Cold Water

[[old] mat g]

Ice canoeing is a local sport. One team come from chicago and one come from France. Every others teams are locals. We build everything in this sport except oars but we reiforced it and add a nail on it. The canoe is 28' long x 4' wide carbon/ glass fiber construction. The shell weight 180 to 195 lbs. We add about 85 lbs of equipment in the shell ( seat, oars locks, alu tubing ...) for a total weight of 265 lbs. This is the minimum weight. We build special ice shoes with molded plastic and concrete nails. We are wearing neoprene boots or socks, protection for lower leg made of kevlar and foam. A neoprene tube is cover the lower leg. For the rest of the body, we are wearing lycra type skin suit. On hot days, (25-30F ) just one layer is enought. On cold days, (0 F and less ) a supplementary layer is necessary.<br /><br />100 years ago, it was a job for people who lived on St-Laurent River's islands. Now, it an exciting and thrilling sport! There is no english version of the website. <br /><br />This is a small video of my team that explain a lot of the sport made by Daily Planet:<br /><a href='http://www.exn.ca/dailyplanet/view.asp?date=2/16/2005' target='_blank'>http://www.exn.ca/dailyplanet/view.asp? ... 16/2005</a>

[[old] ancho]

Tremendous pics, great web site and video. Wow!<br />Never will complain again about being cold during our workouts.<br />Keep it on!

[[old] hennmart]

Wow Mat,<br /><br />Very good video and pictures ---> extreem!!<br /><br />Hennie<br /><br />

[[old] mat g]

My team wins this weekend the most important race of the 2006 season!<br /><a href='http://img154.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... 0884ql.jpg' target='_blank'>http://img154.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... 4ql.jpg</a>

[[old] P10Mike]

hey there, i live out in eastern canada ( new new brunswick ) and during the month of april, when we were just getting on the water the waves picked up big time and we ended up swamping out 8 about 10 feet from shore. the water...was FREEZING, luckily we made it that close to shore because when we realised that we were sinking we were probably a good 250-300 feet out in the water thankfully no one was hurt but who knows what could have happened