Pyranha Shiva takes a diet,

So with an Alps trip coming up fast I took some time today to put together my kit ready to head out to Italy,

Firstly thanks to all my equipment Sponsors, Keen Europe, Great Outdoors, Palm Equipment, Pyranha Kayaks X-1 Audio and Werner Paddles, I'm looking forward to testing the kit out in Europe over the next few weeks.

My Pyranha Large Shiva has been my weapon of choice so far this season and really looking forward to getting it away on pushier water,

The Shiva is a round hulled creeker designed to be super safe and ride over everything this is not my usual paddling style preferring a hard railed river boat to cruise around the river, but for 2013 the Shiva is quick for racing which was one of my aims to go faster.

With racing and travelling in mind the Shiva is a pretty solid boat which weighed in at a hefty 25.3 KG

Having previously lightened a Bliss Stick Mystic (Check it out here) I knew what needed to be done, unsure of what could come out I set to work with the help of My Colm Healy from I-Canoe who had great pleasure in drilling my boat

Firstly I stripped the boat down to get a rough shell weight, with the shell weighing in at about 19kg this boat was always going to be heavier than the mystic.

So Starting with the footrest out came the Pyranha footrest weighing in at 1.8kg,

By removing the back plate and rebending and attaching the metal arms brings the footrest weight down to just 0.6kg a healthy saving, sorry I forgot to take photos. but basically the big lump behind has been removed.

Next up it was time to remove the rear pillar once the seat is removed give the foam a knock and out she falls, pillar weighted 0.6kg and managed to trim it down to just 0.3kg

Waffling out the non essential plastic is a great way of saving weight we used this method before on the mystic seat so this time I did it on all non essential plastic starting with the hull stiffener then the seat and lastly the front pillar, obviously be aware of where you are taking plastic from, make sure the parts are still rigid and wont just buckle.

So after much chopping and moving the Shiva diet brought her down to a slightly more respectable 21.6kg saving 3.7 kg

Once again I took some time to weigh a couple of other boats for comparison purposes,

I'm heading away for a few weeks paddling in Italy il update let you know how she paddles.

Labels: canoe, canoe club, great outdoors, h20 audio, kayak, keen, keen europe, paddle4play, Rockhoppers, Sluice