At The London Boat Show - Excel, London, 8th - 18th

Various canoeing manufacturers and retailers collaborated to form the Canoe Village Stand at the London Boat show this year. The stand looked fantastic and there were also some cool new toys to see...here is a brief run down for those who couldn't go.

Touring
  Perception have launched the Sundance, a replacement to the Kiwi 1. This boat has more or a touring shape, but still has a big cockpit. Smaller than the Sierra it has similar lines and looks directional and stable.

 

Perception also have a clever portage trolley. It folds in to separate parts that will fit in the rear hatch of most touring boats.
This is the new P&H Orca 14. Beautifully finished in the tripple layer plastic, it is light, rigid and rudder ready. Comes fitted with a rear hatch and welded bulkhead. £599
White Water

Necky had a Mission on display.

It is a kind of "stretch limo Chronic" to quote Tim Thomas, and is probably a river play boat rather than an out and out park and play machine. It is about 15 cm longer than the Chronic, loads of rocker, balanced volume, looks like it will surf sweetly.
Necky have sorted out the backrest fitting system and put in a ratchet, mounted on the thigh grip aluminium. These fittings will be available on new Chronics, Missions and Vibes.
The Mission has a bit of a 'Blunt Box' on the hull as featured on the bottom of the Vibe. This should make it bounce big!

The Wavesport Surf boat looks very cool. It is called the Flyer.

It is quite short so will probably be quite bouncy on big waves.

Wavesport have a new playboat called the Zero Gravity (ZG). This implies it goes aerial so well that it is like paddling with no gravitational force! These will be available in 2 sizes, a 48 and a 54 (gallons?).

It seems a bit higher volume compared to the other current freestyle boats, even the big sized boats. Perhaps this will make it a capable river play boat? The Zero Gravity has a more organic look than the Transforma's and has a smooth progressive rocker rather than the poppy style dramatic rocker break. This should help with wave speed.

Wavesport introduced the Prototype Diesel Creek boat for the fist time in the UK.

It is big like a creek boat should be. It has pretty hard edges, as you can see. This will make it easy to control but it may suffer from tripping over on those cheeky eddy lines. It was fitted with FAT 3 outfitting, but will come with FAT 4.