With his whitewater background, Lake was naturally drawn to highly maneuverable


boats that performed on waves and in currents. He started to get interested in how to “free the stern,” as he puts it—meaning how to dramatically loosen up the tracking of the back of the boat in order to make maneuvering, turning and surfing more responsive and dynamic. He was also starting to pay close attention to how sea kayaks paddled backwards. This culminated in Lake asking if Donalson had a Grand Illusion in the shop that


hadn’t yet been fitted with bulkheads. He did, and Lake promptly put a seat in the boat facing the stern and paddled the kayak backwards, testing its response to all the usual strokes and maneuvers. He returned to the shop excited that the kayak handled beautifully with its pilot facing “the wrong way.” His next move was to stick two Grand Illusion sterns together to create a new boat with a perfectly symmetrical hull. Donalson, overworked as it was, had no time for additional designs but agreed to the


project, specifying that Lake had to do the brunt of the work to get the boat started, while he would then fair the result and take the kayak to the prototype phase. “Once the Reflection prototype earned Reg’s okay giggle—he has this special laugh


when he really likes something—we took the boat to Skook,” Donalson recalls. “That’s where Rowan [Gloag, producer of The Hurricane Riders rough water film shorts] and the other Hurricane Riders got to try it for the first time.” As they say, the rest is history. The design evolved into the most successful kayak yet


from Sterling. The Reflection proved to be an excellent play boat for tackling surf or big current features like the famed Skookumchuck Rapids, and earned Outside magazine’s 2012 Outside Gear of the Year award. Gloag is an enthusiastic supporter of the design. “As soon as I saw it I wanted to


paddle it,” he remembers, “I could do things in that boat that I couldn’t do before. The Reflection helped me get to that next level with my paddling.”


WATCHING DONALSON AT WORK ON A KAYAK illustrates his flair for simple and effective problem solving. Having only one leg means that he cannot stand for long periods comfortably, so he sits on a swivel office chair bolted atop a dolly fitted with industrial caster wheels. His workstations are built at the perfect height for his seated position, and he scoots his chair around the shop floor with such efficiency that I find myself wondering why I don’t have a similar setup at home. Donalson is a designer who firmly believes in listening to what his customers have


to say. He does not subscribe to the notion of building solely what he thinks is best, but instead has been successful in seeking input from talented paddlers and translating their feedback into boats that kayakers are excited to paddle. Sterling Kayaks also represents the kind of grassroots, hands-on, owner-operated


business that you just long to see prosper. In part because Donalson is so passionate about building kayaks, but also because there’s nothing quite like sitting down for a coffee with the president of the company, sharing an informal chat about what you want in a kayak, and knowing that he’s the guy who is then going to build it just for you. Donalson was listening when his friends, supporters and customers told him Sterling


Kayaks must go on. He’s settling into his new shop, in a modern building just two country blocks north of his old site. The new boat molds—reverse-engineered from the salvaged boats—are nearly finished. True to form, Donalson told me he took the opportunity “to change any of the little things that bugged us” when they rebuilt the molds. Work on the lost Progression progresses. «» —Alex Matthews lives, works and plays on Vancouver Island. He is the author of several books and a DVD on sea kayaking.


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