<cut>Last year I transferred from a folding kayak (Klepper) to a narrow cockpit hardshell without a rudder to learn better skills. Now self rescue with the Klepper is a breeze and its a wonderfully stable and reassuring boat, so when I got to the hardshell I was incompetent on the water and changed from a confident paddler into a wimp. <cut> Right now I am in a similar position. I am a novice paddler with two years experience in a prijon seayak, a 16’ plastic boat with a 24” beam. I have had no formal instruction, although I go out with more experienced kayakers and am able to do assisted and self-rescues. I paddle around Boston and I have developed confidence from paddling in small surf, swells and currents. I thought it would be nice to get a better boat… one that was lighter and easier to transport, that would not take so much effort to paddle a dozen miles, a boat I could grow into. I live in a row house in Cambridge so I liked the idea of getting a foldable. I was also intrigued with them because of their portability. I read “a boat in our baggage” by Maria Coffey. The khatsalano promised to provide the benefits of a foldable and give me the higher performance boat I wanted. I just bought one used. I have been out in it three times. It certainly is a boat to grow into. The thing has very little primary stability. It sucked away all of the confidence I built with my Prijon. I feel somewhere between uncomfortable and unsafe just paddling on the Charles River with it. I plan to get some instruction and climb down the learning curve so that I will be able to enjoy the boat and eventually venture back into the harbor and the bay out of the protected waters of the Charles. It will be interesting to see how much time it takes me to feel as confident in a hard chined 22” beam boat as I did in the 24” round one. ===== Grant Emison Cambridge, MA gemison_at_yahoo.com Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail. http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Sun Apr 15 2001 - 09:25:13 PDT
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:30:41 PDT