History

In the mid 1980s, finding himself competing at a slalom event virtually every weekend in the Summer, he started selling slalom boats and gear on the bankside expanding quickly to attending white water rallies and paddling shows around the UK on many other weekends. By mid 1987 sales had become too much to handle alongside a demanding full time job and something had to give! A promising career in the Automotive industry came to an end and the Paddle Sport business was born in November of that year.

 

While selling at events continued, the business had opened two retail outlets by 1990, under the Waveform name, and retailing remained the main focus of the business for many years to come. The two Waveform outlets were amalgamated after a few years into single large premises under the Paddle Sport banner. Two years later Pete’s wife, Anne, joined the business heading up the newly acquired canoe and kayak software manufacturing brand ‘Chang’. The Chang name was replaced with Waveform after a few years and this remains as the brand name today. Waveform concentrates on own brand products for retail dealers and a number of major wholesalers.

 

However, retailing was never enough for Pete. His practical automotive engineering experience and constant questioning about how things are designed soon led to an interest in kakaking products and their performance. In the 1980s slalom was at the cutting edge of paddle design but suppliers were in a constant state of change with major names like Freeblades, Delapre and Propulsion coming and going within a few years. Unsatisfied with a constantly changing market Pete decided there was only one way to deal with it and so, applying his practical skills to the best features of slalom paddle design, the Streamlyte Paddles brand was launched in 1991. When Iain Freestone finally ceased production of Freeblades Pete purchased a licence to manufacture all of Iain’s succesful blades and these were initially run alongside his own designs. Whitewater designs were added to the range in 1993. Pete took up playing canoe polo alongside slalom and soon found the supply of decent polo paddles to be woefully inadequate so it was not long before his first polo designs were under production. In 1994 his first polo kayak design was introduced and Combat polo kayaks are a major brand for the company today.

 

Paddle production between 1991 and 2003 grew steadily and while the highest spec. epoxy resins and technical fabrics were used in manufacture from the beginning, the physical difficuties and environmental impacts of hand laminating systems were a barrier to expansion and it was very obvious that faster and better production systems were required. In 2003 a complete change to prepreg technology was introduced. All the polo blades were re-engineered in to the new systems and completely new whitwater designs and production processes were introduced. This move was the start of a period of rapid expansion.

 

In 2004 the tentative introduction of nylon blades for recreation and whitwater using Lendal component blanks, cut to Pete’s own shapes had gone very well and then without warning in 2008 Lendal sold out to new US owners and component supplies were withdrawn. With a succesful product range under threat the decision was taken to invest in injection moulding technology to continue the production of newly designed nylon blanks from which a complete range of Recreation, Whitewater andSea/Touring blades is now produced. New composite touring blades entered the range in 2008 together with a new racing ‘foil’ blade.

 

Today, Streamlyte has the most complete range of paddles available in the world across a wide range of disciplines in the sport. The company is committed to continued research and development and will strive to introduce new techniques, materials and paddles designs long in to the future.