So a few years ago, we had a customer request a skirt with a smaller tunnel put in front of the normal tunnel so he could plop his kid in there and go kayaking- presumably on a lake or class I and II stuff. It seemed harmless enough. But we may have made a mistake when we told Tommy Hilleke about this. He immediately asked us for one, and the implications are, well, lets just say terrifying thought provoking. Some pics of Tommy’s new toy:
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If this is something that interests you, let us know.
10 responses so far ↓
1 Daniel gould // Dec 3, 2008 at 5:56 pm
Thats is great . but a bit scary .
haha
2 Kristoffer Kuhn // Dec 8, 2008 at 9:23 pm
I have also thought about this, I could take my daughter with! My wife thinks I’m crazy….at least I’m not the only one!
3 matty // Dec 9, 2008 at 3:18 pm
not suprising
4 adam // Dec 16, 2008 at 2:47 pm
I’m in. my boy is 20 months old now and will place an order in the spring.
5 Dameon // Jan 24, 2009 at 10:46 am
I am hyped about this. My son is 3 and has been begging me to go with me, but I’m a little sketchy about the float. If four some reason you had to swim what level would he float at with me attached to him. Other then that I am seriously thinking but it.
6 John Weld // Jan 26, 2009 at 9:49 am
Hey Dameon,
To be honest- I have no idea. This is an area where you need to test it out and proceed based on your own judgment. As you might imagine, some people will think this is great and completely safe under the right circumstances, and others will call it really, really sketchy.
-John
7 WaVeY // Oct 7, 2009 at 9:50 am
Yesssss. Thus is awesome!!!
8 Nick Price // Jan 24, 2010 at 4:05 pm
I like the idea for flat water and small surf but could you put a velcro connection between the two to make it easier to get in and out? I would be worried about the setup on moving water the little guy would probably slip down inside the boat and pin my legs in in an emergency.
9 John Weld // Jan 25, 2010 at 9:06 am
Hey Nick,
We can do just about anything for the right price. If you are interested in pursuing this, let me know and we can discuss options. In general, though, I think the velcro might be pretty leaky.
-John
10 Jim Grossman // Jun 30, 2010 at 5:33 pm
John,
I’m that customer and luckily I’m not known by name back there or else you would have known that that skirt was never intended for class II water. Let’s just put it this way; my son Buey and I haven’t used it to run the North Fork, yet…
But seriously, we absolutely love the skirt and get questions about it all the time. I’ll leave the details of it’s use out of this post so you’re lawyers don’t have a ‘conniption fit,’ but suffice it to say if you’re someone even the slight bit concerned about swimming while wearing this skirt with you and your child, it’s definitely not for you. While we’ve practiced a roll in flat water while using this skirt, in the 4 years we’ve had it, we’ve never had to roll ‘under duress.’
So if anybody has any questions about it and/or it’s use please feel free to direct them to me. JimGrossman@gmail.com. Below is a copy of a note I sent to Kara on Facebook with a pic of the skirt in use. Thanks again so much!
Jim
Kara, still using the great ‘double tunnel’ skirt you made for me and my son. This is a pic from a high water run on the Payette . He’s 8 now and boating more in his own boat (with the mini sized tunnel Fun1 skirt you made for him) than the double skirt, but it’s still great to have when the water’s like this. And actually I finally broke down and bought a Dynamic Duo this year and love it. Planning on taking both kids out in it. Buey my son in the bow and my daughter Saba who is 6 in the stern with me using your skirt…. I’ll send you the pic when we do it. Thanks again for ‘thinking out of the box’ and doing this for us. We really appreciate it! Jim
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