Anyone else notice the Chathams aren’t showing up on Necky’s website. Only if you Google them will it bring you to the Necky Chatham page.
Lookshas - My first experience was seeing the full out sea kayaks in earlier years in Maine. 17 ft. bulkheads, perimeter line etc. The shorter models are more of a challenge for me, really have not paid any attention to how they are set up because I prefer the post-Romany lessons in making a boat up to conditions but not cranky. But they are solid boats for their era.
Peter-CA = The cockpit for the dagger products is actually biger than for the neckey at least accordign to the websites:
Necky - 35.5 by 16.5
Alchmey - 35 by 18.5
Stratos - 36.25 by 19
Peter-CA = also can you explain to me as a new person to sit-in kayaks why the high seat hurts your alility to roll?
At this point I am trying to contact a store in deleware where I purcahsed my sit on top kayak to find out what they carry in sit-in kayaks. Their website is terriable but says they carry dagger and necky products - but who knows I will call them tomorrow I guess.
The numbers you list are the cockpit hole opening size. This matters for ease getting in and out, and for sizing of spray skirt (the smaller the opening, the easier it is to make a skirt that stays on, even when smashed down on by a wave).
When you sit in the boat, the actual volume inside where your body goes, and the position it allows your body to be in, matters. Those measurements are not provided.
But my knowledge of the Looksha 14 seems to be off, so take what I said earlier about sizing (the “if Looksha feels tight…” comment) with a grain of salt.
On rolling and high seat back. The roll involves you trying to overcome gravity and move your body from upside down to right side up. You use momentum and some support from your paddle to do this. The lower you can keep your body as you recover to the upright position, the easier it is. The most common rolls do this by having the paddler lean back on their deck until they are all the way upright. You will often hear people talk about boats with low back decks and how they are easier to roll (none of the boats you are looking at are low back deck boats). Having a seat back that comes up above the combing level definitely makes rolls harder, if not impossible, as you can’t lean back nearly as much.
If you watch a video of most any hand roll (like https://youtu.be/nuyxL900cK0), the low back deck finish really shows up. They finish pretty much lying back on the deck.
Note - the high seat back makes putting a skirt on harder too. And also makes it harder to perform torso rotation, which is important for many strokes. But high seats backs offset weak core that most of us have, so are more comfortable until your core strength increases and you can sit upright without the back support.
Well still can’t find a place near me that has a new dagger stratos or alchemy to try out. Not sure why it is so hard to find these anywhere… Shop in DE has a 2015 Alchemy but I am guessing that it has an older stype seat and I think I would want the new updgtaded seat…