Finn Kayaks, Company

Alywn Duke started building his own kayaks long before doing it as a business. As a member of the Australia Wildwater team, he competed interstate and overseas and designed lightweight competition kayaks for himself and many former Australian champions. "I used to build racing kayaks in kevlar carbon epoxy, when I competed internationally," says Alwyn, "but that was too environmentally unfriendly and expensive. Then I started importing plastic ones from the States and UK, and I thought, why don't I build them? In Australia there were lots of fiberglass designs available, lots of them very good, but plastic is seamless and durable," explains Alwyn, "and you never have to worry about itchy fiberglass rash!" Eventually, Alwyn took the plunge and started his own plastic kayak business, Finn Kayaks. Importing the requisite moulding oven from the US was financially out of the question, so he had one made to his specifications in Perth. The natural gas rotational moulding oven fires at 300 degrees Celsius and takes an hour for the plastics powder (polyethelene) to miraculously turn into a kayak. Alwyn has a personal policy of continual improvement that he applies to his boats. If there is a better grade of plastic or a better way of doing it he will. He admits the favourite part of his business is designing and making the protype for each craft, then paddling and testing it to the point of satisfaction, when the mould is then made. There are 16 moulds for the range of Finn kayaks, which start at around $490 (retail) for a very stable craft that is safe for children right up to $1200 for a kayak designed to go very fast and therefore ideal for competition such as the Avon Descent (of which Finns have won many). "I built this one more as a toy for myself," confesses Alwyn, a veteran of 16 Avon Descents himself. The Avon Descent is the major whitewater race in the WA paddling calendar.