Re: [Paddlewise] Old Town Loon 138 Kayak

>Santa brought them an Old Town Loon 138 single kayak.  Does anybody have any
>experience or know anything about this boat?
>
>I paddled it before I bought it (er uh Santa paddled it before he bought it)
>and it handled well.  I was just wondering if there were any comments from the
>galleries?

I had a Loon 138 until this summer. I traded it off for a faster boat, but
wish I could have kept it around, if for no more reason than to have a
gentle, nonthreatening boat to take out friends for their first kayak trip.
It was a nice boat; stable if not fast, and, in my opinion, better turned
out than others in its class from other manufacturers. 

I never tried to roll the Loon; I suppose it could be done, but would take
some doing. Considering the huge cockpit and marginal spray skirt, I suspect
that a roll couldn't have been done without popping the skirt and filling
the boat. I never had the boat out in waves much larger than a foot or two,
but it made a nice small lake boat. With all that beam -- nearly 30 inches
-- and not being particularly long, it isn't fast, but it's not scary, either.

Though Old Town says the thing will float when it's full of water, I'd still
recommend float bags in it -- no bulkheads, of course. With the sliding
seat, it's easy to adjust the fore and aft trim, but the factory spray skirt
makes you sit too far aft for optimum trim, at least if you're fairly heavy.
It does start to display some bad habits if you're too far out of trim,
especially aft, when it won't weathercock into the wind and is a little
broachy downwind. I'd be very careful about taking it out into big stuff or
iffy conditions. You could probably do an overnighter out of it, but it's
not a trip boat.

As beamy as the boat is, and as deep as it is, you'll probably want a
somewhat longer paddle than would be optimum in a narrower, shallower boat.

Expect to buy a narrower, faster kayak in the foreseeable future; it's easy
to outgrow the Loon. But keep it -- it's a very good introductory boat, and
pleasant for fishing or poking around on small ponds. I'm considering buying
another sometime, just for these reasons.

-- Wes Boyd
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Wes Boyd                                             0 
wesboyd_at_dmci.net                                      \__Q
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