Caribou

I have been kayaking on and off for a little while now. The sport had never really captured my full attention until I decided to pull the trigger and get myself a much more serious vessel.

My previous Perception kayak was a fine boat, but there is absolutely no comparison to the Caribou. This is the boat that has made me fall in love with kayaking.

She tracks like a dream, is exceptionally stable, handles calm water with surprising speed and handles big waves with a confidence that I have never witnessed before.

If someone tells you that a 17+ boat isn't able to surf and get air...they have never been in a Caribou.

If you are looking for a boat that will allow you to 'get what you pay for', this is it. Mine wasn't cheap (kevlar layup) but every cent spent will be paid back in troves over the many, many years I plan to spend with this kayak.

It is a chined Greenland style hull which I love for its secondary 'bite' and also ease of rolling, despite being a fairly broad beam (21.5 inches). As for the forward speed issue I first had, it is simply not there.. As compared to my Nordkaap LV and of course, extra-fast hulls like my West-side Thunderbolt, it's not even close, but the sense of thrust as well as that secondary stability in heavy seas, there is no comparison. That is where this boat really thrives and feels like a Ferrari, as well as being an able and predictable roller.

In short, one of the nicest boats I've been in..!

Turns out it's a lot easier to paddle upwind in strong wind if the skeg is up. By the same token, going downwind is easier with the skeg down. You can go straight into the wind just fine with the skeg down, but once you start trying to go at an angle to the wind you'd better raise that skeg!

Additional information: My 'bou is fiberglass, and I bought it in 2000, when the factory was still in British Columbia. Mine seems very well-built but I can't address whether new ones are as well-built.

I'm 5'4" with short arms, and this boat's narrowness is a boon to me - no leaning my whole body sideways for each paddle stroke just to keep my paddle shaft from hitting the gunwale.

All the nice stuff others have said here goes for me, too. It's fast (I think so, anyway), it tracks nicely (skeg gives a small improvement but without the skeg it's fine too), and it turns quite well enough, though not on a dime.

I feel more secure bracing against fixed foot pedals, so I actually like that there's no rudder.

I read another post here about putting some weight in the back compartment. Good idea - I recently bought a little fat-wheeled caddy that breaks down and fits back there easily. The few extra pounds really does help the tracking, and solves the problem of carrying the extra weight, too. Sweet.

I paddle about 175 days a year and recently the use (not abuse and probably saltwater) caught up with it. My cockpit coaming became detached from the deck so I called CD and was put in touch with a terrific young man named Josh. We dropped the boat off in Winona on our way to visit our daughter in Minneapolis on a Friday and picked up the boat on Tuesday. Josh fixed the cockpit at no charge- covered under warranty, put in a keel strip in white that is hard to detect(came in on Saturday to complete), put in some fiberglass patches in the hull and cleaned up my crude gel coats. It is like a new boat. Plus we got a tour of their new factory. Was I impressed and grateful.

I learned to roll in this boat (skipped the river boat step because it is so comfortable) with a Greenland paddle (Feathercraft- great customer relations,Theresa is terrific) We spend 6 weeks in Feb-March at Indian pass FL where my brother with his NDK Greenlander Pro kayak and I paddle everyday in all kinds of conditions. My 'Bou surfs better than the GP,is only a tad slower at sprint speed (he is 2 yrs younger), but cruises just as effortlessly, rolls as well, and is a lot less nervous.

For a 63 yr old guy I appreciate its generous primary and secondary stability especially when we spot an alligator in one of the rivers. It does require some edging in 15+ mph winds but it does so easily. I figure that make me a better paddler and it works my obliques. If Chris Duff and his group can paddle around Iceland in skegless boats, I guess I can. It cruises at 4.5-5, 5.5 workout pace, and 6-6.5 all out. We did a 3 day 60 mile trip down the Wisconsin river and I was able to easily take everything I wanted. Plus it is an all day boat - very comfortable. Looks great especially knifing through the water with its hard chines and is a good boat for almost any level of paddler. However my 6ft 6in. son doesn't fit in it. I'm 6'1", 185lbs and my 11.5 water shoes wear quickly on the outside heel although I have another notch or two on the pedals. Luckily he fits in my Valley Skerray which is a nice all around boat, but a barge compared to the Caribou.

If this boat ever dies, I'll get another one maybe in kevlar because I'm a van guy and I'm not getting younger. Maybe without a skeg. My friends who paddle NDK GP's, Romany and Explorers love this boat. If you get one, get a greenland paddle-everything from rolling to sprinting to paddling all day is easier. You'll never go back to your euro paddle.

Comparing it to other boats I have owned, it seems to be on the higher end of rough water performance, yet still be well-mannered enough to inspire confidence to push yourself.

Compared to my Seaward Navigator (barge) it is very lively, but not to the point where I ever felt uncomfortable, like in the P&H Sirius.( great boat but painfully uncomfortable for me).The boat does really like to surf, even in small swells, so be ready. I don't think the boat is as well built as a Seaward (durability-wise).

I think the fine bow and stern would likely wear if they were run onto the beach without any care, but time will tell. I did break one of the integrated thigh braces during roll practice. Wasn't exactly the best time for that to happen, but CD was very helpful in getting instructions and materials to do at home repairs. They would have done the repairs but I live on the east coast and had no intentions in sending my boat cross country for a relatively minor repair.

I've owned no less than eleven boats to this point and built one. No doubt I will own more. That said, I am very happy with the Caribou and will probably keep it for some time yet for its comfort and overall performance.

I've been mostly happy with it, comfort is good (5'10", 180lbs). Very nice deck rigging, including for spare paddles, either front or rear. Stability is reassuring; have yet to need to do an actual "brace."

Tracking is where the "mostly" comes in. If you search the forums you may stumble over a number of discussions where I've complained about a bit of wandering during light-air smooth-water conditions. The skeg of course can cure this but with the cost of some loss of glide and slower turning. Okay if you really need it for heavy wind, not ok when you don't think conditions should warrant using it.

Many comments said after more seat time you'll learn how to make it track. Well, after a full season it never happened. It was not a matter of not knowing how to get it back on line, it was just annoyance over how quickly it wanted to veer off line in the first place. The tracking just felt unstable, in anything other than a headwind.

Many owners, especially of the pre-skeg versions, talk about adding 10-20 lbs of weight in the back to improve tracking behavior. I use mine only for few-hour day trips and wanted to avoid this hassle. I did experiment though. I rigged 9 lbs of scuba weights on a stick that I could push way to the back, thinking the further back it went the less I would need. This was not good, boat was too heavy in back and the bow bobbed over waves most ungracefully.

After that I tried really hard to like using half-skeg most all the time, but just couldn't. So recently, back to the weight idea, this time I used just a 3 lb weight, again pushed back as far as it would go. Well, I'll be darned, it is pretty amazing what this does. It seems to balance the boat such that it responds more quickly to subtle leans to stay on course, and you can also feel turn-carving behavior respond to leans forward and back. It's like this is how the boat was meant to feel. Maybe I just have heavy feet, who knows. I'd guesstimate this moves the center of balance of the empty boat back about 5 inches. Very importantly, for me, it can be shoulder-carried to/from the water with the weight in place. I don't think this much weight hurts the rough-water riding behavior to any noticeable degree.

So, with that, I'm a happy 'bou owner and expect to keep it for quite awhile.