If turning your boat is your main problem, learn to do an angled bow rudder and lean away from your turn. Stern rudderIng is a waste of inertia
Don’t use foam board in kayaks!! It absorbs water and is therefore not only useless but a hazard. You have to use closed cell dense foam like minicell. It is similar to the stuff used in “pool noodles” and those solid blocks used for yoga supports (you can often find those blocks pretty cheap in the women’s sports and workout wear department of places like TJ Maxx and they can be cut with a sharp steak knife to shape them).
You can cut pool noodles (way cheap) and bundle them together with zip ties or duct tape to create void filler in the hull spaces in rec kayaks. Having just a stern bulkhead is almost as bad as having none as it can result in the difficult (and embarassing) “Cleopatra’s Needle” effect when the bow sinks and the stern floats. As in this linked infamous video (time point 0:45) of a guy who swamps his Pungo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvh18sQfx7c
The foam blocks that come under the decks in open hull rec boat kayaks are mostly to keep the decks from collapsing when they are all stacked in the shipping containers coming from China. Those blocks are really not “flotation”.
Pungos are made in Greenville, SC.
The grey things come from China?
Maybe from Canada. They are evil too, right?
@Celia said:
Maybe from Canada. They are evil too, right?
Must be where I got my dark side. Canadian grandmother.
some boats you hang on to, some you deal away, I usually want to log somewhere around 50 paddle trips before I write off a boat. I’m not worried about the reputation, stats, or what others think. Is it fun for me? All boats have good and bad points. The boats I’ve dealt away the quickest I had spent quite a bit of time swimming.
@willowleaf said:
Don’t use foam board in kayaks!! It absorbs water and is therefore not only useless but a hazard. You have to use closed cell dense foam like minicell. It is similar to the stuff used in “pool noodles” and those solid blocks used for yoga supports (you can often find those blocks pretty cheap in the women’s sports and workout wear department of places like TJ Maxx and they can be cut with a sharp steak knife to shape them).You can cut pool noodles (way cheap) and bundle them together with zip ties or duct tape to create void filler in the hull spaces in rec kayaks. Having just a stern bulkhead is almost as bad as having none as it can result in the difficult (and embarassing) “Cleopatra’s Needle” effect when the bow sinks and the stern floats. As in this linked infamous video (time point 0:45) of a guy who swamps his Pungo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvh18sQfx7c
The foam blocks that come under the decks in open hull rec boat kayaks are mostly to keep the decks from collapsing when they are all stacked in the shipping containers coming from China. Those blocks are really not “flotation”.
I’ll admit that I find his reaction more than disturbing than the “needle” itself. If that were a more challenging venue, that guy would be a hazard to himself and his partner with that attitude. If he were a drowning victim, you would have to knock him out first to save him.
Being unprepared and ignorant to dangers can happen to anyone, and one learns from it. Being whiny is usually a deeply inculcated characteristic (flaw) that infuses the default reaction to anything slightly adverse…
sing
I always thought Sarah and friend staged that video.
Ironically, it was the Perception sales rep who told us that the foam pillars were to support the deck (and not really for “flotation”) back in the late 1970’s when I managed an outfitter who was a Perception dealer! Back then the boats for our stock were often delivered to us individually via UPS.
It’s long been my understanding that is the function of foam blocking in WW kayaks, to protect against the deck crushing or entrapping the paddler’s legs in a pinning situation.
I’ll gladly stand corrected if anybody has facts to offer.
@Steve_in_Idaho said:
I always thought Sarah and friend staged that video.
I hope it’s a put-on, tho’ I have met a few folks who are almost that whiny… 
@sing said:
@Steve_in_Idaho said:
I always thought Sarah and friend staged that video.I hope it’s a put-on, tho’ I have met a few folks who are almost that whiny…
B)
@sing said:
@Steve_in_Idaho said:
I always thought Sarah and friend staged that video.I hope it’s a put-on, tho’ I have met a few folks who are almost that whiny…
Well, if not - Sarah ain’t much help. I think she was enjoying it. 
@Steve_in_Idaho said:
I always thought Sarah and friend staged that video.
There’s a follow-up video that addresses that question, at least partially. If I recall, alcohol was a factor - but apparently "“Max” is really like that.
Yes, Max is a self-admitted drama queen. Exaggerating his distress is part of his schtick. I do share the video often because it so nicely illustrates the bow-down posture that stern-bulkhead-only rec boats can adopt as well as how a swamped boat will sink and be difficult to re-enter (without prior practice), even in calm shallow water.
Just saw that the most reviewed kayak on P.com is the Pungo 120, almost 300 reviews.
The OP might get some ideas reading through those.
I wanted to let everyone know that I think a large part of my problem was using the kayak on too small of a stream. This stream is very nice and 3 miles from my house but is too small for this kayak. A 10 footer does much better. There are too many shallow areas and you need to be able to turn on a dime. It is a nice stream with cold spring water and one of the 10 best trout areas in MO so am very happy to have it so close but it just doesn’t do it for this kayak. You can pretty much expect to drag along the upper 3 miles without question during low water periods in any kayak but it is doable year round because of the springs. See https://fishingreelssite.wordpress.com/2016/07/13/little-piney-creek-trout-fishing/
I have been taking the Pungo 120 on some larger rivers and now love it. It just doesn’t turn on a dime or have as shallow of a draft as others when used on a very small streams. I also think getting a shorter paddle helped. The 240cm was just too long for this one but is ideal for my other taller and wider boats. I bought a cheap one to start out but plan to keep the kayak now and will upgrade the paddle. I got a 220cm Magellan No Limits from Academy which is their cheap line.
I also picked up a Dagger Axis 10.5 for $175 used at a pawn shop. It was Feb and a really nasty day. I was with my GF in a town about 45 minutes away from where I live. She pointed to a pawn shop and was like “There is a kayak in the window of that pawn shop.” I pulled in, fully expected a Sun Dolphin or Pelican from Wal-Mart. I looked at it and then looked it up online. I figured I had nothing to lose for that price so bought it.
This is a great kayak for the tight little creek near my house. The drop skeg is just perfect and offers the best of both worlds.
Conor