Kirill's Twin Tip Conversion SPECIAL Thanks go Kirill for these great images and text on his Robson Twin Tip conversion!

First of all, according to Robson, it is possible to order a C1 version of TwinTip, but the boat should be ordered at least a month in advance and the price will be the same as a kayak or even a bit more. So, I went another way- I bought a shell without any kayak outfitting. Additionally, I ordered a set of hip supports and some foam. Thus, the price was lessened by nearly 120-140 USD.

This picture below shows what I've received:
- a hull (with linear bottom stringer and stern/bow pillars glued in)
- 1 sq.meter of minicell
- a set of hip supports (including plastic supports and two foam pads) The hull had a sticker inside : "Made in Bavaria with pride". And it really deserves to be pride of - the plastic looks real great.

It did not take long to glue the seat and a bulkhead into the boat. For more information on this type of outfitting see the "Outfitting" section of CBoats.net

The real head-ache was to attach these hip supports- they came from the Finkenmeister (the only C1 in Robsons program) and due to the fact that the Finkenmeister's Keyhole is 23 inches (58 cm) wide, while the keyhole in TwinTip is only 19 inches (48 cm) wide, the hip supports would not fit. Eventually, I installed them bolted the same way as they are in Finkenmeister. Thanks to Martin for the pictures of his Finkenmeister he kindly sent to me.

Here are some pictures of the first version of conversion:

Having tested the boat in a pool, I realized that it was almost impossible to lean back- these heap pads were too tight. What was good for the FM, did not work for TwinTip with it's narrow keyhole.

Nice as these hip-supports might be, but they needed to be removed and cut. My heart was bleeding, when with a hack-saw I was taking away the excess plastic. It took me as long as 15 minutes to do it-the polyethylene was about 5 mm thick. Another 10 minutes took to glue some foam to what was remaining from supports. The result was- a pair of perfect, very comfortable, good sturdy hip pads.

These are the close-ups of the second version:

The next session in the pool was a complete success - I sat very comfortable and could perfectly feel the boat. This is the final result of conversion work. The picture does not show the hip belts, which I installed later.

I did not have a chance to test it on whitewater- the winter has come to Russia. So, my impressions are based upon a couple of sessions in the swimming pool. It's strange, but the boat goes forward :)! It's bow digs water every time I try to accelerate, but not enough to do a bow stall. When it comes to vertical moves, I can do the same things I did in my old boats (Session+ and MrClean)- both-hands clean and super-clean cartwheels (5-6 ends), bow and stern stalls. It does not take any efforts at all to initiate any move. The only difference from a slicy cartwheel-machine is that you need to watch it's angle carefully when going vertical, otherwise it just flips over. I'm really enjoying it and longing for the spring to come, when I am able to test it on whitewater.