I just bought my third boat: a used Wilderness Systems Tsunami 140.
It is in really nice condition, purchased locally. I have a nice Romany Surf and a Dagger Stratos 14.5L. I mainly paddle around the rocky shores on Orcas Island in the Salish Sea.
This will be my wife’s boat and general “guest boat.” I am adding a fitted hip pad kit that can be customized with different pad inserts. I also plan on getting a woman’s Kokatat dry suit.
This boat boat seems well made and pretty popular. So, looking forward to adding it to the fleet. Hopefully I can stop now?
The Tsunami is a very different animal than the Dagger. Much harder tracking and greater initial stability. The Tsunami is a great “guest” kayak - I call them the Toyota Camry of kayaks - comfy, stable, well built, reasonably quick and totally vanilla. The Dagger is much more of a sports car.
Oh and I’m up to 5 kayaks now (was down to three for a couple of years)…
Interesting! I was not expecting that much difference.
I notice a real difference between my Romany and the Dagger. I just find launching the Dagger on our local rocky access points much less stressful than with the Romany. But the Romany Surf is a beautiful and fun boat to paddle. Initially it was quite nerve wracking until I got over that tippy feeling…
Man, I thought I was the only one who went kayak krazy!!
I just started and I’m up to 5 kayaks- 3 good used.
I needed a boat for every kind of adventure I want to take in the future.
I don’t see a problem with it unless you are not paying bills in order to buy yet another kayak
I think I’m done buying for a little while anyway - though I am looking at a tandem fixer’up’r and I want to get one more inflatable to take with us on our honeymoon.
I just replaced the stock Wilderness Systems backrest (which sits up quite high) with the IR LoungeBand BackBand kit. I also added an adjustable hip pad kit as well.
It took me a lot longer than I thought as I did not have the special wrench to hold those tight locknuts that hold the whole seat system in place.
But this looks like a nice upgrade: a safer lower backrest that won’t get in the way during self recovery. It will also give more flexibility for accommodating different size guest paddlers…
Photomax. I did the same thing. I use one and guests use all the leftovers.
PaddleDog52. If you have more than two 140 foot kayaks, you may already be a yak alcoholic. Not sure. But a 200 footer kayak may require a pilot’s licence.
Photomaz. I’m thinking of converting the high back Phase 3 seat to the backband. After reading posts about backbands, I’m becoming more conscious of the negative points of the high back seat rest that I’ve ignored until now.
Hmm. Never thought of quantifying the fleet by cumulative length. But since I am currently up to 9 kayaks and 2 canoes I’m curious (though one canoe is just a foster child for now until I can help its owner sell it.). In descending order of length:
Absolutely! The higher number you all post the better it is for me. I can always point to this thread when my wife claims that I don’t need another boat…“See honey, I’m just an amateur”.
Yep, I bought a kayak to take my mind off of something that it had to be dragged from. Heard about a little race called the Alafia Challenge; tried it.
Saw honest to God race boats for the first time. The world tilted and I have gone through 148 feet of boats, not counting the two race boats (19 +21 feet) and five 12 foot rec boats; because I built them,and designed them.
