Interview: Peter Tranter
Photos: Corran Addison
Corran Addison is a regular contributor to the Paddler magazine and owns Soul Waterman
An interview with… Corran Addison
Love him or loathe him but you cannot ignore Corran Addison, who has made more impact in the world of kayaking and latterly the SUP discipline than anyone alive. He has been an Olympian, multiple world champion, innovative designer of kayaks and SUP boards for over two decades and now the owner of Soul Waterman. He’s also the first paddler we have interviewed twice but so much has happened since 2013, we couldn’t resist..
Where and what was your first paddle?
I started kayaking in South Africa in 1975 with my father. The very first time was on a dam called Settlers Dam in Grahamstown in what was then the Cape Province. Later that same year we ran the Fish River and the following year, the Orange River in the Orange Free State. I was hooked from the very beginning. When all my friends in boarding school were playing cricket and rugby, I just wanted to paddle. I brought an old Treska to the school and would paddle every day in the putrid pond behind the dorms. Every waking moment even at that age was about kayaking.
What were your competition highlights?
1992 Barcelona Olympic team trials and the subsequent Games are definitely at the very top. Obviously my three World Championship medals in freestyle, though they were all mired in controversy, as I was battling with judges over accepting and scoring moves I was doing that no one else could and thus were not judged. The 1993 USA team trials won with a significant margin stands out and then the Canadian trials, which I won with more than twice the next paddler’s score.
But one that stands out was at the end of my most successful season where I won 11 of the 14 events I competed in and took second in two others (ending in the Worlds where I was sixth, again with controversy). One of the events where I came second at the end of the year resulted in Eric Jackson and I being the last ones standing, where eventually he edged me out for the win. At the prize ceremony, the event organizer said, “And in second place, the man who I thought couldn’t be beaten: Corran Addison.” I thought that was cool.
I stayed on top for a decade – winning and losing, but always with the knowledge that I had a psychological edge over the other competitors because I won far more often than I lost. At the very end of my career, one of the last events I competed in, after ’officially retiring’ I finished 12th in the men’s pro category. Tyler Curtis, who finished 11th came up to me and said, “I don’t care if I’m 11th, I just wanted to beat you once!” Even though that was the end of my competitive career, it was a cool way to go out.
Preparing for big competitions is a challenging task. How did you prepare for competitions – mentally and technically?
I was always very busy. Except for the 1993 season, every other year I was running a kayak company and paddling, so I didn’t have a lot of time. I’d fly into events the evening before the competition, get a practice in for a few hours at a spot where everyone else had been practising for days, and then drive to the event on the weekend. Luckily my equipment was generally much better than everyone else’s so this gave me an advantage and compensated for lack of practice time.
Probably the only two years other than 1993 where I got to paddle as much as everyone else at the events was the ’98-’99 season where I did a three-month-long ’rodeo tour’ with Riot paddlers.
The day of I was always supremely confident I had it in the bag I was usually quite relaxed. Winning was still relatively easy, so there wasn’t a lot of pressure.
You’ve been a multiple champion in freestyle, what two or three things would you like to evolve with this discipline?
Well, I retired when I saw the sport going in a direction that didn’t interest me: Flippity floppity stuff in small holes with increasingly shorter boats. The specific moment was 2002 at the pre worlds in Gratz. I stood there with Arnd Schaeftlein and Ben Brown looking at people paddling into the hole and flopping about and realized I was done. It just didn’t interest me. The three of us all ’retired’ from world level competition right there on the spot that day, and drove away.
I miss seeing the grace and speed of the longer boats doing tricks. Of course, like surfing, you can’t pull the sorts of moves in a longboat that you can in a little spud, but it neither looks as impressive nor feels as good. I’ve gotten so into paddling my 10’ playboat that I’ve been talking about organizing a ‘longboat’ world championships at the Lachines. We were going to do it for 2020, but with Covid, we bailed on it. Hopefully, we can put it together for 2021.
The focus is going to be on using multiple waves in the same ride, using the entire wave, and linking it all together into one long fluid ride that’s like a dance. No noticeable downtime or set up between moves, a focus where the overall impression of the ride is perhaps worth as much as the sum total of its moves. Many older generation paddlers I’ve talked to are excited about participating, and even some of the young guns too. So will be cool if we pull it off.
If you could capture just one ’feel good’ moment in your kayaking expeditions/ competitions – which would it be and why?
Wow, that’s almost an impossible question to answer. I mean walking into the Olympic stadium, as ’Addison’ from ’Afrique do Sud’ – I was the first athlete into the stadium. That’s hard to beat. Winning 1992 team trials by 27 seconds with a touch.
Being 1,000km into the Kalahari Desert with my father as a teenager, paddling through the vast expanse, are some fondest paddling memories. It’s a time I long for – the simplicity of just being outside and paddling down a river, discovering ourselves and our sport.
There are of course some adrenaline highs from having run hard or scary rapids In Alaska, Russia, Japan, across North America and Africa and Europe. I’ve been a lot of places and gotten scared a lot of times. Hard to forget those.
Strangely, on a par with these is teaching my son to paddle as my father taught me. He started when he was just 18 months old, but in the last season (he’s six now) we’ve started to paddle together beyond my just dragging him down some big stuff in a Terrible Two, or holding his hand through class 1. These are memories we’re forging together that hopefully, neither one of us will forget.
Which do you prefer, the cut and thrust of business or competitive sport?
I don’t like the business end of what I do. I love doing R&D. I love designing and inventing. Once I’ve gotten the design to where I’ve built the first perfect one, the second one is a bore. You need it, and the 1,000 others that follow to pay for that R&D, but it doesn’t excite me. Neither does money. As long as I have a roof and food, and I can do the things I want to do, I don’t care much about it.
People know you for having been the brainchild behind Riot, but there is over a decade between the time you left Riot and your latest kayak venture Soul Waterman. What did you do in that time?
I left Riot in 2004 and was approached by an Italian company Rainbow Kayaks about working with them. I didn’t feel ’Rainbow’ was a place I wanted to be as it sort of had a ’low end’ connotation to the brand, so we brainstormed and came up with Dragorossi. I worked for them as the designer from 2005 to 2014.
It was also cool for me because I’m a bit of an Italophile and I’d always wanted to learn to speak Italian.
During that time it also seems you took off surfing
Yeah in 2005 I also started Imagine Eco. I was teaching surfing on the St Laurence River, and making surfboards for people locally. In 2008 I developed a take apart surfboard for air travel and won ISPO’s coveted best ’Brand New’ award for it. Then in 2010, an investment firm from California approached me to buy Imagine, which they eventually bought for $2 million. I moved there to help run the company from its new base in Southern California.
Two years later they sold Imagine to the Pryde Group (famous for windsurfing) at which point I left, and started Corran Sup. This grew pretty quickly as we had a lot of really innovative boards and designs, and then in 2014, I was approached by Kayak Distribution (who now owned Riot) to buy Corran SUP and when they bought that I found myself in a bit of a no-mans-land with no clue what to do. By then, I’d spent over a decade in the kayak industry and another decade in the surf industry. I wasn’t burned out, but I felt like I’d been there, done that. I wanted to do something new and fresh.
So you went motorcycle racing?
I was already racing back in the Imagine days in California, but getting into the motorcycle industry was definitely on my radar. I had several good ideas for things that I felt could be industry-changing, and even worked with a company to develop a bike. I was on the cusp of launching a new company, called Centaro (the Italian word for a motorcycle pilot that comes from the Greek legend of the centaur) when the magnitude of what I was about to get into hit me. Six months of dealing with red-tape to get the bike legalized for road use in the USA left a bad taste in my mouth, and I walked away from it.
By then, my son was born, and the political climate was changing in the USA. We decided it was time to move back to Montreal, which we felt would be a better place to raise our son.
Is that when you started Soul, and where does the name originate?
Soul wasn’t on my radar yet. I went to South Africa to SUP race the Dusi marathon, and while there hung out with Celliers Kruger (from Fluid). He was in the process of extracting himself from Fluid, and we started to talk about starting a new company together and running it out of South Africa, with him doing production and I making international sales, with the two of us designing together. I was pretty excited about the idea as he’s a really smart guy and great to be around.
While we were bouncing around ideas for a name he asked me now that I’d sold my name (Corran SUP), what did I have left to sell? I said “my soul!”
Unfortunately, Celliers was tied down with a non-compete with Fluid and was determined to honour it, and so he was not able to do anything kayak related for a few years. But I liked the idea of the new kayak company as we’d been discussing it, and what the focus would be, so on returning to Montreal I set about getting it off the ground. By the fall of 2015, I had four designs ready to go, which I started to sell in October of that year.
What projects are you currently undertaking?
I’ve just finished the new Glide, and we’re starting the mould as we discuss this. The original was a game-changing boat in 1997 that was so far ahead of the competition, that it forced a rule change at the world championships to ‘level the playing field’. The challenge has been, in honour of using that name, to create a boat that’s as groundbreaking – even if not in the same way. I feel like I’ve pulled that off.
The last three years have been a real challenge as well to design a new paddle. I used the Seven2 paddles for two decades and loved them. But they closed their doors in 2007, and the paddles, while fantastic feeling, had some engineering and production issues. The goal was to not so much ‘recreate’ the feel of the Seven2, but rather to modernize its design, and then resolve the production issues. It hasn’t been easy, and that’s why it’s taken so long. We finally just started production on this.
I’ve also been working on a game-changing snowboard binding for the last three years, and it’s now ready for production. I’m in the pre-production stages of figuring out exactly how I’m going to build it now that the design itself is finished. The quantity of scale has its challenges here.
Is there anyone in particular in the sporting world that has influenced you?
Richard Fox, the multiple World Slalom Champion. Norbert Sattler (1972 Olympic silver medalist and 1973 gold medalist) and Jerome Truran (1981 silver medalist in downriver), all excellent white water kayakers and all of whom coached and influenced me significantly. Mary Lou Retton, the 1982 Olympic gold medalist gymnast, and Daley Thompson, the Decathlon Olympic gold medalist were both the reason why I wanted to go to the Olympics and were people who I looked at as an example of what an athlete should be.
Which do you consider is your best kayak design?
Best or most innovative is two different things. The Fury was probably the most innovative because it was the most ’uncertain’. I was shooting in the dark and trying to do a lot of things at once – cut two feet or more length off the established norms, develop the planing hull and the techniques needed to paddle such a short boat AND a planing hulled boat all at once. The boat itself wasn’t a commercial success for several reasons, but as an innovative design, it stands out as a landmark.
The Glide and Disco are two boats that I’m really proud of. Both were groundbreaking and commercial successes. The Riot days were my most productive from a design perspective, and my R+D budget was almost unlimited (arguably too large given the companies revenues). The Glide went through 13 prototypes in two years and was Riot ’s first super success story. Today all freestyle kayaks are essentially an evolution of the Disco.
More recently, the 303 is a boat I’m proud of. I went on a paddling trip with my father three years ago back to the Kalahari and paddled a Savage Scorpion. It was so fun to be in a long fast boat that moved about the river properly. But I missed the advantages that planning hulls have brought to kayaking, and the ergonomics of the Scorpion compared to modern kayaks is horrible. So when I got back, I started to work on a new boat that would bring back those paddling sensations of a long kayak, and combine it with modern skills and styles. It’s the boat that I paddle the most.
Your best SUP design?
My most successful was the Rapidfire. It was groundbreaking at the time. But the Firestorm is a far better board for running challenging whitewater. My Mach1 surf shape was a massive success when I was living and designing in California, and got rave reviews from magazines, and surfers alike.
My most innovative, however, was the Infiltrator. One of the problems with surfing is the spots get crowded. And if you want to go to an uncrowded spot, you need a boat, or to paddle a longboard to get there. Then once you’re there, you have this huge flapping board. So I created this two in one board where a small high-performance board fit into the deck of a longer faster board that was race-inspired, so you could cover long distances, and then still have the board you needed when you got to the surf spot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pscGBSLo3-c&t=69s
What is the most significant accomplishment in your career?
I survived 20 years of running some of the most extreme rivers and rapids in the world, including several records that stood for over a decade. I walked away almost unscathed – only the one serious incident when I broke my back running the 78-foot Looking Glass Falls.
I also had a successful competitive career that lasted two decades, and at the same time had a career in kayak and surfboard design that was as successful as my extreme and competitive ones. Not too bad, I think. Most people get one or the other, who gets to be one of the best in the world at all three?
Is there anywhere in the world that’s got you hooked? Somewhere you want to keep going back to again and again?
Montreal is one. I moved here after paddling here. Even after being all over the world, living in California, I still keep coming back to Montreal. But the Orange river in the Kalahari is hard to beat. It’s one of my favourite places in the world.
Kayaking or SUP and why?
Do I have to choose? Both are great fun for different reasons. I’m kayaking more now because of my son who kayaks – it’s a lot harder to teach WW SUP. But I love both, and thankfully I don’t have to choose.
An interesting side note. I was never much of a swimmer. Last time I swam out of a kayak was in 2002 before that was 1997, and before that was in the mid-1980s. So my ’swimming’ technique in whitewater sucked. Despite having surfed North Shore, Hawaii in massive surf, it’s not the same. The few times I did swim, I was all panicked because it was so foreign to me. Whitewater SUP you spend half your day swimming, and so it was perfect for me. I got comfortable getting bounced down rapids on my ass, and am better off for it now.
What’s the one river you haven’t paddled that would be on your bucket list?
That WAS the Grand Canyon, but it’s finally off my list. I did it two years ago with this Italian group and a professional cook. We ate well! Maybe the Stikine – just never got up there.
What one piece of advice do you give to young paddlers just starting?
That’s pretty hard – everyone paddles for their reasons. The ’just keep it fun’ is the right advice for some, but not for all. My father once asked me (casually like it was a passing thought)’ “What are your plans? Are you just going to be a kayaking bum or the best in the world?” I’d never thought about it, and my knee jerk reaction was “the best in the world.” I thrived on being better than anyone (or at least trying to be – whether I was is a matter of opinion). It was most certainly not just about having fun for me. I wanted to be the best, and I worked at that. But other people might just want to enjoy themselves. I guess it would be “find out what motivates you to paddle, and excel at that.” If it’s just about fun, then excelling at having fun is as grand a goal as any other.
What effect has Covid-19 had on you?
It’s been great for business. Not that I’m celebrating it of course. It’s been terrible, and people’s lives have been devastated. But people have not been travelling, not been going to bars or eating out. So they’ve spent their money on toys, and I’ve been on the benefitting end of that. The flip side is that I pulled my kid out of school early, so he was home with me for four months. Made working pretty tough him being an only kid – he’s six and wants to play.
Quickies
Which famous person would you most like to see play you in a film?
Johnny Depp or Tim Roth.
Pick two celebrities to be your parents.
Hunter Thompson and Angellica Houston.
Or… Steve Erwin and Margo Oberg
Are you a bathroom/shower singer and if so, what do you sing?
Hell no. But I sing when I shape boards. David Bowie. Queen. Zeppelin. ACDC.
Name one film star you would love to get naughty with?
Monica Belushi. Marilyn Monroe. Can I have both?
If we came to your house for dinner, what would you prepare for us?
Ah… first rum. On the rocks. No effing soda in it. Cheese Fondue in winter. Tacos in summer.
What’s in your fridge right now?
Milk. More milk. Yoghurt. Tofu. Cheese. More milk. Avocado. Eggs. Apples.
Do you believe in love at first sight?
Love no. Lust yes. Love comes after the lust is satisfied and you still want to be there.
Favourite freestyle move?
Carving blunt. High speed, sweeping, and precise.
What was the last gift you gave someone?
My Wife. A new surf ski.
Who are your kayaking/SUP buddies?
Yannick Larouche. Chuck Nomad. Kailix. Patrick Gagne and his kids. Julie Dion and her kid.
What’s the most boring question you are often asked?
The list above is pretty good 😉
No, seriously I think it’s not so much a question rather than being told I’m someone’s hero. I don’t handle compliments well – not sure what to do with my hands and feet, so I sort of stand there looking like an uncomfortable idiot as I shift back and forth looking for a way to change the subject.
A bit weird that since I know, I have a massive ego. Not sure why the two don’t thrive off each other.
Any final shout outs to friends, supporters and sponsors?
There are a handful of people who have been instrumental in keeping me excited about paddling over so much time. It’s hard to pick anyone out as it’s a long list. I guess my wife Christine, who puts up with me.
