After all, if your plan for the weekend begins with a few hours kayaking Tomales Bay on Saturday morning, you probably don’t want to spend the rest of the weekend massaging your aching back because of it. A comfy kayak is one you’re more excited about using. People come back to the shop all the time raving about how great the seat is. Never once has somebody come back in the shop wishing they had saved a few bucks on a less comfortable boat.
TRACKING:
My favorite comment I hear about a kayak is that it doesn’t turn very quickly. Congratulations. Unless you’re a whitewater kayaker, you don’t want a boat that turns quickly. It’s not like you’re out there dodging dolphins at 50mph. What you want is a boat that tracks easily in a straight line. Rec boats have been notorious over the years for not tracking very well, mostly because they’re so short. But today’s recreational kayaks are consider- ably better. They’re better thought out, with sharper entry and exit lines on the hull. The materials are more rigid so the boats don’t flex as much in the water. What this means is simply you’ll work less and enjoy your time on the water more.
SAFETY:
Here’s the deal: recreational kayaks are for general recreation. They’re not meant for surfing Bolinas. They’re not meant for making the Inside Passage to Alaska. They’re designed for even the first time kayaker to sit flat on the water comfortably on relatively pleasant days. Rec boats are wide and stable. Most people don’t wear spray skirts. A lot of people bring their dog. As a result, the vast majority of these kayaks have the very bare minimum of emergency flotation, which makes it difficult at best to get the water out of a swamped boat. A flooded boat won’t sink, but it also won’t float high enough to get back in. Manufacturers build boats like this for three reasons: keep the price low, keep the weight down, and also because the chances are very small that you would ever tip the boat over (if you paddle in the conditions the boat was built for).
For added safety, at an added price, you can get a rec boat with watertight bulkheads and hatches in the stern or (better yet) both bow and stern. The additional flotation provided would make getting back in to a flooded boat from the water easier (with proper training of course). Another option that adds more safety but has the rec boat’s ease-of-use is the slightly wetter ride of a sit-on- top kayak.v
This column is based on a blog post by Scotto Galbreath, from Clavey Paddlesports, a kayak retailer and outfitter in Petaluma. You can read their blog at
www.clavey.com.
California Kayaker Magazine
23
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