"VK1NF" wrote in
:

I've learned a lot about general kayaking from the paddling.net forums
- lots of people there with a wide range of skills. (I show up
occasionally as VK1NF). It also has an easily-searchable archive. Any
questions I've asked have gotten a good number of serious responses. If
you're interested in building, then the Kayak Building Bulletin Board
(Mike's link below) is the place to be.

The Paddlewise mailing list is also an excellent forum that has a lot of
participants with a wide range of skills, including several boat designers,
and contributing authors to the major paddling magazines (including yours
truely). See www.paddlewise.net.

I also wouldn't write off some of the commercial sites too readily. Matt
Broze has produced some excellent educational material on his Mariner kayaks
site and several kayaking outfitter/tour sites include a lot of really good
educational information, especially in the area of safety (i.e.
http://atlantickayaktours.com/).

Except for a few exceptions, I have found that most paddling related
commercial enterprises don't seem to be in it just to sell you boats and
gear to make a buck but are sincerely interested in recruiting and educating
paddlers just for the sake of growing and improving the paddling community.

"Michael Daly" wrote in message
...
On 20-Apr-2005, "NYC XYZ" wrote:

There seems to be a dearth of beginner's sites on paddling and
things associated with it

Start with Kayak Wiki:

http://www.kayakforum.com/cgi-sys/cg...ki.pl?HomePage

Mike