Tuesday, March 9, 2010

SKYAKING

An Exciting, Exploding, Kayak Seat Market-Maybe!!!

Ever heard of Skyaking? If you happened to be watching the Today show on MSNBC this morning you would have caught a great segment on Skyaking. The man who introduced this new sport is a fellow named Miles Daisher from Twin Falls, Idaho. He sounded like and looks like a sane guy. He is married and has a little daredevil offspring. Skyaking is a combination of sky diving and Kayaking, explained Miles. Almost like Yakfishing only a heck of a lot more thrilling. In Skyaking, the paddler is strapped into his kayak, in this case a high performance, high impact plastic kayak called a whitewater creek boat or just plain creek boat. Most owners of the Skwoosh Kayak gel seat are familiar with this short, stubby, lepricon shaped kayak into which a fearsome paddler squeezes him or herself. One of the differences between creek boaters and traditional kayakers is the fact that the creek boater has to be as one with his boat and therefore wedges himself into the cockpit. Creek boat paddlers often line the inside of their snug cockpit with foam in order to fill the empty places between themselves and their boat. They are literally wedged into the boat. Of course, Skwoosh makes a very high performance kayak gel seat, appropriately named the XTREME, that is very popular among creek boaters around the world. Yes XTREME. The Skwoosh Xtreme performance paddling seat is designed to be very thin, with light weight gel to help protect a creek boater’s bottom and now, a skyaker’s bottom. Once entrapped in the creek boat, thetraditional paddler usually heads for type 5 rapids, traverses the fiery white water and climaxes with a few feet of free fall over a mild to mildly raging water fall. Well if you think traditional creek boating is exciting, look into the newest thriller, Skyaking. Here’s how modern day kayakers push the boundaries of the sport. The yaker loads his favorite creek boat, swaps his paddles for a super performance Skwoosh XTREME gel cushion and boards a light plane. Once the plane reaches altitude (a lot higher than your average waterfall), the Skyaker, strapped into his boat, parachute attached, pushes his boat and himself out of the plane and begins a free fall. It takes a few seconds for the sky paddler to stabilize his boat by letting the air catch the flat bottom of the kayak. Once stabilized, the Skyaker uses his outstretched arms as “wingerons” (wings and ailerons) and proceeds to enjoy the exhilaration and freedom of free fall. The total time of this orgasmic flight depends not only on weight and altitude but on balance and the skill of catching air. Now comes phase two of this adventure. Yes you guessed it – the landing. As terra firma rushes toward the skyaker, he deploys his main chute (he always carries a back up) and out pops a Ram Air Canopy parachute. The Ram Air Canopy chute is a more rectangular shaped chute, designed to help make pin point landings. The fun or the flight isn’t over yet. The skyaker must still find a body of water on which to land his airborne creek boat and use wind power to power him to shore. This is where the cushioning effect of Skwoosh’s TekPad gel could come into play. TekPad gel is known to help cushion the sudden impact by padding the Skyaker’s “stitz” bones. When asked if he ever missed a landing point Miles answered “yes”. When asked what happens if he misses water and lands on dry land he said “it’s a little more of a sudden stop but the boats can handle it with no problem”. If asked about Skwoosh, he would have undoubtedly commented on its light weight, design, premium materials, construction, and waterproof construction. No kidding, Miles really would have said all that.

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