Hi All,<br />
Looking for some proffessional advice...<br />
Ole canoe guy thinks maybe he could become one w/ kayak & learn to skillfully do some fast river water…I did not say big whitewater. Been tandem & solo canoein for a number of years…probably only intermediate skill level, ferry & a little surfing. Found a clean Wavesport Kinetic reasonably priced but not sure of the design I get the feeling maybe I should look for something more rounded without the edge??? Anybody own one or have any helpfull Avice??? Thanks as Always…Eric
Kinetic Hmmmm… Hull shape doesn’t look bad for a river-runner, but those big flat decks will probably be grabby if you lean upcurrent. The length and relatively flat rocker probably means it’s fairly fast, but the lack of bow rocker might lead to pearling on some waves.
If you’re mostly interested in river-running, and it fits well, it’ll probably be fine to get you started. A quick search showed the going price for these to be in the $250 -300 range.
Kinetic The Kinetic has a semi-planing hull. Which means it is a transition boat between “old school” displacement hulls that are rounded and newer river running boats that have a full planing hull. It comes from a time when boat builders were moving toward planing hulls but hadn’t decided to fully commit to planing hulls as a standard design. Originally it was billed as a rodeo boat. Now people look at it and say “river runner”. The knock on the Kinetic is that is has almost no rocker and paddling it down river is more like paddling a squirt boat, especially if you are at the top of its weight range. There are lots of better old boats than the Kinetic. One I recommend is the Wave Sport X, which is what Wave Sport came up after the Kinetic. They are available used and new.
Dagger Animus (would have to be used) or if new Dagger (oops, meant Mamba), Riot Magnum (what I meant before) or Jackson Hero? Or a used Pirouette since I am correcting this anyway. The older boats lack the nicer outfitting of the new boats, but it's nothing that some minicell foam and a bottle of DAP Wedwood or whatever won't fix.
I don’t know the Kinetic but from what i am hearing from others there are other better boats out there for you. My guess is that you are looking for something with greater stability, ease of roll, and comfort. I am not reading the term, “playboater” in your plan. Going along the same direction as Celia am thinking larger boats, Wavesport Diesel, Dagger Mamba, Liquid logic has something i can’t recall. See you downstream or at Long Beach, B.C., Canada this weekend if you happen to be there.