Kayaker Tim Taylor continues to make good northward progress after leaving New Plymouth on Sunday.

After three days of paddling uninterrupted by bad weather, Tim is looking today to round Albatross Point before crossing the Kawhia Harbour entrance.

Tim in New Plymouth.

Tim set out from Tauranga on November 27 on his mission to be the first person to kayak round New Zealand in a single voyage.

He's making the voyage in a plastic Mission Eco Bezhig ocean touring kayak.

Sponsor Mission Kayaks' operations manager Patrick Frame says Tim chose a plastic boat because he wanted to do the entire trip in the same one.

'Every beach he pulls up on an expert kayaker will come along and say ‘Crikey, why are you doing it in plastic?' – and he just repeats the same story,” says Patrick.

'He wanted the boat to last and he wanted it to be the same boat all the way round. He certainly hasn't regretted his choice.

'He calls it Waverly and talks to it all the time, and when he's asked why he's chosen a plastic kayak for his round New Zealand trip he says ‘Look at the boat. I've done 4500km, do you think you would get the same performance out of a composite boat.”

Patrick met with Tim at Himatangi Beach, which is the closest Tim got to Mission's Palmerston North base.

'Seeing the boat, it's just extraordinary – it's as scratched, grazed and gouged as you would expect a boat to be that has done 4500km with one shore launch and one shore landing each day,” says Patrick.

'You've got a boat that's done a lot of work on stones and sand and whatever, and it's looking really, really good.”

You can see where the boat was stapled when on an attempted launch into a shore dump off a Southland beach, says Patrick.

Kayakers launch off beaches by waiting for the wash float the craft and paddling out into the waves. It can be fraught, and is a process that prompts prayer in even the non religious, says Patrick.

'He launched just as a wave came in and picked the bow up and folded the boat in half through the back hatch,” says Patrick.

'It literally folded the boat in half. I'm not sure if it got to 90 degrees or not, but if it was a composite boat it certainly would have fallen in half very quickly.

'He got absolutely smashed – our sales rep was talking to him because we have a boat on standby – we could get the other boat to him in 24 hours if he needs it.”