I agree with you, Matt. I don't think it is the issue of the cockpit dimensions so much as how the cockpit is shaped, what features for holding on are available and the quality of the spray deck. My river boats have much better cockpits for both holding on and ingress and egress and they are bigger and wider than my sea boats. The thigh hooks are on my Jackson and Pyranha boats make my sea boats look silly. The quality of spray deck I use in freshwater is also far superior to what I use on sea boats. The latter issue is merely because I haven't replaced my neoprene shock cord designs for the sea boats with the Mountain Surf DuroRing randed skirt. I wouldn't even consider buying another shock cord design deck after seeing how secure and dry my Mountain Surf randed deck is. It is a bitch getting it on the rim on a cold morning, though. Cheers, Rob G Around the same time the British and Ken Fink were telling everyone that a bigger cockpit is not secure and the spraydeck will get blown off in waves or the paddler will be "forcibly ejected" from the kayak in small surf. This is hard to take when you just watched (and photographed) your brother who had been heading out though the surf when two big soups overlapped just as the hit him and buried the huge volume Escape so deep in the surf that only about 18" of bow and one paddle blade was visible in the picture and before I could wind on another shot the kayak was launched straight up by its buoyancy like a Polaris missle launching from a submarine until the stern had completely cleared the water. My brother and the Escape pirouetted gracefully around and landed upright and facing the beach, spraydeck still attached. How many British kayaks do you sea to day with those little ocean cockpits? Funny thing is the only cockpit (that wasn't a slippery plastic kayak) that had its spraydeck popped of by a wave when I was paddling it was one of Derek's 22 by 15" Baidarka ocean cockpits. This wasn't even in surf. A couple of waves came together while I was sitting still and peaked up and the crest landed on the spraydeck. I didn't blame the small cockpit but rather the taut nylon skirt with the too wimpy shock cord. *************************************************************************** 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 Mar 23 2008 - 07:39:10 PDT
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