Tom, your advice to your employer was excellent, but
like so many excellent ideas, it was before its time, and it died an ignoble death.
I'm old enough that Tony seems young. In fact, I did my last, 2-week, self-supported, self-guided kayak trip in Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska, when I was Tony's age, a bit older actually. In Sept, 2007, I bought my first AI with the idea of doing the Everglades Challenge--but, never did (yet.) I also thought it would extend my time on the water camping. It has.
I agree that the AI/TIs serve an older group of people who like to sail & camp; nevertheless,
I would guess most AI/TI EC competitors were in the age range of 40-55 yrs. Most of these people were strong--you must be to lug a TI around on the beaches. It may have been
Chumbucket, when having a beer in Key Largo with Hobie Engineer Jim Czarnowski, quoted Jim as saying, "the TI was designed for the WaterTribe Everglades Challenge."
Here are a few pictures of competitors:
AhMaChamee aka Bryan TindellDogslife aka Paul KralDivesWithKraken & WyomingWolf aka Tom and Debbie TurnerThese pictures were all taken about 6:45 AM, Saturday, Mar 1, 2014, at the 7:00 AM start of the WaterTribe 2014 Everglades Challenge.
I'm not going to try guess anybody's age here, but they all look young to me (they are.)
Keith
PS Tony, my wife and I have had a kayak or 2 in our house for the past 6 yrs. The garage has 2 sea kayaks, 1 surf ski, 2 AIs, and misc bikes and junk. Our cars sit
and suffer in the driveway.