It all started with a phone call about 5 years ago. My brother called and said guess what I am going to be a dad. I was completely and totally psyched, and the wheels started turning in my head that day, about a boat I could make for his kids. I had started working on a model that year actually, but we just weren't ready to go for it. Then my bro had another kid. Damn, I thought to myself I really have to get on it and make this boat. I worked some more on it but it just wasn't quite right. Then just last year Peter, my brother, called and said, "This time its a girl" Ok this is getting serious I thought. I have to do it now and now I have some guinea pigs to test it on. So that is when I started the testing with my brother, his kids, and others that he had been teaching.
I wasn't sure what type of design I really wanted to do but the more I thought about it the more I realized that it needed to be a boat for kids to learn how to paddle in. That is when we all started talking about the development of the Remix. This was the boat that I knew we could develop into a kids boat. I knew my brother would be stoked to teach his kids how to paddle in that design. Its a boat that is stable enough to give them confidence but also narrow and small enough that they can roll it and move it around as they learn. Of course you want to make something that the kids will want to paddle and feel good paddling but I also wanted my brother to feel confident that the boat would keep his kids safe and happy about being on the water, and that is what we set out to do with the Remix 47.
My brothers kids weren't the only influence in us starting to make a kids kayak. I guess as Liquidlogic is starting to grow older, so are we, and our friends. That pretty much always means... friends start having kids. There are tons of our buds who have been begging us to get in the kids boat game. Boyce Greer who is one of our founding partners at Liquidlogic has 3 girls and they are all starting to play around with kayaking. The original Liquidlogic kids boat concept was named project Blueberry by the Greer girls. Kelly Fischer one our reps has a couple boys and they are starting to paddle. Maria Noakes is an old friend of ours who has paddled Liquidlogic boats as a team member all over the world. She has a couple of boys getting to the age where they are starting to paddle some. And there are more and more all the time. So really its like Liquidlogics biological clock just went off. Its time for us to have some kids... boats.
Shane
