In preparation for the Sick line extreme race I've been looking for a new boat something fast something shiny and something light!, fortunately I kept coming back to my trusty Bliss Stick Mystic which is now over 4 years old but sill love it, The rivers we've paddled or the good times we've had I have a kind of sentimental attachment surely its not really that heavy….
At first look she tips the scales at a mega 25kg’s ouch yes she really is that heavy so I set to work weight saving,
After removing the seat, footrest, front and rear pillars, airbags, throw line, bit of water, random foam pads, Due to the big water I decided to keep the original thigh braces with cup and the backrest system as standard,
and back on the scales at 16.38 kg, right. now to keep the weight down
Firstly The Seat
So out with the old seat,
at 2.38KG she is a big plastic beast! So working with I-Canoe has its bonuses with some hunting we manage to find “here's one we prepared earlier” lightweight Bliss Stick Seat weighing in at only 0.68kg’s
Then I chopped down the Pillars
Starting at 1.14kg for the two I managed to take 0.16kg off the rear pillar and another 0.34kg from the front pillar saving 0.5kg
Next was the footrest,
Removing the standard Bliss stick footrest with its wide plastic and metal bars weighed in at a healthy 1.32kg this was replaced by foam blocks after making myself a template
Then cutting foam to fit
The footrest alone is now down to a tantalising 0.3kg
so with the boat back on the scales here is the moment of truth has the Mystic diet actually worked,
minus all of this stuff
she's down to…….
Just 18.6KG
Test
To obviously check how this was I rounded up some of I-Canoe’s Stock boats to test there weights
| Lightened Bliss Stick Mystic | 18.6KG |
| Liquid Logic Stomper 80 | 21KG |
| Wave Sport Habitat 74 | 20.55KG |
| Jackson Villain S | 21.8KG |
| 2011 Jackson Hero SL | 18.8KG |
| 2010 Jackson Hero SL | 19.34KG |
| Riot Magnum 74 | 23.4KG |
A successful days outfitting,
That makes me wonder how much the other boats you are using in comparison could be lightened.
ReplyDeleteThat is very good to get rid of 6.4kgs. Not all of us could acheive that especially having a spre seat lying around. Now it is right up there with the newer designed boats. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteRod
kayaksnthings.com
Fill the airbags with Helium!!!!!
ReplyDeleteDid you do anything to hold the front pillar in place after you cut out the slot off the front of seat?
ReplyDeletePS: Love how the template is obviously made from a kayaking catalogue ;-)
The seat is actually the same Bliss Stick seat but has been cut down, the peli tray removed from the front and holes frilled in non essential areas to take further plastic out,
ReplyDeletethe front pillar is still an issue,its just pushed in which is fine unless you swim! im going to run an old carbon paddleshaft along the floor of the boat in the same way jackson run the composite beam to act as both a hull stiffener and to hold the front pillar in place,
After 3 runs yesterday of the glens shes a completely different boat, just being able to really lift the nose off the last stroke easily made the boat so much easier to paddle and boof.