Beautiful boat. Had flush fitting magnetic hatches. As with most strip built boats - it depends on the mastery of the builder a lot. The one I paddled was very nicely done. The coaming was a little too low for my fat-rand WW style skirt but still almost OK. Rolled fine and I thought had even a little too much stability and could use less volume in the rear. Would be a nice and fast trip boat IMO.
As for the "Same thing for sea kayaks a 19.5" kayak unless you are 5'5" and 125 pounds just isn't buoyant enough to carve and edge through textured water" - that's my dilema too. I'm close to 200 with light day trip gear in the summer, a little over that in the winter probably, especially when wet. The only way to have a fast and responsive boat seems to be to have it relatively flat bottomed and to forget quick turns. The Greenland seems to fit the bill. It can still have nice and effective directional control (enough to surf forward and choose a path thru the swells), just not playboat like quality (for that I think one needs a different design). Thanks for the feedback - gets me thinking as I'm internalizing what I want to do with my next boat that I hope to build one day...
it’s a series of tradeoffs. I really love my current boat, but I am actually considering a boat with more volume through the middle for better edging and carving response. However you start to trade off speed too as you get wider.
it is a good compromise for small folk "However it had a hard time with edged turns in dynamic water. Because of the lack of buoyancy it didn’t respond very well to bow-rudders, stern draws, when accompanied with an edge. This is to be expected."
I would say I had the exact opposite experience. I have taken it out surfing and it seemed very responsive. When doing bow rudders in flat water to show off the boat, I turned over 180 degrees with only one sweep.
Since you say that the Tahe Greenland doesn’t have much freeboard for you, I’m guessing you’re probably a bit heavier than me. My impression is that for me at 135lbs it is a great all around boat. But I can definitely see that adding a bit more weight would drastically increase the water line and change the handling.