Sea Kayaking Articles from P&H Staff, Team Paddlers, and Friends

Tag: Cetus MV

The Cetus

When I was looking to replace my trusty P&H Scorpio Lv with a Cetus I spend hours looking on the internet to find footage where I could see the boat in action. I know what you’re thinking, why not testing it rather that looking at videos?  Well, I already did and I was sure that the Cetus was going to be my next boat.  The kayak customizer page on the P&H site is awesome, I think I made my boat virtually one hundred times.  But it’s even better to see the boat on the water, with a paddler in it.  To see it’s colours, to see the different options, to see its behaviour,…  Even when waiting on the delivery I searched “Cetus videos”.  The only downside was that there are not many to be found where you can see the boat from different angles.  So I remained a bit unsatisfied for the time being…

With the delivery I felt like a kid with his new toy (and I still am by that matter). It was my first composite boat, new, shiny, glossy!  I already paddled several hundred kilometres with it, in a wide variety of conditions.  Just like its polyethylene brother, the Scorpio, it never lets me down.  On the water it has to perform, it goes fast while being stable, very stable.  Even when paddling in rough seas it still feels like I am paddling from my couch.  When putting it on edge it steers and turns very well.  Anyway, don’t take my word for it.  I am perhaps a tiny bit subjective.  When looking to buy a quality sea kayak, make sure to test this piece of craftsmanship and see for yourself!

Enjoy our short video, a big thanks to Sylvie, who filmed from different angles to get the best result.

Paddle safe and take care of each other on the water!

Dimitri Vandepoele

NORTHSEAKAYAK

Handa Island – New boat, custom colours and perfect light.

The Cetus MV was, yet again, my boat of choice to meet all my coaching and personal paddling needs for this year.; whether it is introducing aspiring sea kayakers on sheltered waters, running 5 Star courses in the Pentland Firth, away on expeditions around Scotland’s amazing coastline or playing out at the Grey Dogs, for me, it just does it all. It also gives me a real stable platform for on-the-water-photography when doing my books, articles and sponsors’ photos; with an expensive SLR digital camera in my hand, and the opportunity to capture that ‘perfect front cover picture’, that’s pretty important!
So, when my latest Cetus MV arrived the other week, as always I was excited to get it out on the water, but this boat was just that little ‘more’ special; PeakUK have updated the colours on their sea range of kit this year, and knowing this, it seemed rude not to have a boat to match! With some helpful collaboration between PeakUK and P&H, the colours were matched and that allowed P&H to do their ‘magic’ in customising the perfect boat for me! As you would expect, they really went to town on it and not only was the boat colour matched, but all the trimmings (decklines and bungees) as well – brilliant!!
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With the perfect boat from P&H and the awesome kit from PeakUK, a suitably spectacular venue was required for its first outing, along with some great light to get the photos to show it off; the North West Highlands of Scotland were the destination and the amazing Island of Handa was the prime spot to visit. If you’ve not been to Handa yet – go… It offers towering cliffs, caves and arches aplenty, along with the enormous ‘Great Stack’ of Handa. All this is guarded by thousands of sea birds, with the raw force of the Atlantic Ocean on one side and the relative shelter and beaches of the Sound of Handa on the other. It’s easily accessible to paddle around, yet once there you will feel on the edge of the world in a very exposed way!
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So, with some careful weather watching, some great evening light was found to paddle around Handa Island and ‘wet the hull’ of my rather unique boat – may she see many more such great trips in the months to come… thanks to all the P&H team for making her so brilliant!!
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