Canoeing

After setting a record by sea kayaking around Australia in 332 days, Herr Hofffmeister (Germany’s Freya Hoffmeister) is at it again, this time taking off Aug. 30 from Buenos Aires to be the first person to paddle all the way around South America. In all, the glutton for paddling punishment is planning to do the trip in three stages of 4,800 miles each over the next 3 years)...

Paddling into Grise Bay on Aug. 19, once-strangers Erik Boomer and Jon Turk managed to travel 1,485 miles in 104 days, skiing on ice, jumping from flow to flow on moving pack ice and finally paddling through ice-choked water to complete the first-ever circumnavigation of Ellesmere Island. PL checks in with the ragged, haggard tandem...

Rock/Creek Outfitters is opening a new, improved retail paddling store, outlet and distribution center at 1530 Riverside Drive in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Wilderness Systems remains king with third consecutive "Boat Brand of the Year" award. The entire outdoor retail community descended on Salt Lake City, Utah to celebrate at this year's Outdoor Retailer Summer Market.

Nil, nunca, nada. That’s how many sprint paddling spots the U.S. team has earned for the 2012 London Olympics after the recent ICF Canoe Sprint World Championships in Szeged, Hungary, where perennial powerhouses Germany and Russia took home 11 medals each. But there’s still one more chance to secure a berth. PL checks in with U.S. Sprint National Senior Team Coach Guy Wilding for the state of sprint in the states...

Don't be surprised if your local eddy starts to get a little more crowded. Okay, not really. But the Paddle Council, a volunteer advisory group providing input to the Outdoor Industry Association to help grow the industry and expand participation, recently received a $30,000 grant from Nielsen Expositions to help grow participation in water sports. That's a lot of enchilada plates...

Paddlers like to get wet. No where was this more evident than day one of the Outdoor Retailer tradeshow in Salt Lake City, where paddlesports took center stage in the outdoor industry at the Open Air Demo at Jordanelle State Park in Park City. Bonus: a record number of people on SUPzilla...

Sometimes even the best-laid paddling plans can fall prey to Mother nature. Such is the case with the recently planned Shetland Bus expedition. During World War II, Norwegian fishermen traversed the North Sea between the Shetland Islands and Norway's west coast carrying agents, saboteurs and weapons in daring operations known as the “Shetland Bus.” On July 16, three kayakers tried to attempt the same stretch, only to be forced back by weather and abort the mission...

Once a year, industry bigwigs gather in Salt Lake City for the annual Outdoor Retailer tradeshow, where those lucky enough to attend can ooh and ahh over paddlesport manufacturers' new designs for the upcoming year. For those smart enough to stay on the water instead, here's a quick PL sneak peak of what the tradeshow cronies will see...

Funds are being raised to present the students at Carnegie Mullen University with the challenge of addressing the physiological differences between men and women in designing kayaks.

Wondering where to canoe in Canada? Here are the 50 best canoe routes of Ontario as chosen by one of Canada's most famous paddlers. Bring your hockey stick and Kokanee...

At 73, the czech-accented and bushy eye-browed Stan Chadlek will still crush you. As we speak, he’s heading back to Alaska’s Aleutian Islands for the fifth time, this time to paddle 250 miles around tidal-colliding Unalaska Island with fellow adventurers Rob Avery and Ron Monkman. Throughout the 24-day expedition, filled with treacherous crossings, he also plans to placate his thirst for finding ancient mummies. “It could be my last big trip,” says Chladek, whose book on exploring Central American caves will be released this June. “I think the French have done it in doubles, but no one has ever done it in singles...” PL caught up with him to get his take on all things Aleutian...

Tim Niemier, 59, has always thought outside the box...or cockpit. It was in his garage in Malibu, Calif., in 1971 that he indented a surfboard hull to create the world’s first sit-on-top kayak. By the time he sold Ocean Kayak to Johnson Outdoors in 1997, nearly every kayak manufacturer worldwide had a sit-on-top in its line. Forty years later, the visionary’s light bulbs still burn at his Wild Designs firm as he tries to get more people out on the water...

Recently we've gone a little heavy on the West Coast articles here at PL. We thought it was time to check in with East Coast correspondent Jeffrey Cheatham, who filed this report from Rockingham, N.C....

There are few places more ideal than the Pacific Northwest in Summertime. The parkas are put away in favor of wet suits. The natives stop avoiding the water and start attacking it. Now, thanks to some of the guys at Mountain to Sound Outfitters and Sea Kayaker magazine (among others), there is a place to purge all that cold weather angst...

Right now there is an AIRE kayak stored in a garage or a canoe waiting in a barn that come August will be featured in the winning entry for the AIRE Video Contest for 2011...

The Canadian canoe community lost one of its most ardent supporters March 18 with the death of Canadian Canoe Museum founder Kirk A.W. Wipper, who died at age 87...

Legacy Paddlesports LLC announced today that Andy Zimmerman has decided to leave the company to pursue other interests....

As if Australia wasn’t enough. Now Freya Hoffmeister, the “Woman in Black,” is at it again, this time setting off in September 2011 to become the first person to sea kayak the entire coast line of South America.

What took the Mayflower just over 66 days took Polish paddler Aleksander Doba 103, but he did it...successfully paddling solo across the Atlantic and arriving on land -- beautiful, gorgeous land -- on Feb. 3, 2011, in the Brazilian fishing village of Acarau...

Stuart Trueman is hoping the third time is also a charm. Caffyn was 1st in 1983, then 27 years later Hoffmeister did it 2010. Now the Kokotat outfitted Trueman has decided it shouldn’t take another 27 before the continent of Australia is circumnavigated by kayak...

Nobody ever said that crossing the Atlantic by boat was easy. It took the Mayflower just over 66 days to complete that historic voyage. So when Aleksansder Doba set off October 21 to try and paddle 3,300-km across the Atlantic, he estimated the solo voyage would take him three months to complete...

Kayak surfers in Steamboat Springs, Colo., might have a little more time on their downtown play waves now. Bomber Gear founder Rick Franken and his 8-year-old son, Kai, won’t be surfing them at all hours anymore, as the paddlesports apparel company was recently sold to Confluence Watersports...

When Joe Jacobi won the gold medal in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics with C-2 partner Scott Strausbaugh, it ushered in a new era fro slalom paddling in the U.S. Twice the stop-gap when USACK’s executive directors have stepped down – the first after Terry Kent left in 2000, and again last year after David Yarborough left office – now he’s made the move from interim to full-time executive director of the sport’s governing body and is reaching for gold yet again. PL catches up with him to see how he’s getting the organization stroking in the right direction...