i really like
Your first paragraph. I used to feel the same way about paddleboards until I raced next to a few.
Ryan L.
many ways
To do the same thing, but we can still judge the results.
I think we all want people to have the same experience we had, we want people to do things the way we did. But really we all experience things differently. Some start in 9 ft boats and move up, some jump right in to good equipment and take off, and many more no matter where they start they end up quitting. Some demo, some don’t, some have good paddles right away, some don’t. This topic alone proves we all perceive problems differently.
Some people really need a demo, or just feel like they will be more at ease. I don’t feel that way, but I know people who do. I’m sure we all know that person who is a serial returner of items. That kind of person needs a demo. Others live with decisions and adapt.
Ryan L.
Don’t think I can agree with you
To be honest, I don’t care too much “what the instructors and those who have been paddling 10 years or more are using.”
Even if you’re a beginner, if you go to a demo day and you try 5 or 6 kayaks each one will feel different to you and you will start to understand how things like width, length, and hull shape relate to speed, maneuverability, etc. The comfort differences should be evident fairly quickly as well.
Seems a bit of an exaggeration to say demoing is “the worst advice ever given,” as if demoing is going to do some kind of damage.
If you read the reviews here at pnet you will get a sense of how individual psychological factors influence kayak ratings. Even in the professional reviews you see how the individual’s preferences enter into the rating. Those biases are confusing to inexperienced paddlers when they’re hidden.
It’s all good: talk to people who paddle, talk to shops, read the reviews, demo. All those strategies help in one way or another. If you CAN’T demo, do everything else to learn about kayaks.
I some times have to demo a kayak…
for years to decide if it is really worth keeping. Or at least that is what I tell my wife! Right now I am in the process of demoing 9 kayaks and as I have explained to my wife when I have picked a favorite I will sell the others.
Good point. One of my c-1s was
scary at first, then it helped me advance my technique and improve for several years. But finally I realized its design was holding me back and (like many early designs) was holding my development on a plateau. I would not have been able to demo the boat, because c-1s usually require individual outfitting. But a demo would not have predicted its long usefulness, or its eventual limits. At most, a demo would have simply scared me off.
That’s why, in deciding about a boat, I like to talk, not to salesmen or sponsored paddlers, but to ordinary folks who have paddled the boat for a while. Comparing several such views, plus a careful look at the hull, can reveal a lot.