Submitted: 08-20-2004 by Dr_Disco 
I am 5'10", 185. I paddled this boat for 3 days on a guided tour in a fjord in Alaska. As a boat for rental operations it might be just fine. But I found it to be a mediocre to poor ride. Tracking was bad. It wanted to turn left now matter what. I would get it moving straight and then edge it toward the left and it would turn left, not right. If I edged it toward the right it turned sharply left. There was nothing I could see in the hull to indicate a defect but that is possible. Needless to say I had to use the rudder a great deal of the time. The boat was very sensitive to even mild wind and difficult to control in those circumstances without the rudder. I didn't try to roll it or do extreme leans (water temp 34 degrees!). The cockpit was roomy, it you need that. It was too big for me so I would have to add a lot of foam if it were my personal boat. I had trouble keeping up with the guide in an Elaho and my wife in an Eskia. My wife is not a fast paddler and normally I have to wait for her. This means the Cape Horn is slow. Initial stability was high. I didn't really test secondary stability (see above). I don't really recommend this boat to anyone except a tour operation where most people are beginners and will be using the rudder to steer, and you need a cockpit that will accomodate lots of sizes, including larger folk, and initial stability is a concern. |