When I took the two day sea kayak class from GRO the rental boat I used was an Explorer. (Mainly because the VCP plastic skerray did not fit me. With the foot pegs all the way forward they were still too short, but the bulkhead was just barely too far away to use it.) Loved the Explorer. A very predictable lean. It handled the realtively tame 1-2 foot swell on Lake Erie all day without any work from me. I could see where people say that it is easy to roll. I haven't learned a roll yet but we did bow rescues in the class. After the second rescue I was practically bringing myself up entirely with the hip snap. My hand on the rescuers bow was only pressing down very lightly. The boat I used did not have a skeg and I'm not sure I would get one. Keeping it in a straight line was easy with just a little edging. The instructor had an Explorer with a skeg that he had owned for over two years but had never used the skeg. He regretted getting the skeg. Since I got to use an Explorer they put my wife in the Romany 16 which she loved. At the end of the first day we swapped boats on the paddle back to shore. The 16 is good but I prefered the Explorer more. Ironically my wife liked the 16 better. That may be a size thing. I'm 6' 0" and 190# while she's 5' 6" and 120# I have a question for the Explorer owners. Can you get a bear cannister in the back hatch? I vastly prefer bear cannisters to hanging food. Mel --- There are three types of people, those who can count and those who can't. --== Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ==-- Share what you know. Learn what you don't. *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:33:06 PDT