FOOTWEAR FOCUS ROAD TEST
Don’t step on my blue wade shoes!
ocean, when one is sailing off France or in the Caribbean. I suppose one of the antidotes to sea sickness is
I
disrobing: to see young people with lithe bodies and brown legs in their stylish boating shoes scuttling like monkeys over the decks and up and down the rigging raises the dopamine levels. My thoughts turned to sailing when my editor
recently sent a pair of Chatham Kayak G2 deck shoes to test. Classic deck shoes have become very popular casual shoes in recent years and people who have never set foot on a boat wear them in a range of fashionable styles.
I’m a bit of a traditionalist so being
Henry Harington takes to the sea to test his Chatham Kayak G2 deck shoes
sent a pair of blue as opposed to brown leather deck shoes raised an eyebrow. Raised an eyebrow because, while deck shoes are also fashion items or
are worn by Russian oligarchs (and their guests like George Osborne and Peter Mandelson), good deck shoes are an absolute requirement to glide about the velvet smooth wooden decks of their super yachts to avoid damaging the wood. But, for me deck shoes are practical, very practical, shoes for both yacht and dingy sailing.
The advantage of deck
shoes is that they are robust, have grip, drain easily and recover after you have waded into the sea to haul a dingy onto the beach - and don’t chaff when you are rushing to haul sheets (that’s not bedding, for a sheet is a rope in boat speak). Such footwear needs to be robust to protect your feet (and toes
particularly) against the threats lurking on deck or in the bilges – whipping ropes, pulleys, winch handles – they are all just waiting to be stood on, drop on your bare feet or somehow damage your nautical serenity. On wet surfaces boat shoes are simply better than feet, bare feet don’t have grip when you are braced, turning the handle to haul in a rope using a coffee grinder (which is what the sailing posers call a winch), or when you have to head forward along a sea splashed deck to fold a jib or unhitch a delinquent rope. I might at first have been a bit blue about blue deck shoes but I was soon
won over by their comfort and performance on deck. They look very stylish and the Kayak G2 is comfortable and fits exceedingly well – there is nothing worse, and it is probably quite dangerous to have deck shoes that are ill fitting and flap off your heels. These shoes also grip very well on deck, and any surplus water they might encounter, quickly drains away.
Details: The Kayak in Navy is new for 2011 and it is from Chatham’s G2 range,
which means it has a two year guarantee – a first for the UK footwear market. It is a classic deck shoe of moccasin construction that is hand stitched on the last and made from washable premium pullup leather. The shoe features a siped recyclable rubber sole for extra grip on deck, rust proof eyelets and a functional one piece lace that is also rot proof. Kayak retails from £79 and has a wholesale price of £32.92. It is available in sizes 6 – 15 including half sizes and comes in the following colour options: white/navy/red; navy; seahorse and walnut/seahorse.
Contact: web:
www.chatham-marine.co.uk Tel. 0845 2700 217
16 • FOOTWEAR TODAY • MARCH 2011
love messing about in boats but I am afraid my experience of doing so in UK territorial waters has been cold, wet with a tendency to ‘mal de mer’. It is funny how the great Atlantic swells of the coast of England induce greater sea sickness than the same swells, or swells from the same
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