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Well it would be fair to say that it’s taken the longest time to make the fastest boat, but good things take time and this boat is no exception. Along side me on this project I’ve had Kenny Mutton, helping me, which has been fantastic. Kenny and I started Bliss-Stick many years ago and co-designed our first ever boat, the FJ 1. Been a bit of water under the bridge since then but we have a lot of respect for each others achievements and ability’s and when we work together we can work a bit of magic. Bit like Lennon and McCartney but then you might say I’m a dreamer…. Anyway, here’s a bit of the story as to how to Tuna came to be.
I knew Kenny wanted to make a plastic boat, he’d already made a glass prototype which he’d been paddling and the concept was good, a planning creeker. I was keen to manufacture a refined version and so a process began, and Kenny set about shaping a new plug at the Kaituna.
Meanwhile here, I was working on a bigger Mystick except it wasn’t really looking like one and when it came to the hull and I put that old shape in, I didn’t like it. That was a design we’d done five years ago and I wanted to move on. Paddling in my view certainly had and besides, everyone’s making one of those style boats now.
So I caught up with Kenny to see how he was going and compared progress. He’d got his hull shaped but not a lot of deck action but our plugs were dimensionally exactly the same. This was getting awkward. We put the plugs side by side and it took Kenny to ask the obvious question. Why are we both building the same boat, which was really a difficult question to answer.
We needed Kenny’s hull on my deck and as it was easier to convert my plug than his, I suggested he takes mine home and shape his hull all again!!! Well God bless my cotton socks, if that wasn’t exactly what he did. The two became one and I knew at that moment, this was going to be a great boat and when the plug came back to be finished the hull was nice and I knew straight away I need not touch it and I never did.
I did have to touch a few other bits though but eventually it all came together and we are where we are now, just starting to get the first few plastic boats out on the water and we’re so stoked on how their going. This is a boat like no other and a taste of the future of kayaking and we are happy to have made it.
So Kenny, thanks for all your help, nice to work with you again and we’ve made a cool boat for sure, but your real job starts now. You have chase Mike and Sam down Sickline so we can do 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, next time and figure out how to make the boat better so we can shape up a MKII in a few years time……
Charles
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