Latest addition to my fleet, a Valley Sirona 15.10 RM. Also Have a Nordkapp LV, Avocet, Eddyline Raven ,Tiderace X Plore S, and a Dagger Alchemy S.
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Nice boat!
Huki V1B va’a in Sparkleberry Swamp, South Carolina:
Mike Galt Lotus Caper in Juniper Springs, Florida:
Hemlock SRT at outlet of Long Lake to Raquette River in Adirondacks, NY:
Juniper Springs is one of the best runs in the US. Nice boats.
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Glen, a ski in Sparkleberry has to get interesting, especially with an outrigger. You must have stayed in the lakes.
Huki V1B va’a:
@string said:
Glen, a ski in Sparkleberry has to get interesting, especially with an outrigger. You must have stayed in the lakes.
No, not at all. I’ve been in there with three different canoes and the major “trails”, if you can find them, are wide enough for john boats with motors.
Of course, you can’t fit between all the trees with an outrigger canoe that you can with a single hull, but there are still a zillion off-trail routes you can wander about and get lost in. The ne plus ultra of predictive outrigger canoe control is to glide over a stump with your main hull on one side of it, your ama on the other side, and your iakos able to clear the stump height. If your guess or control is wrong . . . CLONK.
Sparkleberry is possibly my favorite place to paddle, and I’m dying to do an overnight there in the parts I haven’t seen. On day trips, I can only cover about 1/3 of it. Never go in without a mapping GPS unless you are already familiar with the main features. Many people have gotten lost. I’ve now have sat photos of it loaded in my GPS and also the only hand-drawn map ever produced. I even have two hours of narrated video from my last trip that I’ve never edited or published.
I did get some strange looks from the local fishermen the day I went in with my Huki.
It’s an interesting place. I’ve been in 3 times, always with a local paddler who knows their way around it.
@“Glenn MacGrady” Is that Huki an off-the shelf rig, or a custom mod? Seems like a logical thing to do, but I haven’t seen anything like it before.
@greyheron said:
@“Glenn MacGrady” Is that Huki an off-the shelf rig, or a custom mod? Seems like a logical thing to do, but I haven’t seen anything like it before.
I bought the Huki in 2005. It’s not a ski. It’s a standard Huki one-person outrigger canoe (va’a) model V1B, which is still available according to the Huki website. However, the layup was customized for me as were the design aesthetics.
The multicoloration on the main hull and ama is a batik pattern cloth that is inlaid into the lamination under clear gelcoat. I purchased the cloth and sent it to Huki Jude. He had never before tried a cloth lamination on an ama, but it worked out great. I chose a batik pattern because batik is Indonesian, and it was from around Indonesia that the great trans-Pacific migrations began thousands of years ago, probably in large outrigger sailing canoes.
Other customizations you can’t see in those pictures are 8" Beckson screw hatches that open from the cockpit into the fore and aft hulls for gear storage in those hulls. Jude had never before tried 8" hatches (only 6") and was reluctant, but I insisted because I could fit lightweight tents and camping gear through 8" openings. Each hatch has a removable day bag made of the same batik material, which looks aesthetically cool because the hatches are clear plastic and you an see the batik pattern through the closed hatches.
Other customizations were the C-clips on the rear iako to hold a spare paddle, which is a lifetime habit for me, and box-X bungees on the front and back decks, which I copied from seakayak outfitting. It also has venturi drains in the footwells, which I usually keep closed with rubber stoppers.
Huki Jude told me it was a tradition to give an outrigger canoe a name. So mine is the Tahoe Batiki. Lake Tahoe was my first trip in the canoe, and “Batiki” is a portmanteau word I created to combine “batik” with “Kon-Tiki”, which was Thor Heyerdahl’s trans-Pacific raft.
I designed and purchased this va’a without ever having paddled one or even seen one in person. I was sick of my eight year flirtation with seakayaks, and wanted a fast open canoe with ocean going capabilities that didn’t require a roll for self rescue. I drove from Connecticut to Sacramento to pick the boat up, and spend eight weeks paddling the Tahoe Batiki all alone all over the west coast, Sierra Nevada mountain lakes, Oregon, Yellowstone, BWCA, Canada, Lake Huron, the Adirondacks, and other places.
More than you wanted to know, but I got caught up in reminiscing. Haven’t used the Huki in several years now.
On the Lewis River in Yellowstone:
This is my Gumotex Swing 1 (Innova for all you Yanks 
). It’s very light, only 11 kg, and sets up in 7 minutes. It’s also quite quick and a joy to paddle. 310cm long, 87cm wide.
It looks like a Seaward Passat G3 from Canada. They make great kayaks.
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Can I show off my “new to me” trailer? It’s an aluminum Trailex SUT-350-S that the previous owner used for a 22 foot tandem. Makes my 17.5 foot Pygmy Coho look kind of small. I’ve modified the trailer since the photo was taken. It’s now 3 feet shorter and has a small utility box in back with kayak load bars on top of the box.
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Woah! Love the yellow of Valley’s boats. And you don’t see a lot of ravens here. Looking to get a used Sirona rm myself.
Been down to one sea kayak, this SKUK Pilgrim Expedition. It is for sale, but I’ll still be paddling…a surf ski which is not yet here.
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