This past Wednesday, I test paddled a Prijon Kodiak at the Jersey Paddler in Brick, NJ. It was a comfortable fit, being that I’m 6’1" 250lbs I need a kayak that has enough room. I definitely give it a thumbs up for comfort and feel. I will also be testing the Eddyline Nighthawk 17.5 and possibly a few others. I hope to make a decision within the next month. I am upgrading from a Perception Acadia 12.5 . Any other thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.
fast boat
The kodiak was my first kayak. Good fast boat. Im 6’3" 250 and was able to paddle the Colorado river 100 (tx) race in 17hrs in 2004. The need for more speed moved me into a Q700. However I still race the Kodiak occasionally.
ftgjr – good choice.
– Last Updated: Apr-23-06 8:46 AM EST –
That is the boat that Renata is paddling around the country, so I suppose if she can paddle it 11 thousand miles (okay, admittedly some of that is biking too), www.renatachlumska.com for pictures, then I suppose it may be fast and efficient enough for you too. It is the choice of many expedition kayakers, as you know, the material HTP durability is stellar. And it is restyled for 2006, and is now the Prijon featured kayak.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0071449027/sr=8-1/qid=1145795925/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-1803248-1800018?%5Fencoding=UTF8
Jon's book, and even the Prijon nose on the cover.
As expedition kayaker and author Jon Turk says (it's also in the Prijon ads): "My boat must be fast and efficient and stable in ice, surf and steep waves. My boat is a Kodiak."
www.wildnet.com
Hang in there, test test test. Whatever choice you make, I am sure it will be right for you.
Impex Assateague
I put my larger paddlers in an Impex Assateague and they make that boat dance on the water. All round good choices so far. Have fun experimenting.
See you on the water,
Marshall
www.the-river-connection.com
Kodiak
– Last Updated: Apr-23-06 12:13 PM EST –
I like this boat a lot. I have not paddled a large number of touring sea kayaks because I have fallen into surfing and close in coastal paddling in smaller boats so my oppinion does not mean much. I have used this boat several times now on exposed coastal trips in Baja on the pacific coast, crossing to Islands when camping for several days. It paddled fast for a large plastic seakayak. The boat holds a lot of gear, it paddled very well with out the rudder and handled well in rough conditions. We had large following seas (I did need the rudder then) with steep breaking waves and we played a bit in tide races and rock gardens. I took a rescue class in it and some folks had problems doing paddle float entries because of the higher volume. On the bad side one of the hatch covers broke on a trip to Todos Santos island, they seem cheaply made and are hard to get on. The rudder cable also broke. The boat I was using belongs to an outfitter here in San Diego and the boats get a lot of hard use so the cable issue was probably not something you might experience. I did not try rolling it at the time, but you might want to see if you can do a layback roll in it before you buy it.