The PSK Hub – Performance Sea Paddling
If you like to keep your deck free of clutter, here’s a simple Taran tip for a lightweight paddle park to prevent wandering blades in those breezy admin moments. Wrap a few turns of insulation tape to a diameter ~14 mm. Then loop the elastic over your blade shaft and by stretching one side, slide …
The Taran was designed from the outset as a performance sea kayak for paddling on moving water. To gain the best of that performance in the moving water environment I believe you need a snug fit with good physical contact inside the boat. You want the boat to respond instantly and with accuracy to your …
Here we take a look at the fitting of Bow and Stern guards to the Rockpool Taran. Before we get in to the ‘how-to’, maybe we should take a quick look at the ‘why’ too. The Taran is a long-waterline kayak (5.0m+) with a relatively low rocker. It is designed as a performance sea kayak …
Standard Construction for most sea kayaks is Polyester Resin with Chopped Strand Mat (CSM – or ‘fibreglass’) – a ‘glass’ kayak. Polyester/CSM combination is easy to work with from a manufacturers point of view and relatively cheap. It provides a tough, stiff and solid kayak, though to do this it requires enough material to make …
The debate whether to choose the Rockpool Taran 16 or the Taran 18 rages at the moment. A decade ago I designed the Taran 18 and then the Taran 16, and of course I’ve been paddling Tarans ever since. This piece is not aimed to be a ‘which-Taran-should-I-buy’ guide. That decision is down to you …
by John Willacy
And though the Taran was now in production there was still plenty to learn about the new boat. You have to remember that at the time the boat was a serious departure from the norm, an unknown in many areas…
by John Willacy
The Rockpool Taran first took to the water in August 2009. To mark the end of that first decade I thought I would take a little look at a photo history from those 10 years.
by John Willacy
Images showing the shaping of the Taran 16 Plug, along with the maiden voyage.
by John Willacy
The idea for the Taran came about while Mike Webb and myself chatted about the limitations of the boat I was using at the time. I’d designed a couple of White Water Racing boats and we spoke about incorporating some of their ideas into a faster sea kayak. A floating test-bed boat was made, but eventually it became too heavy to paddle effectively. So we needed a floating proof-of-concept boat to test. I shaped a rough plug and then a mould was made, and eventually out came the first prototype Tarran – the yellow/green ‘Citron’. Something like a year had gone by by now I think…
by John Willacy
A number of years ago I drifted into the Rockpool fold and found myself shaping a couple of wild water racing (WWR) boats. We used these boats to try out some new ideas and hull features, we were pleased with what we learnt and how the boats paddled. Later following my first record, the Anglesey Circumnavigation, I was chatting with Mike Webb about what I saw as the limitations with the boat that I had used. The conversation ebbed and flowed over a few days and before we knew it there was an idea for a new Rockpool kayak – something different to complement the fleet, a sleek fast boat.