2005 Bell Yellowstone Solo - bought it new for $800. I have paddled it everywhere and if I could only have one boat this would be it. I was looking for some old pictures and found this - a moving water run on the Deerfeild river in 2006.
It looks like the last time that I had this boat out was February - I have a lot more boats to choose from now 
Mine was a 15 foot Coleman I bought about a week after I got out of High School in 1980. And yes, I’m admitting it. Wide, flat bottomed, and about 80 pounds. Good workout just getting it on the car solo.
First boat that l got on salt water was a loaner Swifty. First one l owned was a Dagger Cypress. That lasted about 9 months, just long enough to get it onto salt water where Jim and I discovered we needed more boat. Hale also had that.
My family bought a Riverjammer Canoe some time in the early '90s… It was wide, flat bottomed and green. We called it the Fat Sally and 2 kids and an adult could fish out of it without ever feeling like we’d tip.
I used money from my dishwashing job to buy my first kayak at 16; a Wilderness Systems Pungo. I cracked the windshield of my car because I carried it inside and the bow bumped up against it. Used my next pay check to get a topper kit.
Through my late thirties I always had friends with canoes or could borrow kayaks from the outfitters I worked for or the outdoor club I belonged to. I had tons of gear for every other sort of wilderness adventure but, other than a tiny styrofoam Sea Snark sailboat that I bought at a yard sale for $50, I owned no personal watercraft.
Then, around the time I moved from Western PA to Michigan, I met a guy who had a vintage Klepper folding tandem kayak and was fascinated by his tales of taking it on yearly trips when he would fly with it to Alaska and Canada. The idea of that sort of transportability appealed to me and I began to research folders.
Discovered that there was a Feathercraft dealer nearby, The Outpost in Holland, MI, and stopped in one weekend in 2002. They had a cherry red FC Kahuna on display and on impulse I whipped out the credit card that had been unused in my wallet since my new Michigan bank had issued it and dropped $3300 on that boat, a too-long Werner paddle and a Lotus PFD.
At the time I lived 5 minutes from a small lake, 20 minutes from several decent rivers and 30 minutes from the coast of Lake Michigan. Had many great times with that boat for 8 years, from lily-dipping for stress relief in tiny Reed Lake on my way home from work on summer evenings to exploring Long Island Sound with my first kayaking guru and paddling in the Thousand Islands and the Rideau canal with another coach friend in Ontario. It came with me when I moved back to Pittsburgh and got plenty of use on the rivers, lakes and streams here.
Eventually I realized I needed a faster boat so I could more easily keep pace with other paddlers. During a solo trip I took to Vancouver in 2009, the folks at Feathercraft’s tiny HQ and production shop on Granville Island loaned me a sleeker FC Wisper and a Klatwa Greenland paddle for a day to explore the harbor and I was smitten with both. Sold the Kahuna to buy a Wisper and my paddling range and accumulation of boats has grown since then (current fleet is 11 kayaks and one canoe, though half a dozen were “salvage rescues” that I plan to re-home once they are rehabilitated.)
20+ kayaks and 1 canoe later I still have fond memories of that Kahuna which was a great starter touring kayak. To date that is still the most I have ever paid for any boat – the rest have either been used or purchased on sale. But I don’t regret that “reckless” purchase. I sold it for $1800 which means that kayak only cost me about $150 a year for hundreds of days of enjoyment. And the pleasure it afforded me during those years by expending my access to the joys of paddling became a pivotal aspect of my life.
I feel odd posting as I bought my first and only canoe 2 years ago for 150 bucks during the pandemic lock down as something I had long wanted and being retired during the lockdown was driving me nuts. It is an Old Town Guide 147 circa 2000 that I made my own over that year. I won’t say it will be my only boat I will ever have, but as of right now it meets all my needs and I have no desire to change. There is a bliss in not knowing what I’m missing.
Can’t wait for spring.
Seems like I always had easy access to kayaks and canoes from the mid-70’s until the mid-90’s so I didn’t own my own most of those years. I was given a pretty unique SOT in ’82-or so and paddled that quite a lot. It was called an Edge 15. REI sold it as the Marlin.
In 2002 I built and Arctic Tern 14 followed by a Coho. The AT14 was my daughter’s touring boat and my play boat. The Coho was the boat that I started camping and exploring the BC coast with.
image is of REI Marlin/Edge 15
Not my photo and I don’t know who to credit.
My inlaws Tsunami 125. I still paddle it at their house when we visit and prefer it for the ocean due to its better seaworthiness vs composite boats. 2 foot white caps? No problem you can stop paddling and bail the boat with an cut open tonic bottle and not worry about the waves tipping you at all. Tracks great too although it doesn’t turn very well but handles ocean conditions with aplomb.
IMHO greatest sea kayak ever built, perfect combination of stability, responsiveness and speed. Despite the seat from 20 years ago not being as comfortable as the more modern Wilderness Systems seats it’s still an incredibly comfortable boat, something the new, fancy composites lag far behind on with their skinny, lightweight and back/butt breaking seats. (Stellar, P&H are you listening???) Durable as all heck too as we abused it long before I ever knew how to take care of a kayak often leaving it outside in the sun for years at a time, launching or landing it right from rocks. We did everything you’re not supposed to do and here we are almost 20 years later it’s still going strong! The inlaws didn’t know how to take care of a kayak and neither did my wife and I have any clue. No cleaning, no 303 protectant, just pure, carefree fun. It’s bombproof that’s all I will say. Only downside is that it’s just heavy as **** to carry.
@CA139, I went from a 140 Pungo Duralite to the 125 Tsunami, then 145 and 175. They alll share the same comfort and stability.
I have always loved boating (power, sail, canoe, and kayak), but only rented, or went with friends who had boats, until I went on a kayak tour up in Maine. At that point the bug got me to buy a couple kayaks so we could do this more often, and I could learn more about kayaking specifically. Something about being low in the water and feeling the movements of the water, the easy glide, the playfulness of kayaks appealed to me.
My first boat was Wilderness System’s Zephyr 160.
My wife’s first was an Eddyline Denali.
They were good boats to learn with, for each of us for different reasons, and we enjoyed them for 4 years, kayaking about weekly, June into November.
First kayak was a Valley Skerray RM - it ended up being defective (skeg box was warped which allowed the skeg to pop out of the housing) so it was warrantied and replaced with an Avocet RM. Although I wasn’t a huge fan of the Avocet (the seating position put my feet to sleep) it was a great boat to learn in, and realistically the Skerray was too big for me anyway. I kept the Avocet for years at my parents’ place in NH, and finally sold it, but moved to FL a couple of years later and was so bummed I had sold it as now I had to fly to NH instead of drive and had no kayak to use when I was there! Several years later I bought a used WS Tempest 165 to replace it.
Except a 12.5’ boat is not a sea kayak as defined by most all experienced paddlers or manufacturers. Usually 16’ plus for sea kayak. Maybe 15 for a narrow kayak for a small framed paddler.
Stopping to bail out a hull will leave you in a more precarious situation. Probably with more water coming in.
A 1930’s Wood Canvas Old Town Guide. It was in 1959 I was 11 years old and paid $15.00
and I still have it. Have owned about 30 different canoes over the years
In 1987 we bought our first canoe, a Wenonah Spirit in Tuf-weave that was new but back inventory at the dealer. It served my wife, two kids and me for a couple years and then we added a Solo Plus with wood trim in Tuf-weave. First true solo was a Hemlock Kestrel in Kevlar hybrid, a boat I still have and enjoy. Have gone through a number of boats since. Our seldom used tandem is a Mad River Malecite in Kevlar. I have two solos, the Kestrel and a Northstar Firebird in Starlite (nice and light for a 75 year old to car top).
Sometime around 1964 or 66 my dad got me a green canvas skin on frame kayak with large rectangular cockpit, maybe 12’ long. It plied the waters of the NJ Pine Barrens for several years. In 1968 the whitewater bug bit the old man; he figured he could lay glas cloth over the canvas and paint it with resin. The result was, to be kind, somewhat hideous looking, especially in the yellow color he chose. He stuffed the bow and stern with bleach bottles for flotation and cast me off upon the waters of the Lehigh, in NE PA. I think I made it about a mile before the boat was consigned to a watery grave (I did have a life vest). The rest, as they say, is history.
The first canoe I remember using a lot was a fiberglass canoe that was made by the Job Corps program in Ogden Utah. My uncle let me borrow it a lot when I was about 11 through when I was a teenager.
The first canoe I bought with my own money was a Smokercraft 17 ft canoe I boght used in 1989 in for $350 New Hope PA. The seller was losing his battle with lung cancer and wanted it to go to someone who would use it. My 5 year old son convinced him he would take good care of it, and we used it a lot. It traveled with us through moves to Colorado, Arizona and California and got damaged by the neighbors kids on our farm in Utah. It’s sitting in my workshop there now, bent with a big hole ripped in it.
First Kayak I actually owned outright was a used Hobie Oddysey Tandem I bought in September of 1999. I sold it for what I payed for it about 8 years later, things get blurry at that point but I think there are only four kayaks and five waveskis in my garage now, a few of them belong to my oldest son.
I wouldn’t call a Tsunami a seakayak, but they were pretty seaworthy when they first appeared. I had a friend who did several open ocean crossings from Dana Point to Catalina Island (35 miles) in his, with his little dog going along for the ride in the summer time and winter crossings from Long Beach (21 miles). Also quite stable for fishing or whatever as stated by OP.
Many believe that a sea kayak and touring kayak are differet names for the same thing. While the lines cross, they’re two distinct boats for two purposes. On on extreme, the sea kayak probably isn’t designed for hauling, and on the other, the touring boat isn’t designed for the ocean. As the models move to extremes, they become more representative of the intentded design. If you look at the 175 Tsunami and 170 Tempest, on the surfave they appear similar, but they have a different hull cross section and volume. The smaller volume and narrower hull has to help the Tempest edge better and cut through waves. The 175 Tsunami has extreme stability, but the large volume and width would take a pounding in heavy waves.
I love my Tsunami, but I wouldn’t taking it to the ocean. There are a few members that do play in the ocean with the Tsunami and love it. Still, I consider it a workhorse touring boat with 400 lbs capacity. One thing that keeps the WS line from being serious hard weather boats is the hatches. I’d rather have something that straps down before going into really rough seas.
Walden Vista, purchased new in 1999, sold a month later.
About 1967 the boy scouts in Washington had a pattern for a plywood and canvas folding kayak. It was 8 feet long, about 2 1/2 feet wide opened and 6 inches deep. If folded lengthwise to 8’ x 1’ by 6". I had that kayak until about 2010, when I sold it, along with a 10’ version. Great for playing in lakes, exploring marinas, etc. In about 1995 I got an Old Town Loon 180T tandem, still have and use it - only problems - it is heavy and the sides don’t have a lot of support, otherwise a really nice paddling kayak for sloughs and small lakes.
