Great find! Jacksons are nice boats – my most frequent local paddling buddy has one. Love the colors too. And the paddle was a definite bonus. The Journeys are up to $1600 now so you got an excellent deal.
Consider adding a sprayskirt (more useful in my opinion than a paddle leash). Not just something needed in rough water, but shades your legs in summer, blocks the inevitable paddle drip onto your pants in the cockpit and can double as a cockpit cover when you store the boat to keep out creepy crawlers (I just bunch up the waist tunnel on mine and use one of those elastic bobble ties like you use on tarps to tie off the opening. Can also help prevent the cockpit getting flooded by a big splash (like from power boat wakes or even getting bumped into the shore by strong currents). An adjustable coated nylon one with elastic coaming won’t create any sort of “entrapment” fears.
Congrats on the new boat. I think you made a solid choice that will allow you to do a lot of everything until/unless you find a particular type of paddling you want to get deep into. It looks good too. I wish they still offered that color scheme.
That’s a good point. I have a chartreuse rash guard and bright yellow shell that I wear if I’m in an area with boat traffic, but in more wilderness settings I’m not very hi-viz and might be hard to spot if I had to be rescued.
Congratulations on your new kayak. From what you wrote, that should fit most of your needs and will be a huge upgrade. I see deck lines & hatches that suggest sealed bulkheads. Both of those provide greater safety in bigger water.
I do second finding a spray skirt. I see that Seals shows that as a 1.7 size , so a fair sized cockpit. I would recommend going for a nylon skirt rather than a neoprene one. Nylon skirts tend to be easier to get off & on and will be fine for keeping splash & paddle drippings out. Before you do start using the skirt though I highly recommend practicing without and then with the skirt. These at first should be done with someone standing in the water next to you who can help bring you back up if there are any problems. Being upside down wearing a kayak can be a bit of a shock especially if you aren’t expecting it.
Paddle leashes do scare me on our small Michigan rivers & streams. I can see their point on big open water but the possibility of entanglement is all to high.
Congratulations. You don’t really need a set of nav lights for night paddling. The USCG and most states only require that you have a white light, readily available that you can show to prevent a collision. A waterproof flashlight is sufficient. There are some inexpensive scuba flashlights that serve the purpose. However, for night paddling I suggest that in addition you get one of those LED pedestal lights and always have it on when on the water at night.
While legal, some people feel like a full nav light set misleads people to think that you are a sail or powerboat instead of a smaller manually propelled one.
In my state, PA, non-powered boats are prohibited from displaying any light except a static white light. Flashing light is a distress signal and green and red are reserved for larger vessels. Display of a white light is required after dark.
I was looking through old posts and saw your photos. Nice find, and Werner carbon paddles are excellent.
However, be careful with the little blue boats. I helped a guy in a fishing kayak assist a mother and her son at the end of last season. She grossly overloaded the boat and capsized, then elected to stay with the boat which had no floatation. She couldn’t manage to put on her PFD and complained that she was getting cold (58° water). The shore was only about 25 feet away.
She is in the water (obscured by the paddle splash - which incidentally shows the energy wasted by inefficient paddling) and is being towed by the fishing kayak that has a trolling motor. The son’s boat is so far below the load-water-line, the water is nearly encroaching on the turn of the gunnel. Once it reaches the “tumble home” toward the deck, it will capsize. The max capacity for that boat is rated at 240 lbs, that translates to about 140 to 168 lbs, but I think that is inflated. It should be fine for young paddlers wearIng a PFD.
I’m about your size and am finding the 12’-6" kayak that I have to be pretty nice. The biggest lake I have paddled is Lake Tahoe. I am currently using a FeelFree Aventura 125, which for the money is a pretty awesome boat. The biggest negative is the weight at 52 or 53 pounds. They also have a 14’ version of it. The 14’ Eddyline Equinox would be my next step up if I wanted to spend that kind of money.
The specs on your boat look very similar to the 125 Tsunami at 1/2 the price. Both models look nearly identical, except the Tsunami has a forward bulkhead. I paddled the 125 Tsunami (12’ 9" x 26" wide, 52 lbs) all over the open waters of the Upper Chesapeake Bay. It’s one of my favorite boats. I eventually upgraded to the 145 and eventually the 175 to handle rougher conditions, and you can expect about a .3 mph increase in speed with each 2 ft that you add to the boat. Unless waves are an issue, seek greater cargo capacit, or are looking for more speed, the boat you have is fairly good.
Not personally familiar with the Eddyline, but the 14 foot kayak looks lighter at around 40 lbs.
The Aventura 125 has front and rear hatches with bulkheads. It also has a skeg which is really hand for those breezy days. And yes, the Tsunami is nearly twice the price of the FeelFree Aventura. I haven’t found a better boat for the price. The Aventura is equipped much better than most for a very respectable price.
I may not have been looking at the right model, but it sure looks like a clone. How is the hull shaped. Wilderness Systems has the multi-chine. Curious if that kayak has the same shape which is incredibly stable down to the 175 Tsunami that’s 24 inches wide. Incredible price. I see conflicting info about the weight listed as 52 lb and somebody memtioned 70 lb. That size is handy, manuverable, stable, roomy and fast enough. I could easily average 4.2 to 4.5 mph over 10 miles back in the day. The only problem is that its rated for 300 lb max capacity and I weighed 255 lbs at the time (safe load is 195 to 210). By overloading the boat by 45 to 60 lbs, it limited the days that I could paddle, especially when winds were 10 to 15 mph. My weight goal is 200 to 210, so when I drop 20 to 30 more lbs, I might start using it again.
You are right about the conflicting information the specs used to say it was 52 lbs for the Aventura !!; I had the first model Aventura which was listed at 55lbs, if I remember right. This boat is really awesome on Lake Tahoe. I’m 5’7" and about 170lbs…on a typical day out we’ll paddle between 6 and 10 miles. The seat is comfortable, the peddles are very sturdy and comfortable as well. The thigh braces work well and the padding can be adjusted to suit. Everywhere I take this little boat, people come over and look at it and ask me what it is. It is a very good cross-over boat between a good recreational kayak and a touring kayak. And for the price, it can’t be beat.
It carves a turn pretty nicely when put on edge. I like the fact that I can put a full skirt on it if I wanted to…we use half skirts to keep the water out and the sun from frying our legs.
