Paddling tips, tricks, news and gear reviews from an Unsponsored point of view
A surprise parcel landed at Unsponsored HQ this week, a brand new 2017 Palm Impact spray skirt. We’ve had an older one of these in at the HQ a couple of years back and it proved to be an awesome skirt.
The Palm Impact spray skirt is Palm’s top end bungee corded offering.
For 2017 Palm have updated the design so that it now includes a few tweaks.
We are big fans of rand decks at Unsponsored HQ. We have, in the past, gone to extreme measures to ensure that really good rand decks live on to fight another day.
It was therefore superb that we heard that Palm Equipment were going to bring out a brand new rand based deck. The Palm Orbit is a new take on a favourite and we are looking forward to trying this out over the next few months. Lets take a tour in the Palm Orbit – First Look.
After reading through some old threads on liquid latex, I found some good reviews on the stuff but no pictures of how people got on, so I thought I’d share with you the pics of my repaired spray deck. Time for a little spray deck modification.
My spray deck had always been fairly loose fitting so I could get it off easier in a panic, but now as my confidence has built up, I wanted a tighter fitting deck to keep me drier in pushier water or waves.
I’ve been using Palm’s Impact spraydeck for a few months now and am ready to feedback on its performance to date. Thanks to Palm Equipment and Northshore Watersports (for piggy backing delivery) I have a Palm Impact that replaces the Extreme as Palm’s top end neoprene bungee deck. First impressions are good. The deck looks and feels solid. It is well made and the black/lime colour scheme is bang on trend!
On the outside there is a protective 4mm Armortex reinforcement to increase the robustness of the deck. This should make the Impact of interest to those who put their decks through a rough time.
For the past few years I have been using Immersion Research decks for both playboating and creek duties.
Thanks to the guys at Immersion Research I was hooked up with one of the brand new Immersion Research The Royale spray skirts.
Thanks to Palm Equipment and Northshore Watersports (for piggy backing delivery) I have a Palm Impact Spraydeck in for review. The Palm Impact replaces the Extreme as Palm’s top end neoprene bungee deck. First impressions are good. The deck looks and feels solid. It is well made and the black/lime colour scheme is bang on trend!
On the outside there is a protective 4mm Armortex reinforcement to increase the robustness of the deck. This should make the Impact of interest to those who put their decks through a rough time.
The Immersion Research Royale is a rand based spraydeck with a lip that sits on the outside of the rand.
Over the last couple of years I have been using spraydecks using a bungee cord system. However a couple of decks using a rand system have found there way into my kit bag. So how do they compare? Who would win in a Bungee Vs Rand contest.
Thanks to the guys at Immersion Research I was hooked up with one of the brand new Immersion Research The Royale spray skirts.
Now I have have said this before but will say it again – for most of my paddling career (28yrs+) I have used Playboater decks and it has only been Immersion Research who have been able to tempt me away from the brand. At present I own a couple of IR skirts. The first is a rand based (more on that later) skirt the Special K and the bungee based Klingon Empire. The latter has been my go to deck for over a year – I love it!
Getting a spraydeck that fits you and your boat is crucial if you want to keep the water out. All boats are different and all decks are different, so it’s important to do a little research on what deck fits your boat the best.
One of my favourite resources is Skirt Fit. It is an online database that contains most of the popular boats and decks that are currently on the market. It is well worth checking out.
Those of you who have followed the site for many years will know that I usually only ever use Playboater spraydecks. I have owned a few and they are always superb. Well today I tried my new Immersion Research Klingon Empire Spraydeck and have been simply blown away.
This is what IR say about the deck:
The Klingon Empire is the same skirt as the Klingon with one major difference- the front casing (the high wear area going over the front portion of the cockpit rim) is laminated with a high thread-count Kevlar™. This very costly strip of woven gold is simply the best possible fabric when it comes to flexible abrasion resistance, making it the perfect choice for people who are exceptionally hard on spray skirts.
The Klingon skirt, with it’s high-tension bungee and extra neoprene extending out past the bungee make it a perfect choice for keeping even the most difficult rims dry. Typical use would include high-end playboating and on creek boats where all other skirt designs seem to leak.
The Klingon Empire had been bought for my new Pyranha Jed as I wanted something with a dry lip and bungee. An order to IR in the States and a couple of weeks later it landed. The deck arrived early last week and despite opening it up it has sat unloved in corner of the dining room. Work has been getting in the way of fun out on the water. So today was my first chance to get the deck onto a boat and get it wet.
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