Hey,
I am wondering if anyone has seen a good side by side comparison of these three boats - Kruger Sea Wind, Clipper Sea-1, (new) Sawyer Loon - or at least two of them?
I've read the reviews here on pnet, and helpful as they are, there is little discussion of how the boats compare to one another. The Kruger owners particularly seem to have a hard time writing anything negative (or even limiting) about their boats!
A while back, I could swear here at pnet, I read a thread about an outing of maybe 4 or 5 decked canoes. Now I cannot even find the thread.
Any help out there?
My relevant goal here is to paddle the New England Coast - in a decked canoe.
Thanks in advance . . .
Thanks for your comments. I can understand why the first 3 negatives you list are no longer in mind for Sea Wind paddlers once they have their boats.
The weight seems to be about 10 lbs or so more that the other long decked canoes, though the Sea Wind might still be most portagable out of the box.
I had seen your 18 mile data recently, and my impression was that the Sea Wind held up pretty well against what I imagined to be pretty fast boats, the Surfrigger and Extreme. I guess the 5 mile tests do look less impressive, with the Sea Wind at about 5 mph compared to 6 or 7 for the sea kayaks.
Still, that may be fast enough, and a fair trade off for durability, stability, and comfort. It’s more the day long, or multi-day long speed that would most be the performance of interest for me.
Any of the three boats will work well for a combination of day paddling or tripping. However, if I (at 220 lbs) were to slot the boats as to how I would use them, it would be the Loon as a fast day paddler and light tripper, the Sea Wind as filling any role you need it to fill, and the Sea-1 as a big tripping boat that works okay for day paddling. All of them are very well made, seaworthy and quite efficient.
negatives In my opinion the only negative I can think of off had is the built in “map” rack or “area” that are put on the left side of the boat etc. The boat is so well made that this feature is “SO” not in the same ballpark as workmanship, LOOKS, durability etc etc. To be honest it just looks too cheap. I told Verlen this years ago as well and he listened to my comment to “make it more suprerior” but I dont think he had the time or want to make any changes etc.
The feature is too frail, gets really corroded in sea water , the elastics wear out quickly.
What would make this feature “fit” the 10 rating of the rest of the boat is to make the support for the map case out of the same grooved kevlar that the seat adjustments are made out of. Have one directly where the left part of the bracket comes down and another on the right side BUT REVERSE it so the grooves point backwards. NEXT, the elastic strings as be fed through the bumps on the kevlar. THATS NOT ALL! Do it on BOTH SIDES OF THE BOAT. This serves several functions as well as increase the SEa Winds looks, strength, durability and funtionality. These kevlar supports will add more strength to the hull, allow more maps, gear or whatever to be stored since you have one on BOTH sides, they dont corrode in sea water, eliminates a cheap alluminum support bracket. AND THATS NOT ALL!!! You could ADD a bar across from the left the right and it would hang just like the seat on the support bumps (or whatever they are called) Now add a little padding directly under where your calf muscles rest and you would have an incredible leg support and no more cramps or pain in the KNEES since your heals would not slide out towards the center. Its it so more momfortable this way. The bar can be easily removed whenever just like the seat.