An unexpected weekend

mccad

作者：kean

原文地址：http://through-the-interface.typepad.com/through_the_interface/2011/04/an-unexpected-weekend.html

 

After spending more hours than I’d wanted, last week, digging into working with the Kinect (as well as keeping up with my normal, day-to-day activities), it was nice to disconnect totally over the weekend. On Saturday I spent most of the day relaxing in the garden, getting it ready for summer, but on Sunday we decided to hitch up the trailer to one of our bikes and head across to a beautiful little (and thankfully nearby) town named Erlach.

After having lunch at a restaurant we headed down to the lake for the kids to play. I was surprised at the number of  canoes and  kayaks that were out on  Lake Biel-Bienne. I first kayaked when I was in my early teens, but haven’t made a habit of doing it regularly, since (the last time was probably about 5 years ago, when Albert Szilvasy took me out around the San Francisco Bay in a two-man kayak). It’s something I very much enjoy, though, and have been meaning to get into the sport properly (especially as we live just 500 metres from  Lake Neuchâtel).

Anyway, it turns out the high number of canoes and kayaks was due to a local canoe shop holding a test day on the lake, leaving from the beach at Erlach. We decided to have some fun and tested a few different models – one big enough to take the whole family – before I settled on a fantastic little “hybrid” kayak, a Nortik Scubi 1. In this case the term hybrid means that it’s a mix between a folding kayak (ein faltboot, in German) and an inflatable one (ein luftboot). And the whole thing weighs just over 8 kgs, packing away into a small bag.

The company apparently designs their boats completely using CAD before moving to physical prototypes… I’m curious to know what system they use. From what I’ve seen of their design so far, it’s very elegant: I’ll be taking a closer look when I pick mine up, later in the week. :-)

狂刀lxx

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