Submitted: 09-27-2010 by JDA
I bought this boat as my first kayak, thinking that a double would allow me to go with my wife or one of my kids. It's a great boat for that, on flat water or tame conditions. The big open cockpit is great for warm-weather paddling, and the boat handles waves quite well. The bad news is that it has proven harder to get a family member to go out with me than I thought. The great news is that this is an excellent single boat with the front seat slid back to the center. I mostly paddle it solo and I love it. It's reasonably fast despite the wide beam, which gives it excellent stability.
2 words of advice though:
- don't buy this boat without the rudder. It tracks great with the rudder, but poorly without it. And if you're paddling with 2 people, you really need the rudder.
- add big flotation bags in the bow and stern before you go more than 100 yards offshore. The cockpit is huge, and if you capsize, it's worse than a swamped canoe. The flotation it comes with is completely inadequate, and you will NOT be able to self-rescue. I put big flotation bags in, and now it rides pretty high when swamped so that you can bail it out from in the water. |