I have owned a Perception Scimitar for the past 16 years and I find it a great stable sea kayak. My father just bought a Necky Lackshar IV… It’s longer than the Scimitar and he finds it rather unstable compared to the Scimitar.
There seem to be plenty of Penguin/Puffin/Barracuda sit-in sea kayaks in New Zealand.
Can somebody please recommend a good brand/model that may suffice? We are not looking for something as slow as a Quality Kayaks Sprite - just something that doesn’t want to easily roll. In an idea world, we would find a second-hand Scimitar but they have been discontinued and we really need to look for something similar.
The Perception Carolina series are stable touring kayaks that come in different lengths. I think the largest new ones are now 14 feet, but the older ones went as long as 16 feet. Very popular in the USA so used ones are often available, but I don’t know anything about the NZ market.
I suspect in your limited market range most of our suggestions would be useless. Of the hundreds of models of touring kayaks that have been produced, there would be many that mert your parameters. Fortunately, Perception has on line archives of all their old catalogs and you would be able to find the detailed specifications for the Scimitar there and can use them to compare specs on similar models from other makers and eras.
I owned a raspberry pink Scimitar with rudder for a few years (it was from the era in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s when Perception used Aquaterra as their touring kayak brand). I found it stable and nicely outfitted but it tracked poorly for a 15’ boat and liked to windcock. I often had to drop the rudder even in calm conditions to not have to constantly correct its path. Since I am not fond of rudders I sold the kayak. In retrospect I probaby could have moved its seat position or ballasted the hatches to correct the tracking but I owned the boat in my early kayaking years and was not yet hip to those options.
Of the other touring kayaks I have owned or rented over the years, the most similar to the Scimitar in stability, performance (minus the tracking issues) and length would be Dagger Magellan, Necky Looksha 7, Wilderness Tsunami 14, Perception Avatar, Perception Monterey 145 and Venture Easky 15.
Don’t know if any of these suggestions are helpful references for you, but Venture being a UK based brand it might have dealers in NZ. Their Islay model might also suit you, though I have no experience with it — they dropped the Easky in the USA market a few years ago. I love my Easky15 and you might watch for one of those on the used market. (Mine is the LV model, for shorter and/or lighter paddlers.).