R-5 River Runner

This is the second plastic kayak I have owned. I currently own two fiberglass kayak tandems. Having a plastic one is particularly nice on rocky rivers, because you don't have to worry about damaging the finish. When I first put this in the water, I didn't use the attachable skeg, and the boat weathercocked badly. Once you put on the skeg, everything handled fine. Because of the bad first impression, I held off reviewing it for a while until I had a better opportunity to paddle the boat. Time and the attachable skeg have changed my mind about the boat.

At only 35 lbs, I have the boat on and off my car in minutes and in the water. It's so light, I leave the back brace in the trunk. It moves quickly in the water, though not as fast as my longer boat, fiberglass boats. Stability is surprisingly good. I am 6'0", 200 lbs, and the boat supports my weight well; though, I don't think I could put much weight in it for storage, making it a day boat. Because it has no bulkheads, I put two floats behind the seat.

The foot pegs are a bit of a pain, and I cannot use kayak shoes because of the tight fit. This has as much to do with my size 13 feet as it does the boat. The tight fit is a trade-off for the light weight. It will probably be great for my teenagers. The rear of the seat does not protect against the back of the plastic seat hatch; so, I use a longer vest for comfort. Similarly, I think I will pad out the plastic knee braces for comfort.

I use it for my work out boat on a nearby 1 1/2 mile long lake, and it works out fine. When I give it an eight, it is not meant as a slight, but rather recognizes that it does not have all of the creature comforts of the more expensive boats. It is a bargain for a first time kayaker, deciding whether or not to paddle, or as a work out boat.

The R5 is a good white water kayak. It serves very well for touring flat-water. You can use it for short trips but stuffing gear in is an art, don't put the toilet paper in first! You will have to drag every thing else out to get it! I removed the second post in the front and back to get more gear in. It did not affect the stiffness of the boat. I also removed the footrests, a hard job! It took a sharp knife, heated by a torch to get them out. Why did I take them out? My tapered dry bags would not go in past them. I decided to use my R5 solely for flat-water camping trips. I needed room to store gear. The foot pegs are there for white water, besides I can still roll the Kayak using only the knee braces. In order to find out how much gear you can take safely subtract your weight from the 250 pounds the kayak is rated to carry. Make sure the weight is evenly distributed. Trips of a week or so are possible. I commonly do trips of 100 km in the boat. I do not recommend this boat for the ocean. It is too small.