June 3 - Axels graduation

My son Axel graduated from high school, an event heavely laden with Swedish traditions. Parents, friends and relatives assemble outside of the main school building holding a sign with a picture of the graduate as a child.

The graduates then rush out of the school building screaming and singing wearing white graduation hats.

A lot more of singing and screaming goes on before a reception is held and finaly a graduation ball.

It's a riot.

Axels sign

The graduates rushing out the main building

singing and screaming

Nice paddling waters in the background... The school actually has
a a fleet of kayaks, donated by Point 65

Friends for life, Patrik, Axel and Joseph

June 1 -Beyond Oil, Shanghai

Thursday I visited the grand opening of the exhibition "Beyond Oil -Shanghai" at the Stockholm Modern Museum. It's a study on how a major city could cut it's oil dependency made by a group of architects, industrial designers and art directors. Point 65 had the pleasure of hosting Anders Rinman, a leading member of this group, in Shanghai who visited our factory and spent a couple of days with us there.

If you are in Stockholm I highly recommend this eye opening exhibition!

Scary statistics

Oil price curve the last 17 months

Anders Rinman, one of the leading members of the group behind "Beyond Oil -Shanghai"

Anders Rinman, Kristin Nelson-Foster and Nigel Foster discussing environmental issues.

28/5 Nigel Foster Rough water paddling in Stockholm

This weekend we asked the lockkeeper to open the lock between the lake Mälaren and the Baltic sea. This creates quite a wave with a 2 meter drop. FUN!

22/5 Kayaks with stripes

Kayaks with stripes have been very popular over the last 40 years. Here some examples:

A sad looking double (1974)

NorthSea from McNulty (1973) who are those hippies??

Shorty from Galasport (they do thousands of these babies).

Skeem Distance (2007)

Tahe Marine Everest 505 (does that name sound familiar:-)

Lina

Lina is the glue that keeps Point 65 together. Originally a ski instructor, she started working for Point 65 during summers as a shop assistant in our flagship store. But Tomas and I immediately saw her strength and talent and persuaded her not to go back to the skiing. Lina is now the Point 65 office manager AND manages our flagship store, PampasKajak. On top of that she takes responsibility for all fuck ups the guys around her create. She is not only loved by customers and colleagues. Our competitors are just as bewitched by her. Just seeing the disappointment in the faces of the guys from Reval kayaks last weekend at the Stockholm Kayak exhibition, when they realized that I was manning the Point 65 booth, not Lina. They looked like the event was ruined for them. Who can blame them?
When Lina is not at her post she travels the world. She has joined me on several business trips to Seattle, Germany etc but also takes of to South America for adventure travels. If you need to know anything on stock levels, delivery times, prices, freight costs etc etc Lina knows it by heart. She is also an amazing paddler, organizer, manager and boss. And it's not a coincidence that Lina is on the cover of our 2008 brochure and on every second page inside...

Can you own a stripe?

A small Swedish kayak manufacturer is threatening a lawsuit against a small importer of kayaks. The Swedes feel that they own the stripe on their decks and the importer has a kayak in his range with a stripe on it as well. Expensive letters from impressive law firms are flying about.
This is an interesting issue, especially after the Johnsson-Confluence 10 year battle which ended in a +3 million $ compensation package. Well the Swedish case is different if not as both companies are under the 200.000$ bracket and the US guys in the 200 million. Anyway, the kayaks themselves are of totally different designs, both very nice and of high quality. The Swedish producer in the top end of the market, the importer clearly targeted at a very affordable level.
So, can the Swedish brand claim ownership of the stripe? And if so, does the importer have to repaint his boats? And what does North Shore UK have to say, who featured such a stripe 20 years ago, long before any of these two companies existed? And Jaguar, Riva etc who go way back with it on cars and boats?

And is it worth while spending money, focus, time and effort on such a negative issue or is it better to just soldier on? Difficult questions for the struggling kayak entrepreneurs of the world.... At least the lawyers are happy, see you in court:-)

ps. by the way, have you seen the new Current Designs tapered deck shapes. Where did they get that idea?

May 8, Meet me at KajakDagarna, Stockholm

I will spend the weekend at the Stockholm Kajak exhibition "Kajakadagarna" 10-11th of May. It's an on water event where you can demo all brands avaialble in Sweden. Saturday, Sunday 11-4. See you there!

3/5 -Börje Salming, Hockey legend and paddler

Börje Salming, Swedish Hockey Legend, 17 season NHL star for the Toronto Maple Leafs, is a passionate paddler and on todays cover of Swedish paddling magazine KAJAK. KAJAK was distributed as an insert in Sweden's leading daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter (620.000 copies). This is great for paddling in Sweden as Börjes appearance will trigger a lot of non paddlers to have a closer look at the insert and create awarness for paddling amongs Swedes.