Submitted: 01-21-2002 by GCA
My wife and I have been paddling our plastic crosswinds for two seasons in Casco Bay on the coast of Maine, also in the Flordia Keys and the same boat with an outfitter in Prince William Sound, Alaska. It is an excellent boat, we are not small people and appreciate the roomy cockpits. Storage is fine for day tripping (we do not camp, roughing it is the Holiday Inn, we used a chase boat in Alaska). Perhaps it is the weight to paddler ratio inherent with tandems but we have no trouble keeping pace with our athlete sons and future daughter-in-law in their Perception Eclipses. The crosswind is a very stable platform; we paddled in six foot seas and 20+ knot winds in Alaska without difficulty and have not had problems with wakes from commerical vessels here in Maine or the intracoastal in Florida. It is however heavy and takes some cordination of effort to car top and haul up our rocky Maine shores but also rugged enough to take a pounding when we beach in surf. It tracks very well although I tend to use the rudder more than necessary. The hull does distort from the tie downs when car topping but not excessively. While I often think about a kevlar composite boat, the plasic Crosswind is a more pracitical, affordable boat for hard use. |