I am currently paddling a WS T165 poly , on the far north coast of California, and while I love my Tempest, I’d love to find a lighter boat for playing in the rock gardens and doing coastal paddles.
To date, I am considering the Impex Montauk, The Romany, Capella 16, and and also considering the new Necky Carbon Chatham, which is the ultimate in BLING! My concerns with an Kevlar layup is how much moisture it holds (weight) if gelcoat is cracked, and the Kevlar is exposed. My concern with a Carbon layup is how durable it would be, which leads me to favor the Montauk, w/carbon/kevlar layup. All these boats are roughly the same class of boat. Your thoughts? Experiences
From my experience, the…
Chatham does not contain any kevlar, but rather, is an advanced composite consisting primarily glass with a modest amount of carbon. Awesome layups!
Rock gardens
In my limited experience plastic boats are extremely suitable for rock gardens unless you are really keen to practice fiberglass repair.
I can’t improve
on what the first two posters said
agreed!
NoCal rock gardening and lightweight composite is like buying a Caddy SUV to race the Baja 1000.
my experience has been carbon and kev are not really suited to hard use. with many repairs, it’s harder to work on, more fragile, etc.
tho lite is nice…
steve
yep
– Last Updated: Oct-07-07 7:38 AM EST –
looking for a magic formula of light weight and rough use is going in two directions at once. Seems to me that the only significant criteria is whether you like how it paddles. If you like the superlight boats, avoid impacts.
Sounding like
A Capella 160 RM. The 3 layer plastic has very good stiffness but you won’t wince as much when you wing a rock with it.
See you on the water,
Marshall
The River Connection, Inc.
Hyde Park, NY
www.the-river-connection.com