OK, here we are back after a little hiatus with, finally, a kayak update. June 13 seems like ages ago. But that's the day we welcomed our gorgeous new kayaks home.
I took the day off of work to drive down to Winona, location of Current Designs' manufacturing facility. Jenni had to work, so my dad joined me. He has more expertise than I when it comes to lashing things to vehicles, and I though that knowledge might come in handy. The drive to Winona - down Highway 52, through Rochester, and then east on I-90 - was easy and we were at the Wenonah Canoe headquarters by 9 a.m.
There, we met Mike Cichanowski, owner and CEO of Wenonah Canoe and Current Designs. Mike's the guy who founded Wenonah 40 years ago! He was kind enough to arrange a factory tour for us, and personally showed us through the canoe manufacturing campus. For as well-known as the Wenonah brand is - at least here in Minnesota - I was surprised how compact the whole operation was. It's a cluster of nondescript-looking buildings tucked at the edge of an industrial park. But within, magic. As we walked through the factory, we saw the entire gestation of a canoe. I was particularly interested in how a Kevlar canoe was made. The Kevlar starts in rolls of cloth-like material, is cut and shaped in molds, fitted to a frame, and laminated with a gleaming layer of gel-coat. The pride Wenonah's craftsmen took in building these boats was obvious.
Next, we passed into a warehouse, with rows and rows of canoes lined into corrals along the wall. Mike explained that the majority of the boats were made-to-order, even custom built; everything we saw had been spoken for and was bound for the destination where its owners awaited. We learned that Wenonah ships a fair number of boats to Europe, especially Germany. How do they do it? By packing canoes and kayks into truck-sized metal containers and sending them across the pond on a container ship. Kind of cool that Wenonah canoes must sail the ocean to get to the lakes and rivers of Europe.
When our conversation touched the comparatively light weight of Kevlar canoes, Mike picked up a sleek honey-hued canoe, set it down on the wood-chipped floor, and invited us to give it a lift. Used to the 50-year-old aluminum canoes at our cabin, my dad and I bent down and prepared to heft each end. The canoe practically leapt into our hands! Mike said it was a scant 38 pounds. I'd never touched a Kevlar canoe before...but after that experience, I expect Jenni and I will get one someday. I want one. (And it made me seriously consider renting one for our big canoe trip in September.)
Next, it was off to the Current Designs factory building - a few minutes' drive away - where another team of skilled men and women were building kayaks. Here, two manufacturing lines were housed within one warehouse-sized building. On one side, fiberglass boats were being assembled. Molds adorned one wall, and across the floor, a number of boats were in various stages of construction. The top and bottom of the hull were molded separately using a vacuum-bag laminate process, then joined together at the seams, fitted with bulkheads, and finished with a silky smooth layer of gel-coat.
Passing through a door in the wall dividing the space, we found ourselves in the midst of the rotomolded polyethylene kayak line. At one corner of the space, a monster black oven, big enough to swallow a kayak, slowly rocked end to end. Complex-looking metal molds, recognizable by their rough kayak shape, sat on the cement nearby. This was where the boats were created: powered plastic was placed in the mold, which was put in the oven. As the powder began to melt, the rocking of the oven ensured it would flow evenly throughout the mold. Once this "baking" process is complete, the mold comes out and the new kayak is allowed to cool. As it cools, it shrinks by several inches, so the mold has to be engineered larger than the actual boat. How they figure out exactly what size to make the mold is beyond me, but they've obviously got it down. Once the boat has cooled, it's removed, any excess bits of plastic are trimmed off, and the kayak is finished with bulkheads, a seat, rudder, deck rigging, and so forth.
It's easier for Current Designs to design a new fiberglass kayak: its crew can create new molds themselves. Designing the complex metal molds for the plastic kayaks is a much more time and cost intensive process. But once the mold is ready, Current Designs can turn out a half-dozen or more plastic kayaks a day, compared to two or three fiberglass boats.
While my dad and I were in the midst of this fascinating tour, some of the awesome Current Designs folks grabbed the two kayaks that would be Jenni's and mine. By the time we got back to the car, the kayaks, wrapped for the journey in plastic and foam - were already loaded and secured strapped to the roof rack (see the photo above). They were solid as a rock - it makes sense that these guys knew how to lash kayaks to a car - and it was a good thing, because we endured a gusty drive home.
That evening, Jenni and I launched our Storm GTs on Rice Lake here in Maple Grove. We put in at a city park and pushed off into an evening of paddling bliss. We found our boats to be fast, stable, nimble on waves, and comfortable to sit in. All in all, paddling is a joy!
We've been out a few times since then on a couple of the lakes here in Maple Grove. Paddling across calm water at sunset is heaven, whether you're in the Boundary Waters or the Twin Cities suburbs. In our few evening jaunts, we've glided past flotillas of ducks and geese, watched a deer come to drink at the shore, spied on a snapping turtle that was as big as a dinner platter, and paid a visit to a pelican. We've followed canals from Rice Lake under Interstate 94 and into secluded wetlands hiding in the midst of suburbia, just out of sight of Maple Grove's busy thoroughfares.
I loved kayaking at my cabin, but now that I have a boat of my own, I can say with confidence that I'm an addict.
With the Fourth of July upon us, we're marking the holiday with our first mini-expedition. We are bound for St. Cloud, where the plan is to paddle from the city down the Mississippi River, through the wild Beaver Islands, to end at my folks' place just in time for lunch. If all goes well, we might have some pictures to post by the end of the weekend.
I'll close with a photo taken last Saturday, while I was spectating - from my kayak! - at the start of the City of Lakes Tri-Loppet race, which began on Lake Calhoun with a canoe/kayak race. What you can't see is the grin behind the camera.
A big, hearty thank you to Mike Cichanowski and all of the great people at Current Designs and Wenonah Canoe for helping us realize our kayaking dreams!
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