I’m looking for a sprayskirt for my plastic Necky Chatham 16. Does anyone know how well Necky brand sprayskirts fit and function and where I can buy them? I haven’t been able to find any information about them online. Are they better than other brands?
It looks like my other options are Seals or Snapdragon. Do these fit as well as the Necky brand skirts?
Seals is my choice
I have Seals Expedition Neoprene, and their lighter weight goretex and neo skirt. We have Necky Elahos, and Looksha V’s. They fit great on the boat and YOU, and no leaking either one. I bought them at REI online, they have a link there to the Seals Fit Guide. Good luck on your choice.
Donna
I have
I have the necky neo skirt for my Chatham. I’m not sure they still make them because I’ve never found them online. It is a nice enough skirt, but I’m sure there are several other good options on the market.
Call or e-mail Necky. I have found them
very responsive about direct ordering stuff for their kayaks.
snapdragon on my Chatham
got it from Island Outfitters … poor Island Outfitters … remember them?
aftermarket is fine
Most people around Nor CA that I see are using aftermarket skirts. I use a Seals brand one on my Necky, and my girlfriend also uses an aftermarket (I can’t remember the brand offhand).
Seals and Snapdragon both seem to be very good brands.
Cockpits do come in different sizes. Each manufacturer has a book which shows which size skirt to use with which cockpit. For example, Seals has a sizing tool on their web site (http://www.sealsskirts.com/) tht tells you that you need a size 1.4 skirt.
Brands
Yeah, all the options seem about the same price. If I get a Necky neoprene skirt it’s about the same price ($135) as a Seals neoprene. Not being able to personally touch both of these I’m not sure which is a better fit and which works better.
Also, are neoprene waists usually just for whitewater? I see that Seals and Necky both just have nylon waists for touring.
Neo not just for ww
have a 100% neo Snapdragon skirt on my seakayak which the seller included. I love it.
Fit is a personal thing but I think having all neo means a better gripping tunnel & drum tight watershedding surface over the cockpit. Plus northern paddlers enjoy the extra warmth all year except for the hottest summer month or two (in which case roll or take a swim).
My other skirt (for a touring kayak) is a Tour du Jour by BomberGear (now, sadly out of business - some still show up on eBay, got mine new for $35). It’s Cordura nylon which is way more rugged and stiff than the regular nylon, w. neoprene waist tunnel and around the rand.
Seal skirts
have some issues as far as I am concerned. I had one Tropical) for my Necky Elaho last year and it let a lot of water in when I rolled. Seals sent me an all neoprene one and it was better but the grab strap needed a twist in it as it laid flat against the deck and could be hard to locate in a wet exit. Snapdragon for me.
Re the Necky Skirts
I don’t know, but it is worth confirming if Necky makes their own (neoprene, yes?) skirts or subcontracts it out. Some of the major kayak manufacturers may label the skirts as their own but it will turn out they are made by someone else, often Seals or Snapdragon. If that’s the case, you can sometimes get a more robust skirt (as in will take more abuse) for the same money from whoever they contract with than from the kayak manufacturer.
I have Snapdragon and Seals, have good things to say about both of them as far as wearing hard. My Snapdragon skirts all arrived with a big but not fancy grab loop that needed to have a wiffle ball or plastic tubing duct taped on to create something easy to grab, my Seals tour skirt has a plastic moding already on it so I didn’t need to fuss.
Snapdragon customer service is great - I recently had a fit issue with one of their skirts, sent them back the skirt and a tracing of the cockpit. I had it back within 12 days with a fix and a handwritten note from Rich, the owner, saying what they had done. The fix worked fine and all ended well.
I have a Necky nylon sprayskirt
and I hate it. Like the snapdragons better.
I vote for Snapdragon
I’ve used their skirts for about 12 years on 3 Neckys and a variety of other boats - Valley, NDK, etc. I have no use for anything but full neo, from Central Ca. to Baja, but that’s just my choice.