Some of the most highly prized and sought after whitewater boats in the world come from a small town in southwestern Ontario, about an hour away from the massive rapids of the Niagara Gorge. Unassuming and humble, known throughout the freestyle paddling community, Ed Skrzypkowski prefers his boats do the talking for him. He started paddling in the late 1970s and like many paddlers in the area, spent many weekend hours on the road from his home in the Niagara Peninsula to the Ottawa River. As a recreational paddler in the late 1970s he did a lot of river running and a little slalom racing in his early days. At first glance, he looks like the kind of guy you wouldn’t want to meet in a back alley on a dark night. But he is a friendly giant.
“Hotdogging” was the term given to when whitewater paddlers did “tricks” in their boats. An “ender” was standing a boat on end using a wave or hole (stopper). A “pirouette” was an ender combined with spinning the boat while on end so it came down right-side up rather than upside-down.
Originally started in slalom boats, because that’s what people had before plastic boats had been invented, those “tricks” have come a long way. Fast forward several decades through the development of mass produced plastic boats and a design revolution that came incrementally. Along the way some paddlers carved volume out of composite slalom boats to get them to do things they weren’t meant to do. In the same way computer hardware development allows for software upgrades; the hardware/software thing leap-frog each other. Ditto technique advancement and boat design, new boat designs prompt advances in technique – new moves could be invented. These moves demanded further design refinements, ad infinitum.
Somewhere along the line, “hotdogging” became “rodeo” which in turn led to “freestyle” – just as in skiing. And, like skiing, freestyle subdivided: The competitive aspect involves linking moves on waves and in holes (surface boating) and squirt boating (largely underwater). In many ways the moves resemble gymnastics as much as anything. While the recreational counterpart “play paddling” evolved into “park and paddle” at particular spots on the river as well as running rivers. There is often cross-over between the competition and recreational aspects using the same boats and trying the same moves.
The Ottawa River near Beachburg in Eastern Ontario, with its Niagara-style high volume big rapids, deep water, large eddies and warm summer water offered many great hotdogging opportunities – especially in those early days when boats were higher volume. As boats became shorter, lower volume, and more specialised, new moves became easier to achieve and as such, accessible to more people. “The Ottawa” has since hosted international freestyle competitions, including World Championships, and has become known in white water circles the world over as a mecca for play boating.
Ed’s first boat was a White’s Brothers plastic kayak. This boat was readily available in eastern Canada and it was cheap. A lot of people started with this boat. By today’s standards, the less said about it the better. Ed soon realized its limitations which led him to build his own boat. As with many paddlers in southern Ontario around that time, if you knew someone who knew someone, you could find a mould and build yourself a boat, or, as in Ed’s case, a better boat. The first boat Ed made was a Hahn C1 from a rented mould.
In the 1970s paddlers regularly built their own boats as commercially made boats were not generally available and certainly not in a variety of designs. Ed’s love of paddling ran deep. He became interested in boat design and improving his options on the river. As such, he designed his own boat, the Skimmer, starting by chopping up an old Prijon Sanna (a design that spawned a generation of new boats). Ottawa area firefighter, boat designer and long time Canadian Freestyle Team member Ian Thompson has had many Murky Water boats. He called Ed “the least known, most under-rated, innovator in the industry”. Thompson has been National Champion in squirt, C1 and K1 freestyle categories. A Skimmer owner himself, he said the boat was way ahead of It’s time and perhaps the first white water design with a concave rear deck to reduce the volume. Creating a new boat design, working through the plug to mould stage, is a process not recommended for the faint of heart.
Ed continued paddling as a hobby during his 30+ years as a steel worker in Hamilton, Ontario. In the 1990s, for about 5 years, Ed worked part-time building boats for The Upstream Edge. He’d work a full shift at the steel mill, then drive an hour for another shift putting together kayaks – which he did because he enjoyed it. Then it would be back to the steel mill for another shift. While he ran short on sleep during those years, the bottom line of Tim Hortons was a significant beneficiary.
After retiring from Stelco in 2004 he started building boats full time in retirement under the brand name “Murky Water”. Together, Ed and his wife Mariola, are fully immersed in the business. While Ed does all the seaming and “cuts” (sizing the boats), together they work with materials, cutting fabrics, preparing moulds for infusion, setting up art work on moulds (removing tape from tricky designs requires more than one pair of hands) with Mariola doing the book-keeping as well. They have forged a business building custom made composite boats for surfing, slalom, hybrid kayaks and freestyle – both surface and squirt boats.
They produce the high performance composite versions of some Jackson Kayak designs, most notably their “RockStar”. Emily Jackson, Marketing Director and an owner of Jackson Kayak, 2015 Freestyle World Champion, along with her brother Dane (multiple times World Champion), both have paddled Murky Water built versions of the Jackson Rockstar in competitions. She said composite boats give a performance edge to top paddlers in competitions.
Using materials including Kevlar, Innegra, carbon fibre, and Dyneema, often woven together as hybrids, Ed infuses correspondingly exotic epoxy or vinyl ester resins to produce composite boats that are much lighter and stiffer than their plastic brothers and sisters. These properties make the boats more responsive and give the paddlers a better “feel” for what they are doing. Emily said that compared to their plastic boats, the lighter and stiffer composite boats ride higher out of the water and rotate faster, saying they are more “snappy”. This makes a move like the “double airscrew” possible.
Costing approximately a thousand dollars more than their plastic family members, composite boats are not for everyone. They are custom built for people looking to maximise the number of points they can accumulate in a given amount of time. In the wrong hands in the wrong place, you can wear them out quickly. Emily Jackson qualified this, saying that there is a high degree of skill required of a paddler to take full advantage of what the boats can offer.
Ed has produced high performance boats used in freestyle and surf competitions by many of the worlds best paddlers in these disciplines for more than two decades. There are less than a handful of places in the world where you can get such boats. As such, his dedication to his craft, in every way, is greatly appreciated.
Ed and Mariola, are known for welcoming paddlers into their home. Paddlers come from far and wide, including from overseas, to “float test” their boats. This means the boats are temporarily assembled for paddlers to test them out in the backyard pond. Then as necessary, the sizing or “cut” of the boat can be altered. This involves taking the boat apart, trimming out some volume here or there as required before another float test. Size is a critical aspect of these boats. Typically the volume is matched to the particular paddler’s size and weight. The distribution of this can change as not all body types are the same. So there is something of an art to fitting a particular boat design to a paddler. This comes from experience and a trained eye to match the design with a paddler’s performance expectations.
Producing specialized composite boats is a particularly unique talent requiring dedication and experience. It is a hands-on self-taught craft, learned by trial and error. Learning from both your own mistakes and the school of hard-knocks that the river dishes out. Ed has spent more than 20 years moulding, painting, and sizing squirt boats. He keeps meticulous records of what he does. This is necessary in order to reproduce, or make a change for a paddler when they order their next boat. It is not unusual for the top paddlers to have a fleet of boats from Murky Water.
Ottilie Robinson-Shaw, competes in both surface and squirt disciplines of freestyle on the British Team. She has 9 World Championship wins to her credit (plus a few extra silvers and bronze medals) and has used Ed’s boats in all of them. She has 6 boats built by Ed and says she hopes to never sell any of them as they are each a piece of art representing a part of her journey. She has paddled his boats for 10 years, since she was 14. Ottilie said he has really dialled her boat in for her, listened to her suggestions and backed her up when she wanted it changed.
Ed has been described as an artisan by many people. He has a store of knowledge that is self-taught talent. He understands boat construction, materials and techniques. He constantly looks for improvements in composite science and engineering that could apply to white water boats. He knows how to custom size the boats for paddlers. Beyond that, to the casual observer, what really stands out, what really sets composite boats apart, and Murky Water boats in particular, is the art work and graphics.
Custom artwork is a talent beyond the scope of regular boat building. Again, to the casual observer, this might look like a fancy “paint job” – when in reality, these finishes are typically done in reverse, back-to-front, inside-out, on the surface of a convoluted mould. This is the complete opposite of how a car is painted for example. The aesthetics of Murky Water boats are at a whole other level compared to anything else available due to Ed’s incredible attention to detail. What’s even more incredible, is that the artwork often requires Mariola’s help as Ed is colour blind!
Disaster struck in 2017 when the workshop was destroyed by fire. Ed said that he lost about 50 designs in the way of moulds and plugs (original forms) in the fire. This was a huge loss to the freestyle community as a whole. Fortunately, a shipping container he used for storage protected his house. He has since rebuilt the workshop, and although back in production, it is with a much smaller number of designs than he had previously. Remember those meticulous records Ed kept? Luckily they were in the house.
Murky Water boats are available in limited numbers – limited by Ed’s ability to produce them. He is faced with the perennial problem of a lot of small business people – he needs to clone himself. At some point soon, he would like to retire from his retirement job. Ed has worked with a philosophy of constant improvement to make the best boat possible for each paddler. He and Mariola have a unique business with a huge amount of goodwill. It is definitely a team effort. In Ed’s words, this is not something that can be done alone. He is looking forward to building fewer boats and getting back to some paddling himself.
This is squirt boating: Ottawa River 2015
Freestyle World Championships 2024: Plattling Germany
Written by Gary Barton, CKC Alumni Council