Quick release contact tow for sea kayaking

 Contact tow systems for sea kayaking are nothing new, and some form of contact tow is essential for situations where you may need to get a person, or boat out of trouble quickly.
 The issue with many tow systems around is that they have not been easily releasable, or at least not under load, and if you suddenly find yourself in trouble whilst attempting a rescue then you would be left with no way to release the tow.
 My friend Greg was recently shown a system by Giles Hartley, who had adapted a system shown to him by Nigel Dennis, whom he works for in North Wales. The system involved a plastic clip, whilst i believe Nigel's system incorporated a buckle similar to that used on waist mounted tows. Nigels system seems (although i haven't seen it) bulky, whilst Giles' buckle is potentially not as strong and possibly not as easy to release (again i haven't seen it in the flesh so could be wrong).
 Greg, being as bright as he is, spotted the "Sea to Summit Accessory Straps" in Ellis Brigham and decided he would try and create a releaseable system of his own.
 This involved using two sailing snap hooks, bought from a chandlery, and cutting the strap. After he made his i saw it and we chatted over the ability to release it under load and decided to drill a small hole in the buckle to add 3mm cord to make it easier to grab and pull to release.
 I then purchased my own items to make a system and this is what i came up with:



My quick-release contact tow.

My tow is very similar to Gregs, but i bought a 1m long strap, which seems a good length and is still rated to 125kg, so should be fairly solid!. I also used a thinner strap. I think this makes it just a bit subtler and slimmer on your deck. I only had to cut the strap once, about 30-35cm from the buckle. But this may vary boat to boat. I'd advise tying the first hook clip on first, then trimming it to length so the bukle sits fairly central on your deck. I decided to leave a bit more tail than Greg had, to potentially extend the tow slighlty to either fit wider hulled boats, or position the boat out of way of paddling whilst towing.

 

 

 

The snap hooks are of nose-less design and are the smallest size i could find. This keeps them slimline and prevents snagging. They are attached with a re-threaded over hand knot.

 The buckle is quite small on mine, so i had to take care when drilling, but a 3.5mm drill bit on slow revs did the job well. I then threaded a piece of 3mm cord through the hole, tied in a small loop with a simple over hand, it gives a good toggle to grab and having been tested it works well even in rough conditions and under load.

So there you have it! Like all things, it's not perfect and me and Greg have already discussed how we would improve it. I'd be tempted to make another with the tadaptations we have discussed, but for now i'll continue to use mine and perhaps make another in the future.

 If anyone's interested in having one made for them, then drop me a line.



As a side note: We have also used this to raft together. Even in quite big seas you can pull along side each other, clip under deck lines take up any slack and then you are rafted hands free and quick releasable if needs be! pretty handy for navigation and sorting kit out.

Return to the North

My return to Scotland was pretty hectic to say the least! After a long drive back to Aviemore i attended the Reel Rock Film Tour 2013 premier at the Macdonald resort. The following day saw me scouting out places to live for the winter (and luckily finding one!) having had the place i was going to move into unfortunately fall through whilst i was away in the south. The next day it was the Wilderness Scotland end of season BBQ, during which i recieved a call for a last minute days work on sunday.
A 5 30 am start Saturday morning saw me driving over to the Ben Nevis car park for a charity walk provided by Ptarmigan Events. It was a beautiful day with good temperature for a long walk and stunning views and despite it being late in the season, the summit was a busy place again.

 
The influx of visitors that the highest mountain in Britain recieves unfortunately means that a large amount of litter accumulates throughout the season. On Saturday an event was also taking place named "the real 3 peaks challenge". This event saw volunteers from casual walkers to mountain proffessionals scouring the hillside removing litter ranging from chocolate bar wrappers, to broken bottles and even clothing and boots! Whilst i'm 100% behind people going out to enjoy our british mountains, there definately needs to be a paradigm shift in education and attitude toward litter in our wild places.

Rich Pyne, litter pick organiser, picking litter!

 

After a good day on the Ben, a 3 hour drive saw me once again in Torridon. The Torridon walking festival is a relatively new event, with big potential, organised by the Torridon Hotel. Over the weekend guided walks and boat trips took place, exploring the unique and incredible area. The day provided a contrast to the previous days event and was, as always, a priviledge to lead a group in one of my favourite areas in the UK.

The Team on the Summit of Ruadh Stac Mor - the highest peak of Beinn Eighe

South

With things very quiet on the freelance front through end of Sep and start of Oct, i headed south to see my family for a few weeks.
With them living not far from Dartmoor and Exmoor it was a great opportunity to explore some of the mountain biking of the area.
The quantock hills offered beautiful views of the surrounding area, looking out to Wales and further south over Exmoor.

 

The riding there is brilliant rocky forestry track, however, if you are looking for sometinhg harder, over at Triscombe Stone there are at least 30 fairly well contructed down-hill trails, ranging from fast and flowy to big a scary!
I also managed to head over to the trail centre at Haldon Forest, just north of Exeter. This has several long trails of blue and red grade and an optional black loop that branches off the red route.

When the rain arrived a caught up with a few local boaters and headed over to the river Dart. Stonking levels provided big volume with the West Dart and Upper Dart being continuous alpine style grade 4/5 in these levels, and rapids i thought i knew well being unrecognisable to me! At the car park i jumped back on for a super quick blast on the Loop section with some members of Exeter Uni.









It was a reminder that whilst Scotland is breathtaking, there's always some amazing fun to be had in the South West of Britain!

Rhona and Raasay (Another Luke and Greg adventure)

 The islands of Rona and Raasay lie in between The isle of Skye and mainland Scotland and is a designated area of outstanding natural beauty.With Rhona and the north end of Raasay comprising of Lewisian Gneiss, the oldest uncovered rock in the world, the central section of Raasay being Torridonian sandstone and the south end of the island comprising of similar pre-cambrian rock found on Skye; it provides incredible geological scenery.
Raasay is a regular hot spot for White-tailed Sea Eagles and home to a sub-species of bank vole found nowhere else in the world, as well as being home to Otters, Mountain Hare, Red Deer and a multitude of rare plant life.

 

At the start of September i joined myself and Greg headed over to Torridon to sea kayak around Rona and Raasay.
 In true Luke and Greg adventure style i managed to forget a spraydeck, however, managed to borrow one from Tom who heads up the activities at the Torridon Hotel. This mishap however, provided us with a silver lining as Tom informed us that the best venison in Scotland can be found being sold my Rona's land manager, Bill.
At the put on we had a brilliant spotting of Otter amongst the kelp and sandstone cliffs. Off we paddled with the sea choppy and the wind gusting, giving us excellent moderate water conditions.

Pulling into a beautiful sheltered bay we spotted Bills home and wandering up the track to his house were met by Bill and a large grin.
Money changed hands and some venison steaks purchased, Bill was dismayed to find we didn't have a frying pan, onion or oil and insisted we take his with us and leave it in the bothy on the north of Raasay. He also showed us around his very comfortable bunkhouse, complete with cooker and fridge. "Here you go lads, take these too!" He said as he produced a couple tins of Tenants from the bunkhouse's fridge.
Continuing our paddle we headed around to the very comfortable Bothy located on the north end of Raasay. Approaching the bothy we glimpsed smoke rising from the chimney and inside were greeted by an already roaring fire and six friendly bothy-mates.

After a night of truly Scotland's best venison, good company and a few drams, we paddled south along the west side of Raasay, exploring inlets and caves.

 

Reaching the south point of the island we headed north along the east side with beautiful sandstone cliffs, a scene that could have been cut straight from Jurassic Park.

The weather had deteriorated and reaching our chosen camp spot we set up our tent. Luckily a small wooden shed, the remnant of a past military outpost gave us extra room to prepare our dinner of cous-cous and mackeral., my mug now forever tasting of fish and a broken spork giving me challenge!

 

The next day the wind was in our favour for our paddle back to our put on, but a long crossing on a beam-sea was to be made first. With the sea state close to 3 it was an exciting crossing, but meant we had good surfing down wind on the way back up the coast, with a family of Porpoise crossing our path!