) are a bit longer than play boats, and are not as bulbous. Because of this they are better down river, but not as easy to throw around in a hole or wave. If your goal is to learn to loop, and you are going to spend all day at a play hole or wave then get a short playboat. On the flipside, if you are going for steep Class 5 do not get this boat. The planing hull, squashed low volume ends and play boat heritage will not help you out on hard runs. Get a proper river runner or creek boat which is meant for running hard rapids.



The Verdict:

· This boat is my GoTo boat right now. For the winter and high water River Tay it is great. It has the hull speed to get those ferry glides across the whole river and it will surf the big waves with ease. Still giving you the control to spin and carve. On low water days you can still get ends without hitting the bottom in those shallow features. River Running in it is putting the play back into RiverPlay! Come to Brookbank and sit in one today.

#317 camel trophy

Enjoying a bit of Camel Trophy on DVD tonight. Looking forward to a bit of off roading soon. With any luck we'll have lots of snow this winter.....

#316 get wet

Two days in a row, we like that. Back on the river this afternoon. The misty day was awesome and got to test out a new waterproof cover for my camera after the wet nearly killed my phone yesterday. Overboard waterproof covers work!

#315 take me to the river

After building chaos this morning it was a relaxing afternoon on the Tay. I love that river, 5mins from the house and in Autumn the colours are amazing. So good in fact I'm going back tomorrow. I'll try and take more photos. My phone died on me on the river so I only caught this one of Scott P.

#314 old school

Got to love the old school series 1 look. My brother in law Les took this on his recent trip to Oz.

#313 ouch

Furniture moving 1, Cam's finger 0!


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#312 skyfall

Afternoon free of the kids. Bond Skyfall. Every current model of Landrover, Honda Motorbikes, Scotland and Bond. What could make a better film?


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#311 stags

Please, no more stag or deer patterned soft furnishings in my house!
Jax loves then and they are the on trend item this year. but really we have enough now!


On another note it looks like I have reach my image limit on my blog. Might have to look at another way to post images.

#310 ebay

Ebay day today. Got to clear the decks a bit. Loads of stuff I don't use anymore and we have an extension to build.

check out kayakcam0 on ebay for full listings.

#309 sweet

Getting a bit fired up for some boating. Got a week off so in amongst family time a bit of paddling will be taking place.

#308 quiet

So the season is over. Work has gone to the deathly quiet stage. Next busy time will be the run up to Christmas. Quiet month to come.
At least the girls are still noisy! Still and it is after 10pm!

#307 superstars

Day off today with the two little superstars in my life. Good fun was had by all but time for bed.

#306 nov 5th

Remember remember the 5th of November.
Didn't see any though. Too busy putting kids to bed with lots of banging going on outside.

#305 movember

I'm taking part in Movember. All in aid of mens health we are all growing moustaches throughout November. or Movember as it is now called.
Should be a giggle. Got a friend in the US, Africa and in Canada who are all going for it too. Should be a laugh. who else is in?

http://uk.movember.com/

#304 long day

time for bed.

#303 africa

Having a bit of a rem inis today about Africa. It was 14 years ago we were there. Met up with an old friend at the canoe show last weekend who lives there and has done for 10 years. He is always inviting me out. www.kayakthenile.com is his business.

Hopefully I will get back one day. I went digging in the archive photos and found this shot of the top of rapid 11 on the Zambezi. This was a print not digital. Shows you how long ago it was!

#302 house update

Well the extension is starting to look like a building integrating into our current house. The main building has been painted too so it looks very different.
Windows are in the extension and we are waiting for the roofers to put on the tiles that are sitting in our driveway.
All coming together quite nicely.