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< Jan/Feb 2002
	Paddle People
A Conversation with Derek Hutchinson Frederick Reimers

Few have done more for the sport of sea kayaking than Derek Hutchinson. As a boat designer, teacher, author and expedition paddler, Hutchinson has been leading the sport for nearly 40 years. The 68-year-old Brit first began paddling in 1963, designed his first boat, the North Sea Kayak, in 1967, and penned the now classic Sea Canoeing (currently in its fourth edition as The Complete Book of Sea Kayaking), in 1976. He held the Guinness Book of Records mark for the longest continuous crossing after his 31-hour North Sea epic in 1975 and is credited for pioneering sea kayaking expeditions with his Aleutian expedition of 1978.

Hutchinson surfed past retirement age with nary a blink and is busier than ever teaching dozens of clinics and delivering slide shows throughout North America. He debuted his 16th kayak design, Current Designs’ Andromeda, at the Outdoor Retailer Show in Salt Lake City in August, where we caught up with him between book signings and hull-design discussions.

Paddler: What was your most important boat design innovation?
Hutchinson: In 1974 I put a watertight bulkhead in the Baidarka, making the first "unsinkable" kayak. That boat was also the first to have deck elastics for charts and spare paddles.

Paddler: Your most memorable expedition?
Hutchinson: The Baidarka inspired the first attempt at the North Sea Crossing in 1975. After 34 hours on the water and no sleep the night before we launched, dehydrated and hypothermic, I suggested we tie ourselves together so that if one person passed out the other could support him. We didn’t know a thing about dehydration in those days. We had to be rescued eight miles off Dunkirk, though we didn’t know we were that close. There was no GPS then.

Paddler: What’s your opinion of Ed Gillette’s 63-day Pacific crossing to Hawaii?
Hutchinson: He didn’t paddle all the way—he could sleep. He made a sailboat out of a Tofino double. The thing about his achievement is loneliness—being out there alone for so long.

Paddler: What’s your next expedition?
Hutchinson: Well, I wouldn’t tell you. Last time I answered that question in Vancouver, I told a lad I thought I might make the crossing from Vancouver to Port Angeles and the next time I came back he’d done it.

Paddler: Okay, fair enough, so then what’s your favorite place to paddle?
Hutchinson: The North Coast of England and the Southeast Coast of Scotland. Beautiful cliffs, birds, seals. It’s an amazing wonderland.

Paddler: What style of kayak roll do you use?
Hutchinson: None really. That’s a bit like asking a 747 pilot how often he parachutes. I don’t really capsize. Now, if I were surfing or in whitewater I’d probably use a screw roll. I do quite a bit of whitewater paddling.

Paddler: What’s the best new technological innovation in the sport?
Hutchinson: There haven’t really been any in the last ten years. It’s a shame about boat designs, though. A lot of the new boats are functional—they’ll all float—but they look like a bucket of squashed frogs. It seems the designers have no romance in their soul at all.