Kayak Art?
This picture of Gary Simon's Romany reminds me of the new color schemes and decorations we're seeing on kayaks. Originally, I suspect, you could get a glass kayak in any color you wanted...as long as it was white. Now, only one's imagination limits what is available.
Even JB's Explorer makes for a cheerful sight out on the ice. Now, of course, you can get all sorts of mixed designs and patterns for your dream boat. Everything from mixed colors to stars and stripes are appearing on boats. They look fresh and new and catch one's eye, but I have to wonder what is the motivation for it all...other than eye appeal.Have we become so bored with the white hull, are we feeling that we're in such a rut that we need to spray paint our boats to re stimulate our interest? After all, after the first million strokes, braces and rolls paddling becomes awfully repetitious. After lugging the boat out of the garage and hefting up onto the car roof for the zillionth time, perhaps we need some eye candy to keep up our mojo.
The joke about the original ford car was that you could have it in any color as long as it was black. I suspect that the first car of color caused a lot of talk when it first appeared, just like has happened with the kayaks. In the end, it's all good and it's fun. As long as we're out there feeling good we may as well look good. Besides, who could stand just paddling a solid white or, for that matter, black kayak year after year?
Paddle safe...DS
5 comments:
Hi Silbs, Thanks for stopping by my blog this morning. You have an interesting blog here with some really great pictures. With your active life and kayaking, I'm sure you get to see some wonderful natural surroundings.
Wow, that's a pretty cool looking Romany. I think part of it is that with so many kayak companies around these days, some are trying to differentiate themselves by offering custom graphics and color combination. While I'm not a P&H fan at all, I'm often drawn like a moth to take a look at their kayaks largely due to their paint schemes.
Also, our society seems to be placing less emphasis on the idea of being part of a "team" but rather being an "individual" is valued. In that sense, we don't want to just lumped in as a generic kayaker but rather the kayaker with the sweet racing stripes on his kayak. :)
Of course the whole greenland movement and the general obsession with the color black is perhaps taking it too far the other way but those guys are naturally not mainstream anyways.
thing is too that in life we are often just a grain of sand on a beach. Nothing wrong with that, but sometimes we like to be "unique". No one is really all that unique, but we like to think so. I don't think it's about others though. I really think it's about how we feel personally. My little boat has a unique look. To me that gives it it's own unique personality. It's my buddy. I enjoy that.
When you're looking at a boat, always keep in mind that whatever color the deck it will be staring up at you for those thousands of strokes all season. You had better like it.
Plain ol' eye-catching safety yellow is just fine for me, thanks.
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