Tracer 165 vs. QCC Q600X - perfomance

I have a QCC 700 and a 600 and am wanting to keep the 700 and get something more stable and versatile than the 600 for a second boat and for small-med friends and family.



Has anybody compared a Hurricane Tracer 165 to the QCC Q600X?



I know the QCC and that it’s better quality, but how do these tow differ as far as feel and performance in real sea conditions or at least some chop and confusion?

Tracer owner
shaunotter check in with a pnet member named lowbrace… he’s had a Tracer, maybe two, for a number of years. He’s also an instructor with many years experience.

Thanks!
… will do. Anybody else? :slight_smile:

Tracer
I’m heading into my thrid season as a Tracer owner. The boat is very well made, but it’s Trylon (thermoformed plastic) as opposed to the fiberglass, kevlar, or carbon of the QCC.



Two totally different boat styles so it’s hard to compare. I’ve only sat in a QCC briefly so I’ll limit my comments to the Tracer. The Tracer is a very lively boat, you can turn it on a dime and get nine cents in change. It’s prone to weathercock in any sort of a breeze and needs the skeg. Solid secondary stability, easy to edge, carves turns well. The boat feels more solid in some texture than it does on flat water. The boat has a reasonable turn of speed and glides well for it’s type.

Do Not, Do not, Do not,
Buy a Tracer without a skeg or rudder. There are still some early models in small stores without either and they will not track well at all. They changed the hull and added a skeg which improved the tracking a great deal.



Dave

DITTO GUIDANCE CONTROL NEED…
Sally got her Tracer as a surprise Christmas present in December 2004. It was from one of the early production runs, and had neither rudder nor skeg.



I -and Sally -will echo most all the above comments.



Grayhawk paddled 3 strokes left for every one right on the way back from a Largo Sound crossing in it in a rear wind and mild following sea. My friend Steve said “…its a great boat, it’s fast -but I’m going in circles!” on a mostly calm day off Hobie Beach on Virginia Key. And I had to work exceedingly hard to get it to track where- and whenever I got in it, until I finally stopped ‘trying it out’…



All that changed with the addition of a skeg. It has performed well over the past 3 years -once tha tskeg was added.



Now it tracks well with it deployed, and it’s a fun boat to paddle both with & without skeg down, depending on conditions. It takes -and takes TO -heavy water well. We came back the last 3/4 mile or so on open water to Chokoloskee with JackL & Nanci and Grayhawk, and Sally and the Tracer did well in first a rear quartering, then more beam sea with a rock_&-roll 2’ chop and not infrequent whitecaps, punctuated by some boat wakes (and two bottlenose dolphins) in a steady beam wind of around 20 mph.



Skeg deployed, the Tracer and Sally did well.



I must admit, so did I in my Aquanaut…



But skeg up, and as noted above, it’ll turn on that proverbial dime and maybe even give give you eleven cents change!



Trylon… It’s pretty good stuff, it has stood up very well since we’ve had the boat, and we got it new. Tho’ plastic, it looks like glass and takes a shine quite nicely, and because it’s the new-gen thermo-vacu-formed material, it’s just about as rigid as most glass and many other composites.



Apparently, Hurricane has gotten this new-gen plastic right, as I’m not aware of any real problems with the material, per se, in their lines of mostly SOTs and the Tracer. It’s tough stuff, too, and has been reliably known to take a good near rack-height bounce and lived to not only tell the tale, but to paddle on, afterwards, as well. We rather unconcernedly run it up on a varied of beaches, including those with generous amounts of coral rock mixed in, and scratches are surprisingly few.



The 600, depending on your “smaller paddlers” structure, may be too large. Nanci LaMarre is small and slight of build (but made of steel) and got rid of her 600, while assisting QCC to design the Q10X, which she got Boat 1 of the production run, because she found it a bit too large.



The Tracer has a large cockpit and no thigh braces/hooks -which is one reason Sally likes it. That may work against some who want a tighter fit.



Its fit & finish are quite good, and that’s with us as second owners and it having come out of a rental fleet, we think -so Hurricane does a good job in putting these boats together.



Because they’re plastic, they’ll cost less than even the good value Q-family of boats.



Hope this helps you with your decision-making to get another boat to



PADDLE ON!



-Frank in Miami

New Tracers have thigh braces.
Check the web site. However they can not be retro-fitted onto older tracers