Supermarine Rain Shirt: One thing about technical gear featuring GoreTex and the like is that, well, it looks technical. And consequently can leave you guilty as charged by the fashion police.
Now that’s not to imply that the Supermarine Rain Shirt is a technical waterproof – it isn’t – but it is water resistant, breathable and most surprisingly, cotton. Virtually 100 per cent cotton in fact. And it looks well on it too.
It’s made from a reinvention of Ventile, a fabric developed in the second World War by the Allies to give downed pilots who had to ditch into the sea a bit of a fighting chance. Later, it was employed as part of the kit for Tenzing and Hillary’s Everest success. So it was as technical as you got then.
Woven with long fibre, fine Egyptian cotton, the combination of a dense weave and the fact the strands swell when moist gives it serious water repellency. This is boosted by a durable water resistance treatment, which also enhances its breathability.
So although it can leave you dry after several hours in the rain, it behaves and looks like a cotton shirt, because that’s what it is. And there’s classic detailing, with single-needle stitched flat-felled seams throughout, though the cut would probably be tight for a skinny Italian. Sizing up is recommended even by Outlier.
Made in the US, the cotton in the Supermarine shirt is Swiss. That probably goes some way towards explaining the fairly eye-watering price that would do Prada proud.
Still, on the plus side, it doesn’t iron and you sponge clean it, so it’s low maintenance in other ways. And come on, it’s a rainproof cotton shirt!
Cost$300 (€216), from outlier.cc.
Lighted Boule Set
Now that late night slight to your boule-playing can be challenged right away with this illuminated set. Each of the bocce balls, including the white pallino of course, has an LED inside that gives it a decent glow. Certainly more than enough to get your bearings for a post-prandial late night round or two . . . of boule.
The balls themselves are made from tough, solid resin with just a little drilled recess for the LED plugs. They’re the official size in diameter (107mm apparently), though a little lighter than a full set. Hope that doesnt put you right off your finely-tuned midnight game.
The whole set comes in its own nylon carry case, with a measuring string to sort those competitive differences of opinion – and there are different lighting sets, with some that flash and others that don’t. You simply twist a plug in the ball to switch it on and they claim you’ll get 60 hours game time out of the batteries – LEDs are very frugal with the juice.
Cost$54.95 (€39.55) from playaboule.com.
HandiWorld Handikart
When it comes to product naming, it’s all a bit restrained and open-ended with our British neighbours. You can be sure an American company would have called it this Kayak-U-Wheel or the Tow-Your-Canoe . . . because that’s what it does. The HandiKart is a set of carefully-designed wheels and axel which you can latch onto your kayak and simply wheel it easily to the water’s edge.
It boasts a patented hemi-spherical wheel – sort of half ball, half wheel – that lets it negotiate the sorts of terrain where you might be hauling your kit, such as across a beach or down a rough path. This Camba wheel as they call, it has an active variable footprint: in other words, you’ll get different amounts of traction depending on the surface you’re on. Soft needs a bigger footprint for example. So pretty smart engineering too.
The whole HandiKart handily folds up for storage or you can even take it apart if you’re absolutely screwed for space. (Of course, in that case, where’s the damn canoe to go?). Still, definitely handi whatever it’s called.
Cost£89.99 (€102.67), from handiworld.com.