Chatham VS Explorer

mine is light grey
I don’t get the chance to see one from the side.

It’s a funny boat depending on my mood. Sometimes it’s perfect, sometimes I’d like a little more this, that or the other thing. How much do you weigh?

Common comment, but I disagree
The designers I know (from different companies) design their own boats entirely. While a good designer will paddle many models, and may be inspired by traits from each, I know of no two identical hulls out there. (Some say the Dagger Meridian is the same as a Romany. I don’t know about that one, but I’d doubt it.) While hulls may appear the same to an untrained eye, if you were to digitize them you’d see clearly that there are differences. I would agree that within categories there are now a lot of similar kayaks out there. I also believe that the sea touring market is more traditional than the surf or WW markets. Nevertheless I think we’ll see some cool stuff in the future. Valley’s Rapier comes to mind as a really cool boat.

Actually
the Meridian is the result of an cancelled Dagger/NDK partnership years ago.

Didn’t know that
So, I know the deck is different from sitting in one at Salt Lake. Is the hull identical, or similar? I hear good things about the Meridian.

Meridian
the Meridian is not very similar to the Romany 16. Sure it ‘looks’ alot the same, but it’s performance is way different.



I have paddled both boats extensively, in all kinds of conditions.



steve

Thanks, that was my guess.

Fantastic Quality
You have a photographer in your group or is someone just shooting a hell of a lot of shots to get these really good ones?

Looks very appealing. I hope to eventauly be able to play in bigger stuff like that upright and without sound effects (eep).

on the pics
Celia,

Most of these are from last summer. I have shot on-water pix for a few years and have amassed a number of them…many are useless blurs. Very tedious to squeeze off shots with the camera in a bag of stiff clear plastic. Just taking the thing up off your spray skirt will likely as not active some control or other…like the timer. Nick Schade did the one above of myself in my traffic yellow Explorer. Dave Grainger shot the ones of me in my Chatham in the first post.

Below is an image of an unbidden poster of Nick I made a couple weeks ago to play with layer masking in Photoshop…and a couple other fun pix. BTW, Nick is driving his newest creation, the “Petrel”, which is very well suited to such play.

http://www.PhotoShare.co.nz/PhotoShareGallery1/100085/106395/210805reefs_47TutorialLOGO6280.jpg

http://www.PhotoShare.co.nz/PhotoShareGallery1/100085/106395/A17N1399.jpg

http://www.PhotoShare.co.nz/PhotoShareGallery1/100085/106395/A16DM5crop22237.jpg

http://www.PhotoShare.co.nz/PhotoShareGallery1/100085/106395/210805reefs_45765.jpg

Carl

165lbs

– Last Updated: Dec-29-05 7:35 AM EST –

I'm 5'11' and weigh 165 pounds. My wife is in the Chatham 16. The keyhole felt a little small to me when we were looking, but it feels plenty big enough now, (on the 16.) We're hoping to do some camping out on the islands next summer, we were thinking of that too when I choose the 18; more room for gear. Did you have those annoying ratchets in yours too? We replaced ours with the nylon straps and buckles that Necky provided. I understand they've pulled the ratchets from the 2006 models. Other than that, I've had no complaints.

chucked the ratchets,installed backband
I’ve got a Chatham 16 in plastic and the coaming is small enough to not need the metal thigh braces so I removed them.

Besides the angle of the coaming made the thigh braces placement on my thighs less than perfect compared to the composite kayaks.

Also the metal guides for the rusting ratchet adjusters dig right into my thighs/hip so I got rid of them. There must have been two or three levels of decision making on that brilliant conflict of dimensions to make a narrow coaming even tighter with the unnecessary adjustors and their metal guides. The hip/hip dimension at the CORNER of the metal guides reduced a 15.5" wide coaming to 14.25" at the CORNER of the metal guides.

Now it’s outfitted just right with a minicell seat and salamander hip pads using the newer wider seat frame,I had to buy the present seat frame as the first production run seat frames were too narrow and had to be moved all the way aft otherwise the aluminum cut into my thigh.



Kind of odd how Necky and Wilderness Systems both messed up hip spacing for the average sized person for these new models.



The thing about those rustable ratchet adjustors is that Perception was using them for a few years and the feedback was negative “they rust and become unusable” but Necky went ahead and installed them. The executive who made the decision to continue Perceptions learning experience on the customers dollar should be made to re-install a few thousand after hours.

The sealant for the VCP/Necky hatches had to be reinstalled as the black sealant they were using didn’t stick to the poly hull. I was getting cups of water in all three compartments. On the round hatch I installed a 1/16" neoprene gasket and on the oval hatches I re-installed the hatches using Lexcel sealant/adhesive. The interesting thing is that whoever at the factory is installing the VCP hatches was roughing up the VCP hatch frame but NOT the poly hull,which is where the sealant was NOT adhering and leaking.

The hatches don’t leak now.

Last summer I had to unstick the skeg as it was getting gummed up with salt/sand. Turns out that the screw in the aluminum slider stop can’t be turned as it’s corroded into place,dissimilar metals,who would have thought. But I was able to flush out the tube by turning the kayak upside down and pouring water in through the skeg box while actuating the skeg. After a few quarts of water it became unstuck,then I dribbled in some teflon lube and it works better than new.

Funny thing after paddling the 18 and 16 I think of selling both and getting the 16 in composite.

I removed the ratchets on the 18 and installed a back band at the seat frame. The thigh braces are at a perfect angle. Unfortunately I got a first run production where the gel coat has heinous cracks at the skeg box and chips off much too easily on the bow.

I’ve got it outfitted well with underdeck rigging.

Put loops of line at the grab handle holes then attached the grab handles on short lines to the loops. That way the handles don’t dangle in the water but can be pulled clear of the ends.