One Summer’s Paddling: Notes
The Photographs
I carried two cameras, a Nikonos II and a Nikonos III, both with the standard 35mm lenses. The II was loaded with Ilford FP4, a medium speed black and white film, the III with Kodachrome 64.
I normally used the two cameras in succession so there are equivalent monochrome and colour shots. Most of the photographs reproduced here have been scanned from the colour transparencies.
The Nikonos II drowned some years ago, its place taken by a Minolta Weathermatic 35DL, and the Nikonos III sold. (These days I carry an Olympus TG-3: digital)
Nordkapp Aus 005
My Nordkapp was built in January 1978 by Joe Lamb and myself, and it was used during the process to make a copy mould for The Canoe Factory in Melbourne, which was to build the boats under a sub-licencing arrangement.
It was originally fitted with the usual manual pump behind the cockpit, a conventional split paddle and an incomplete deckline system. After my visit to Tasmania in 1983 I replaced the pump with an electric one and fitted a 270° retracting rudder, after sawing off the extreme stern. I later experimented with a side-mounted rudder. The TCL/4 hatches had already been replaced with VCP hatches.
In 1987 I gave the boat a major refit: complete all-round deckline, retractable fin in place of the rudder (with the stern piece replaced), and a modified self bailer instead of the pump. To reduce the cockpit volume I fitted a third bulkhead, together with a dinghy inspection port in the pump aperture, to form a third compartment, and expanded polyethylene along the sides. By then the only original equipment was the compass, in its well on the foredeck.
More recently I replaced the self bailer with the original manual pump modified as a foot pump, and installed a new mast step forward of the forward hatch for the new sail rig. The compass has now been replaced, as the original contained more air than damping fluid.
In early 2002 I replaced the aft hatch with a Voyager aft hatch, putting the VCP hatch in place of the dinghy inspection port in the centre compartment.
The boat received progrressively less use, and after an offer of donation to the maritime museum was declined it was eventually broken up in late 2018.
