Don’t miss seeing the Nordkapp Kayak, designed for the Arctic and a survivor of a trip around Cape Horn, at the National Maritime Museum Cornwall.

The Nordkapp Kayak was designed for the pioneering 1975 British Kayak Expedition to Nordkapp, the most northerly point of mainland Europe in Norway. The designer, Frank Goodman, was given a brief to produce a boat that was fast, capable of carrying up to 90kg (200lbs) of equipment, and that performed well in poor conditions.

The four expedition members travelled through the worst summer in Norway since records began, but the kayaks performed excellently and the 480 mile trip from Bodø to Nordkapp took a month to complete.

Two years later Nordkapps were established as popular, seaworthy boats and were the kayaks of choice for Frank Goodman and his team to undertake a legendary expedition round Cape Horn, one of the most notorious sea areas in the world.

Jenny Wittamore, Assistant Curator, commented: “It is an amazing feat that Frank Goodman and his friends managed to paddle around Cape Horn in these small boats. Not many people can say they’ve travelled one of the most dangerous stretches of sea in a kayak.”

Nordkapps have been used all around the world including a circumnavigation of Australia and a voyage around North West Spitsbergen, well beyond the Arctic Circle.

Nordkapps are still made today and are among the most popular of modern sea kayaks. You can see the kayak on show at the Museum in Falmouth over the next 18 months. Don’t forget that if you pay just once, you can now visit the Maritime Museum over and over again for a year.

From: Thursday 26 July 2007
To: Wednesday 31 December 2008
Every day