Kayak Lessons

From beginning to advanced lessons, the Kayak Academy is the only school with our unique teaching methods, fun practical courses, small class size, and instructor quality. Our lessons speed up the learning curve and make it less frustrating; so you become a better, safer paddler in less time. For quality training you can't get anywhere else, come to the Kayak Academy.

News

It's Time To Buy Your New Kayak

Don't wait till spring or summer to buy your next kayak, do it now while the selection is best or if needed there is still some time to order what you want before the nice weather arrives.

Deception Pass Dash Results (Dec. 12, 2009)

Kayaks sold by the Kayak Academy took four out of the first six places, including 1st and 2nd place, in the Men's Sea Kayak division! The SK-M's division had 70 competitors and is the largest class in the race. These four top finishing kayak models that we sell are all great expedition and rough water kayaks too -- not just single use kayaks built for speed.

First place in Men's Sea Kayak division was taken by Brandon Nelson in the new Grand Illusion by SKF (of course Brandon would be competitive paddling an inner tube, but his result shows the potential of what the Grand Illusion can do -- not bad for a kayak known for its maneuverability and rough water expeditioning qualities). Second place was K.A. Alumni John Thoreson in our new TideRace Xplore S (for medium to small paddlers), 5th place was George "I'm Not A Racer" Gronseth in the TideRace Xplore (standard size model), 6th place was Tracy Clapp in an Impex Currituck. Bob "I'm volunteering as a safety boater" Burnett didn't compete (give him a rash of you know what for that).

For those of you who are wondering how the NDK Explorer (which there were more of than any other sea kayak model in the race) stacked up against TideRace and other kayaks we sell, NDK Explorers were in 8th, 10th, 11th, 13th, 15th and 16th place. The fastest NDK Explorer was over a minute behind the 6th place Impex Currituck and almost four minutes behind the 2nd place TideRace Xplore S (And another two minutes behind 1st place SKF Grand Illusion, but that's hardly a fair comparison with Brandon paddling it).

This year the wind was calm to light for a change, and there were hardly any capsizes. The event ran smoothly and a good time was had by all. Our thanks to everyone who volunteered and to Outdoor Adventures for sponsoring the event.

To get the full results, and see pictures go to the Dash Blog, then click the link to "Preliminary DP Dash 2009 results".

Christening of the New TideRace Demo Kayaks

Dec. 6th, 2009 George and Barb offered to lead a free trip around Maury I., and let folks demo the new TideRace Kayaks. About eight people showed up, but the weather had other things in mind. The forecast called for NE 20 - 30 knot winds, and it started to pick up as we were getting ready to launch. So the planned crossing from Pt. Defiance to Maury I. was scrapped, and the trip morphed into a session testing kayaks while playing in the high winds. The conditions went from 10 knot wind with almost no white caps when we arrived to about 3 foot seas and 20 knots wind with gusts over 25 knots. We worked our way upwind along shore from Owen's Beach to the ferry dock east of there, and then surfed back downwind to the beach. Most of us made several surf runs. Several participants learned the significance of the K.A.'s saying, "If you want the wind more on your back, back up, etc." The TideRace Xplore and Xplore S proved good at surfing wind waves, and very predictable overall (in a good way, as in no quirky handling problems) in the conditions.

So long to the old...

We have a new Web Site

New features include:

• An on-line store!
• Additional Buyer's Guides and FAQs

We hope you like the new kayakacademy.com