A Synq Saga

From Sweden to Poland

In the summer of ’25, the squad (Johan, Stefan and yours truly, Tibor) jumped on an overnight car ferry and sailed over to Poland. Destination: Rebel factory to link up with Michael and Bartek of Rebel Kayaks. Official excuse? Business meeting, future collab talk, and eyeballing the kayaks we’d ordered. Real reason? Obviously a few beers (or... three), some proper face-to-face time, and just generally geeking out about boats and construction with people who get it.

The timing was not-so-perfect: our own 'yaks were still mid-build, so we had zero pressure and all the time in the world to just… talk. Ideas flying, coffee flowing, the usual mix of serious production chat and absolute historic gossip. Some of which you can read about here.

Around the table

We spent hours around that Gospoda table munching away on some great Polish dish I can't pronounce, brainstorming about how to make a Rebel website feel less like a boring catalogue and more like… well, us. More raw, more connected to the actual paddling life. Especially the messy, fun, obsessive side of it.

Between sips and laughs we got into the juicy stuff: tuiliks (those gorgeous Greenland-style paddle jackets that make you look like a cult member), little design tweaks on accessories that suddenly make everything feel right in your hand, the kind of details you only notice when you’ve been freezing your ass off in the same gear for years.

Accessories, you say? Yeah… just wait, baby. Soon. Very soon.

Archaeological finds

Then Johan drops this bomb mid-conversation: “Wait… remember the Synq? That little compact play/surf thing I designed ages ago? The one that was actually bloody good but nobody gave it any credit?”

Turns out he'd made a plug for it way back, left it at the factory, and kinda forgot about it. The only real crime it committed? Footwell too tight for big Western feet (or, if you ask me, stupid moon boots for kayaking). Otherwise, paddling-wise, it was spot on.

Next thing we know, we’re all trooping out to the back lot like excited kids. And there it is: the old plug. Still standing after twelve years of Polish sun and weather doing its worst. Let’s just say it had… character. Cracked, peeling, ragged bits of ancient paint hanging off it like zombie skin. Beauty? Hard to spot through the apocalypse aesthetic.

But something about that sad, weathered shape lit a fire. We looked at each other, shrugged, and went full salvage mission. Hoisted the dusty relic onto Stefan’s roof rack, tied it down and drove the whole thing back to Sweden.

It felt like rescuing ancient kayak scripture from a forgotten tomb. Indiana Jones, eat your heart out.

Back in Kalmar we dropped Johan off, waved goodbye, then straight into arranging a kayak festival in Västervik the very same week. No stress. Just another normal week in the life. 😏

A moment (or two) later

A few weeks later, Stefan and I visited Johan again on Öland.

Anyway, this time the German distributor of Rebel and Gearlab, Uli (Böttcher) and his wife Ruth were also there. The Synq had started to take on a new life and it was actually looking pretty! Johan had raised the front deck to make more room for larger feet (or stupid boots), slightly enlarged the cockpit, and maybe even lowered the back a bit? Though that’s up for debate; with bigger buttocks your centre of gravity shifts when you lean back... Johan explained how he'd rebuilt it with laminated plywood, foam, tape, paper clips and whatnot, but I still have no clue. From now on I call it Black Magic. Anyway, Uli was there with his camera, so there is proof. In the pictures we try to look as if we know what we’re doing. Just saying.

Will it blend? Ehm… float?

Time flies when you’re having fun (or losing your mind). While Johan was still elbow-deep in shaping, sanding, and probably swearing at fairing compound, Stefan figured it was time to see what the Synq could actually do.

Come October, he just… went for it. Straight into proper stormy weather. 20 m/s winds, big messy waves. The kind where you’re not really paddling forward so much as getting launched through the chaos. We all quietly agreed he’s completely bonkers. (Shh, don’t tell him we said that)

Every single time he came back looking like a drowned, pissed-off arctic fox: beard plastered flat, eyes like saucers, teeth chattering, but with this massive, deranged grin that says “I’m alive and I loved every second of that suffering.” You know the type: happiest When Shit Hit Fan, as Borat would say.

For a compact Greenland-style boat it handles rough water far better than it has any right to. It surfs happily, tracks when you want it to, and feels planted for such a low-volume kayak. It’s honestly one of the most stable Greenland-style kayaks in its size class, and it could easily double as a day-tripper, a wave toy and a rolling boat.

Bottom line: Stefan’s mad-scientist test flights paid off. The Synq is pretty and it works. It also turns grown men into giggling, hypothermic maniacs, which we count as a feature.

The Jedi and the Padawan

Back in Borgholm, Öland, Sweden, Europe, master Johan spent October and November working the surfaces: smoothing, fairing and refining the shapes and layers. Black Magic, I told you… His new padawan (me) joined him for a few days to learn how to prepare a kayak plug in Johan’s famously dusty workshop. We worked late into the evenings among half-finished molds and screaming sanders. A guy who has had around 40 of his designs in serial production knows a thing or two about his craft. Whenever the dust settled, we would actually show up in the photos.

Somewhere in between, Johan also started turning the Naja into a new plug, but that’s a story for another time. Can you hear the drumroll yet?