I was dropping my two epic 18x sport kayaks in Hamburg at the cargo terminal on Friday 2 pm, the same day I flew off myself. They got transported by truck to Amsterdam, and then on a cargo flight directly to Buenos Aires.

It was working all fine – besides the 2900 € I had to pay myself for both kayaks for the airfreight…unfortunately my boat sponsor epic kayaks was not able to deliver my new babys earlier to my home to outfit them, and to be still able to ship them cheaper with a container on the sea.

One kayak arrived about 4 weeks before I left, one three days before my departure…at 3.45 am on Tuesday 9th Boyan dropped the last one on my doorstep. Thanks to Boyan for the last minute effort – and thanks to epic kayaks to provide me the boats!

Alejandro and I drove with quite mixed emotions to the airport cargo terminal, as we were both not sure what to expect…will the boats be without damage? Will the customs let us go with “importing” two brandnew boats for private use?

The trick was to ship it from my own name and adress to my own name and adress, to make sure it is handled as personal travel (oversized) luggage for private use, and not as an import of goods. But first, the customs boss didn’t believe me…I gave him my website, a nice female smile and a few of my cards, handsigned, and he was content with me telling the truth!

The customs guys sliced the parcels open on the spot “to search for drugs” as they said – but they neither opened the hatches, nor the cockpit, nor did they have drug dogs sniffing around anywhere…they probably thought I would be riding on top of a surfboard around South America and the damn thing isn’t hollow…but they were allright, I’ll do it drug-free! 🙂

We found unfortunately a small gelcoat damage close to the cockpit from a hard hit on one boat, and I thought at the airport my second baby really got away without being busted…

But at home, I found actually three spots on the seam line with some cracking! F… the cargo handlers..they probably have dropped it from somewhere. But it seems like it is repairable with some effort and love, and the seam is solidly built enough not to have split the whole kayak into halves. Shipping in a wooden cradle in a container is better for the kayaks than airfreight! But it could have been worse…

They got roughly wrapped again and taped, and we did a good tiedown job on the new THULE roof rack – thanks to THULE Argentina to provide Alejandro the new rack!

Then the scary ride through the crazy Buenos Aires traffic…I’m as usually most worried about my kayak on the roof of a friendly host driving me to his home! But we arrived allright.

This is how they have left my home – all epic kayaks travel in style in their own bags. I wrapped them solidly in a thin layer of closed cell foam (cheap sleeping pads actually…), plus two layers of bubble wrap. Looked solid and good…but doesn’t help against dropping…