Our club now has t money to buy a fleet of boats!

[Chris_Hughes]

Hey Guys!

After years of fighting our club has now been given £5000 to buy a fleet of canoe polo equipment. :-) Now I know that this is still going to be tight but we need to try and squeeze 10 sets of standard club style canoe polo equipment from this money.

So once again I am after some advice on equipment - as it is very difficult to order equipment that we have no opportunity to demo. So here are my questions for advice:

1) It is looking like our most suitable choice for boats will be Revenge or RX300 simply because they are cheap solid and can easily be made to meet BCU requirements. Are there any arguments that we should consider to choose Gecko, Cyclone or any others instead? And which is the best choice of boat overall or should we have a mixture? Bearing in mind this is basic kit mainly for beginners in our club and we are a University club so everyone will be between 18 - 21ish years old. Are there any websites which compare these boats directly?

2) For a little over our £5000 budget we can afford the following items:

10x RX300 or Revenge Kayaks
10x Ainsworth K102 Polo Paddles
10x Peak polo Vests
10x AP4000 Helmet
10x ClearVis faceguard
10x Nylon Reinforced Spraydecks
10x Foam Bumpers fitted
5x Polo Balls

Does this sound like a reasonable set of basic equipment, or are there any items on the list that we are going to really regret having ordered when they arrive (ie Helmets, paddles). Are there perhaps better options that we should consider in the same price range?

Many thanks for your time and thoughts!

Chris

[michielv]

I guess this is rather personal but I hated every inch of the RX3000 models that we had 10 years ago (when I was at university, about the same age as your players). The seats were way too wide, the nose dipped too much when sprinting and the bottom suffered from "oil canning" thus making the boat really slow.

Too bad the Gecko's aren't BCU legal because they seem to be rather decent boats. Lots of beginner teams in Holland use the model nowadays. There is also an Italian type of boat called the Pretender or something. Those boats are pretty nice too, albeit not for players over 1,90 m (I am 1,94 and although I do fit in one the deck is slightly too low to be comfy for hours).

As for the PeakUK vests: they are great but I've seen lots of other good vests that are cheaper. One Dutch shop (knaoshop.nl) even sells a set of 8 vests for 275 euros (185 GBP). One PeakUK vest costs 90 euro's overhere so unless local prices are a lot lower I'd look out for other options as well.

As for the spraydecks: There is another Dutch shop (Arendbloem.nl) that sells Pal/mQuasar neorprene decks for 25 euro's (17 GBP) each now (as long as stocks last). They are located close to Amsterdam so if you know someone who is going to the Worlds in August, why not drop by and grab yourselves 10 good decks instead of nylon ones? Or simply call them and have them send the decks over. Might cost a bit more money but you have ypur decks in a few days.

Just my 2 cents,

Michiel

[jonas88]

Yes, the pretenders are nice, but I think it is too small for some people.

[Cat birmingham]

I'd get a combination of rx300s and plastic revenges, our uni club has some of each and some people like the rx300s, and some like the revenges, it's very much personal preference (and a lot to do with size - the small people mostly like the revenges but the bigger guys struggle cos the foam pillar is huge and doesn't leave much room for legs!). And if you order both lots from the same company you should still get a similar bulk discount to ordering all the same.
I've heard from a few people that Dave Brown's RV paddles (on a fibreglass shaft, i think you can get them on aluminium too, but they're not good) from www.dbxclusive.co.uk are a good beginner's polo blade, i don't know what the ainsworth 102s are like (although something worth considering is that (I think) the ainsworth k100s are also polo legal so if your club has any of them floating around you can use them, although they are stupidly heavy and generally not great.)

The APs are excellent polo helmets, but I think (I may have this the wrong way round) the AP4000s are the specifically sized ones, s,m,l etc, whereas the Ap2000s have a fully adjustable cradle so are better for club use. oh, and Desperate Measures had them cheap recently, they're what we use.

Consider what size balls to get - all size 5s, or 1/2 size 4s if you're going to have a ladies team?

Nylon spraydecks are generally ok for club polo, they do of course leak, but neoprene decks are easily stretched by bigger people wearing nice tight decks, stretching them, then switching to the size down cos they want them nice and tight, and stretching those, so you end up with loads of XL sized decks. But if you can get them cheap maybe worth it, or you can get decks which have adjustable nylon waists, but neoprene main bits (I think Gul make them). Plus, if you're only getting plastic boats not composite ones, a lot of your club may find their neoprene river decks will fit them anyway (the playboater ones eith yellow straps across certainly fit our plastic boats ok).

You'd probably find a set of spare bumpers useful too, you'll find them useful later if not sooner!

I have no idea if that was of any help at all!
Cat
Birmingham Uni

[Chris_Hughes]

Hey Guys,

Thank you so much for your thoughts so far - we will certainly try shopping around for the little bits. We are considering the revenge boats over the rx300's because of the integrated bumpers etc. Athough I believe we would have to upgrade them to foam bumpers to compete? Is this easy to do? Do any people ever struggle to fit into the revenge boats?

Also looking at the picture of the AP4000 (http://www.palmequipmenteurope.com/acatalog/Helmets.html) is this actually a legal helmet as it doesn't appear to cover the ears?

Many thanks,

Chris

[matt j]

Don't buy helmets that cover the ears, it restricts communication and looks pants.

My club is also looking to buy some new boats but we are wary of revenges and rx300 as they are both outdated. we heard some rumours about a new plastic polo boat being made in the netherlands, does anyone have any news on these?

[mike1982]

Safety over looks - go with ear guards. as players improve they can purchase their own helmet, after all if you look good then you must be a good player right?

[geebs]

Hi Chris

You are limited with the choice of plastic boats available in the UK that are approved for competition use (see page 66 of the BCU Polo Yearbook or click here (http://www.canoepolo.org.uk/rules/boats)) the Revenge and RX300 seem to be the choice of most Uni clubs as starter boats, I would recomend a mixture as the cockpit sizes are different so you suit more paddlers. I would certainly fit extra bumpers to both these boats to comply with the regs, they are however difficult to get to stick properly, Evo-stik is the best for this job.

Paddles I would use the DBxclusive RV (http://www.dbxclusive.co.uk/paddles.html) on a glass shaft over the Ainsworth's as they are lighter, have more flex and BVFM.

Nylon decks would be OK as you may have some novices that can not roll, this would also solve the differance in deck size problem as well.

Peak BA's are probably the best especially for beginners as they offer good protection and padding.

I agree with Mike that for the helmets ear protection is a good idea another option here are the Boreal Helmets (http://www.acoloca.com/cgi-bin/ccp51/cp-app.cgi?usr=51F162852&rnd=1249376&rrc=N&affl=&cip=80.41.108.127&act=&aff=&pg=prod&ref=CLO1001&cat=Clothing&catstr=HOME:Clothing)as they offer good adjustment and protection.

I guess that you will have some ladies that want to play so I would consider getting some size 4 balls as well.

Hope this helps

Graeme