what do you get for your money

More money gets…

– Last Updated: Feb-04-15 11:18 PM EST –

a composite boat rather than a plastic one and a properly outfitted sea kayak rather than a rec boat.

It does not get you more comfort unless you already know a lot about your fit in a boat, and have seat time to know what works better or worse for you. It does not appear you have those pieces. Or some others, but you asked about comfort.

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– Last Updated: Feb-05-15 12:34 AM EST –

Thank y'all for you vary helpful insight.I think i should clarify that I am a vary physically fit person i am a competition swimmer for a USA swim team, I rock climb, run and am a certified diver so i do not take physical fitness lightly. i do have a few other questions. first how hard is is to damage the actual structure of a composite kayak not just the gel coat? The way people talk they make composite sound very weak. And second are there any advantages to hard hatch covers ( made from composite)?

It is hard to damage the structure of

– Last Updated: Feb-05-15 6:02 AM EST –

a composite boat, and if you do it is easier to fix than a plastic one.
I have had composite kayaks for many years and once dropped one from the roof of a full size pick up truck. The bow was the first thing to hit the concrete surface, and the only damage was a patch of gel coat came off which I repaired with epoxy and paint.
If you hit a sharp object straight on going 4 or 5 mph you would probably punch a hole in it, but that also is an easy fix.

On the hatch covers: I can only assume that if you get a composite kayak you'll have composite hard covers, since that is what mine are, but maybe that is just my boat.
Maybe others will chime in here.
I like hard ones that are flush with the boats surface and have a rubber gasket that acts like an O ring. It keeps the deck clear for strapping stuff down on long extended camping trips.

Jack L

My QCC 400X seam split 18" when
It dropped four feet off the rack onto concrete.



My composite solo canoe suffered split fibers and gel coat popping off when it fell four feet off another rack onto concrete.



Both repaired and back in action.



I’ve never holed any boat.



My composites have been more abrasion resistant than my plastics and royalex boats.



I generally don’t abuse my boats, except with occasional shallow gravel botttom streams.

Composites are not inherently
fragile. Because of composite’s strength and most people’s desire for lightweight boats, many are built with light layups. The Kruger boats are incredibly strong, but they weigh about 70 lbs. And that’s in kevlar. We’ve got an Epic GPX that is fiberglass and it has taken a lot of abuse. Most of our boats are plastic since we are not easy on them. But, that little Epic has held up very well.

kevlar
expedition Kevlar.



search: https://www.cdkayak.com/#



and click North American Touring.



NAT is a different hull shape from West Coast Rocking. WCR for the tsunami rangers is rockered for maneuverability, polyethylene or ? for durability rock bouncing.



There is considerable feedback from WCR to NAT where NAT is dissed for fragility, lack of response.



Comparing apples and oranges.



As a clod, I have bashed my Solstice against docks, rocks, and you know door jambs, dragged fully loaded hull up into the dunes. Only a small gelcoat piece scrapped or popped off with bottom scratches NOT onto the Kevlar layup.



I have a royalex Rendezvous which is maneuverable to a level where having a royalex hull is avoidable and the Kevlar layup preferred.



BTW, when you hole a poly boat, repair is difficult not so with Kevlar.



You could try calculating energy expenditures relating to weight propelled with online calculators .

I’m not familiar with paddle calculators but cycling calculators online.

used round
rubber covers stretch leaving a hatch cover circumference greater than the hull hatch perimeter.



Posters commented on this their problem with one poster with 2 hulls/4 covers stretched while on an extended trip.


hard versus soft hatches
On hatch covers, you really don’t have a choice, unless you are going to choose your boat based on this (not something most would do). Each boat manufacturer chooses their hatches and that is what you get. On the whole, their choice of how to do it will be fine.



The basics are the boat manufacturer wants a hatch cover that seals, provides protection from implosion, and stays on. The hard hatch really helps the implosion, but truthfully this isn’t that common an issue except in true extreme conditions. Skirts will pop earlier than hatches.



Getting it to seal is a huge issue, particularly for rotomolded plastic boats. When the boats are in the mold, they shrink 5-10%. So the manufacturer doesn’t always know what the dimensions will be of the hatch rungs when they come out, and have had to try different ways to solve this. In the past, they used to use a neoprene cover over the hatch opening, and then hard cover over this (Necky Looksha IV did this), and this worked pretty well. Some also tried using a hard plastic ring which they mounted to the boat, and the hatch would attach to this (plastic Necky Chatham did this), but they had to seal the ring to the boat well (which they didn’t always do - I had to reseal ours twice). Most common now seems to be a softer rubber hatch that has some stretch to it (most Wilderness Systems, Dagger, etc. boats), but there is some variation. My Alchemy had a leaky rear hatch when rolling, so they sent a new hatch cover that fixed it (so they must have different size hatch covers).



Holding on is most often done with leashes or overstraps, though some manufacturers don’t seem to do anything. Adding your own leash is possible and not that hard.



Back to imploding hatches and skirts - here is a video of Neptune’s Rangers playing in conditions where they did have a boat with an imploded rear hatch and a couple of guys with imploded skirts: http://youtu.be/h2M5aztpOQk. The first clip was by me - thankfully I was just outside enough to be safe and not have to be featured in any of the rest of it…

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Thank you all for the friendly advice. I only have one more question(for now). I have been looking at the currant designs gt solstice, but most of the reviews are from people who are over 6’2 and weigh over 200lbs. i am 5’10 an weigh 140 lbs so my question is, can a kayak be to big for a person? the gts solstice would be perfect but would i loose a lot of storage?

never had that happen on a trip
I suspectt those hatches were neglected more than mine, and on the verge of cracking and disintegrating.



but it’s hard to confess to “user error”.

round hatches with no straps
The british have been using them for decades, they work, if you take care of them they work for a long time. I have a ten-year-old boat and just replaced the originals two years ago. Still watertight.


kayak can be too big
Yes, a kayak can be too big for a person, and I suspect that one would be. They are designed assuming a certain amount of the boat is submerged, and if you are too small, less than that is. That could lead to all sorts of funny experiences, such as it not handling well, it being tippy, etc. You can add weight that you carry with you, but probably better to just get a properly sized kayak.



Unless you are planning to go do a long trip in the next few months, I’d focus on a kayak now that fits what you will be doing soon and use that to learn what you like and don’t like, so you are then better able to pick a boat for the long trip that really meets your needs. Few get the exact right boat as their first boat.

X’s 2
jack L

round rubber
hatches may have very infrequent quality control problems. You would believe these covers are closely inspected, installed and shipped. A few bad covers would turn into torpedoes.

touring hulls

– Last Updated: Feb-05-15 8:34 PM EST –

are for touring not racing across or down river. So hulls asking for higher load levels than only you and lunch can be trimmed with ballast fore or aft or down bow to stern in a stiff wind.

The extra capacity which is a touring hull gives versatility not handicap. Lotta complaining about wind carry with unloaded touring hulls but really only ballast down since year one.

I installed a ballast system on keel with velcroed MSR 10 liter Dromedary bags holding drinking water. Strapped down in cockpit or held down with clothing filled garbage bags or dry bagged in holds, the MSR's aid in rolling as with a touring sailboat keel.

long trips
There are face book pages dedicated to paddling the mississippi. If you go there you can get some really good info from people who have done the whole river more than once. Good luck, you are in for a trip of a life time.

oversized boats
You can get an oversized boat for you to sink to a good point on its hull by adding weight. Note that if you are camping, you are then hauling that weight out and back into the boat every day. You can make an oversized boat fit well enough not to give you a backache getting to the contact points by padding it out. But there are limits to how much padding out you can do before it gets awkward, if the boat is really barge on you. If you don’t know what those crucial contact points are, you shouldn’t be putting let’s of money into a kayak yet.

Learn to paddle
I read most of the post and it sounds like you are in great shape but before you take on this task are you in paddling shape mentally and physically?



Contrary to popular belief canoeing and kayaking is more than just getting in a boat and putting a blade in the water.



How is your forward stroke? Do you actually have that torso rotation down?

Do you know how to brace?

How solid is your re-entry technique when your roll fails?

Do you have a roll?

Do you know how to repair your kayak in case of emergency?

Do you know how to read the river?

Do you know how to empty a swamped boat?

How is your paddle rotation?

Are you used to paddling in high winds with your paddle offset?

Have you ever repaired a rudder?

Do you know how to ferry?



I am 6’ and a little over 200lbs. Put me in the same style boat. Not only can I paddle all day but I can do it fast as well. It comes down to seat time. Just like everything else you do there is a right way and wrong way. The right way comes with time and developed muscle memory.



The reason I am asking these questions is not to discourage you. I would do the same trip if I had the chance. It just seems what you are asking is all beginner questions. That is evident when you have a 6k budget to buy gear for a trip and part of that budget covers a brand new boat and you put out a link to a boat that would just suck for something like this.



Personally I recommend figuring out what you want for a boat. Find it or something similar in your area and rent/borrow for a few days then load it with your gear and paddle it for a few days straight to see if you like it. Learn to load your boat correctly. Ask around for tips and tricks when it comes to packing things in kayak. I’ll give you food storage trick. One box of Wheat Thins fits perfectly into a Nalgene bottle, you now have a crush proof and water proof container.



Also remember if the outfitting isn’t for you but you like the boat the outfitting can be changed.



You may think of me as a ass for bringing all this up and that’s fine. My concern is for your safety. To be safe on the river it takes time and practice. A good teacher helps as well.

The Big Muddy
I know this doesn’t address the original question and perhaps goes without saying - I don’t know if you’ve spent any time on the Mississippi - but for a lot of its length it isn’t anything like a clear-running mountain brook or even a muddy western river.



Be really careful about infections. It’s so easy to get water in a blister or a small cut or scrape and the bacterial load in places on that river are a lot higher than on many others. As a kid it happened to me and there were several top-notch paddlers I’ve heard of that were knocked out of Mississippi River races by simple infections. Haven’t heard much about that happening to anyone anywhere else.



I only mention this because its sooo easy to overlook when caught up in choosing the right boat, equipment, the right training, diet, logistics, and the actual execution of such a big trip. It really had to be a heartbreak for those good, fit, experienced race paddlers; paddlers who put in a so much effort only to get thwarted by something so simple. (I’m thinking of a pair that came all the way from England to run that race…) The Mississippi is a unique river and it can surprise in many ways. And this, I think, is one of them.



Best of luck to you and please keep us posted.

kyak
After around $1,500 you will be past diminishing returns. For long trips you need a good sized boat. If it were me I would go with a canoe. Much easier to carry and stow gear, not to mention accessing it and being seaworthy.