Any recommendations here people? I am thinking of getting a new boat. CUrrently with a sirius and love everything about it. However, its been brought to my attention that the sirius is a relatively low volume boat and not adapted to longer excursions. This breaks my heart to hear as I thought I was in with the sirius for the long haul. On the other hand I haven’t found it lacking on six and seven day trips. Anyone with any expeirence with this boat have any shortcomings? IF not, that is great, I’ll stick it out with mine. I also tried out the NDK Greenlander PRO which didn’t leave a lasting impression on me. I haevnt seen any VCP boats here in Newfoundland and was real interested in some of teh boats in their line…thanks again/
in particular…
any ‘Bahiya’ owners out there?
Or paddlers who have been in it?
Sea Kayaker review, VCP boats
Sea Kayker did a review of the Bahiya in the December issue.
As far as Valley boats, either the Nordkapp or the Aquanaut would provide enough volume for camping and longer outings. Both are also reasonably fast for Brit style boats - they both have longer waterlines than the Sirius and, according to Sea Kayaker, the Aquanaut has less drag than the Sirius at 4.5 knots and above.
10 days was the longest
I’ve been out in my Sirius. It was tight, I got lots of scraped knuckles jamming stuff in the hatches. It did take alot of creativity and I was always the last one in the water because of the challenge of getting re-packed, but we ate well and had plenty to drink.
Lyn
get serious
proceed with caution; here is my 2 cents…
I do not like the Serius for any of the paddling I like to do-surfing, expeditioning, caving, rock gardens, racing- but it is obvious from this and other posts that you like it.
Must be a extension of your body, and responds to your needs.
If you did not react well to the Greenlander, save all that money and invest it in things like a Jetboil stove, super light tent (how is the humidity where you camp? could you use a single wall tent to save weight?), more small dry bags, more freeze dry or dehydrated meals (they are starting to taste like real food every year), and eat peanut butter and rye krisp for every lunch…and use the boat you really like.
I do like to put cookpots against the forward bulkhead so I can put my feet against it (actually most my boats have a custom bulkhead and do not allow this, but still), a foam camp chair in the cockpit floor to save room and compfort my heels, and even an MSR Dromedary bag under my knees to carry water and give my legs a resting place- well, you get the idea.
Kind of reminds me of my old days of ski mountaineerin- when I bought a bigger pack, I filled it up. And that often slowed me down. I use a small pack now.
And one of the last commiting multday offshore trips I did in my big kayak, I carried WW float bags to fill up the space I didn’t fill with gear.
Long winded response- sorry- use your boat and make it happen- I know of some who eat mac-n-cheese dinners and pbj lunchers for more than a month…
karl
P&H Quest
Hi
Try the P&H Quest its the big sister of Sirius.
Regards
Propel
Quest is much too big of a boat…
But thank you for all the replies to this string…
sirius
seems like a fairly great trip kayak to me. I’ve paddled it on 3-4 day trips. friends of mine have that kayak and have done 8-10 day trips with room to spare.
My question is how are you packing?
Are you packing like a car/canoe camper, or a backpacker?
If you are having trouble my suspicion is that some lightweight super small backpacking gear might be in order.
Then again though, how many 8 day + trips a year are you really doing? I do one a year if I’m lucky.
If you really want a bigger boat there’s plenty of them out there. Personally I prefer the Sirius to the Bahiya. I didn’t like the total straight tracking aspect, I prefered the round chines and the deep v on the sirius. It’s a great kayak.
Thank you very much
I think what you said about some smaller backpacking items may be the order of the day…I’ll have to take a look around and see what items I can change…thanks again.
Just tell those mac anc cheese folks
to go get some pioneer vegetable soup mix (pure dehydrated veggies)and add it to their dinners. For fiber vitamins and taste.
And hoist up that light pack and see the world.