Force Category 4

I got this boat after paddling a Force 3 LV which was really too small. I love a snug fitting boat, but the F-3 and especially the LV version was truly too snug for my 6'1"" body. While the F-3 felt like a little rocket, the F4 does not seem to have that same sense of forward speed, despite the longer waterline.. However, this boat is a stable yet responsive kayak, predictable in all conditions, plenty fast in a straight line, and turns well. It rolls well, as it's an 'almost Greenland' soft-chimed hull, and is fairly narrow beamed. Mine is the K-lite version, a sort of carbon/Kevlar hybrid weave, and is reasonably light for a full sea kayak, making for ease of hoisting atop the car after a hard paddle.

I have paddled the Force 5 from Impex and it seems a bit sluggish by comparison, even though the specs seem to have the same hull dimension; there must be some differences.

Stable in confused or heavy waters, and satisfyingly quick in a straight line, the Force 4 is a gr eat boat all around!

Sadly, Impex went out of the kayak business a few years ago, but meanwhile the moulds and rights have been taken over by another company in Quebec who have revived this very worthy line of boats!! I don't know if they are producing the Jay Babina design of the 'Outer Island' but that is on my watch list for another boat that is quick and narrow..

Well, I've paddled this boat about 20 times before posting this review. I feel a couple hours isn't sufficient to truly rate a boat. I've been paddling 12 years. I get out 1-2x/week. I'm 5'9", 190lbs, and I feel the boat fits me well. My size 9 feet fit fine, and it could handle more I'm sure.

It's a great looking boat. Fit and finish are nice. Impex does a nice job here. Comfy seat. It has an IR seat, with a low back. It's the nicest seat I've had in a kayak.

Surfs great. I've just started to surf in this, but so far so good. Not too corky either. I feel like I am in control of this boat. Cuts through waves efficiently. It has a nice combination of buoyancy and efficiency. I had a P&H Orion that made me feel like I was fighting the sea when in heavy waves; cut through them instead of over. Robbed a lot of energy.

It's not as fast as I was hoping. It holds it's own well, but you're not flying in it. It also turns great on edge.

Cons: Beam & aft quarter seas, it's all over the place. If your skeg isn't down, you're not going to track straight. Compensating strokes don't do it alone. I edged and compensated for several days (in similar sea conditions) before I gave up and used the skeg. Head on into wind, waves or tide, it's fine. I'm not sure why my review on this aspect differs so much from some of the other ones. Most reviews on here are positive about almost everything. I don't understand that. Just being honest.

Seems to be susceptible to weathercock as well. I'm not sure if I have figured it all out yet in this regard except to suggest that even at apex tide, flat water, aft wind really affects its tracking.

The hatches seem dry. I'm no lawyer, but I think I could store my legal documents in the day hatch, and they'd stay dry. I've seen a few drops come in around the skeg. I could fix it easily, but it's not much. A few drops (literally) in the front too.
It holds an edge fairly well, but not the best I've seen. I really need to work at it to hold it.

I've owned a Diamante (Impex), Orion, Sealutions II and a Kyook. The Diamante would still be my first choice if I hadn't "outgrown" it. I'd give my Diamante an 8.5 if I could.

What can I say about the Impex Force 4 that hasn't already been said well by these other reviews?
Perhaps I can comment on one of the reasons I bought this boat and why I'm charmed by it: The Force 4 nestles in the waves like a fish; like it belongs there. Other boats perhaps more active tend to get busy in light chop or confused water, making for a nervous ride.

The Force 4 is the Lincoln Town car of seakayaks; smooth and steady, unperturbed by the ruts and potholes on the roads it travels. And yet the primary is light enough so that a gentle lean or shift in weight is all that's needed for course correction. The secondary is fairly strong allowing edge turns like bow rudders performing 180's. Somehow awesome for a rocker less over 18' boat. Beam or quartering seas are just taken in stride, no bracing and if a big one hits, you have time to brace. Maybe I'm getting older but this quiet smooth boat makes me want to stay on the rougher water longer and more often. Following seas are so much fun, yes it needs a little attention, stern rudders on occasion or leans, but slow and predictable when she moves off the perpendicular. Surfing in to the beach in three footers suggests that the Force 4 is just as sensible but may tend to broach left to right with the lightest correction from the low brace position, quite exciting. Launching back off the same beach however is a bit tougher than with rockered boats. Monkey walking into the surf, if the force isn't absolutely perpendicular to the incoming surf, the bow is easily pushed sideways. I also don't recommend grabbing the bow and dragging this boat up the beach when you land. The absence of rocker means that the skeg opening is vulnerable to gel coat breaks and chips.

Cockpits are a personal thing but I found this one to be close to perfect right out of the box. The seat hangers are only 15" wide so you must have reasonably narrow hips and thighs. Finally some thoughts on rolling: I do a sweep roll and occasionally the Pawlata as back up. The Force 4 is easy to roll if your technique is good, and difficult to roll if not. Don't raise your head and expect to come up like you can with the Nordkapp or even an Explorer. Not such a bad tradeoff, a boat that forces you to learn good technique! Lastly, I love those bow and stern handholds!

I've had a Force 4 (fiberglass) for a year and a half. I'm 5'11" and 165 pounds. I have kayaked about 6 years. I use a Greenland paddle and kayak mainly in the open ocean off Cape Cod. I've paddled the Force 4 for about 25 day trips in the ocean (usually 15-20 miles, a few of 30 miles), one two-day camping trip, and occasional rolling/skills practice sessions in a pond. I can't compare the Force 4 with other kayaks, because the only other kayak I've used in lots of different conditions is my first kayak, a WS Cape Horn 150. But here are my impressions of the Force 4 for anyone considering it.

I can summarize my feeling about the kayak (and kayaking) by saying that every time I get settled in the foot pegs and back-band and take the first stroke forward into the ocean, I think, "I love my kayak". The quality and workmanship on my boat are excellent. When shopping for boats, I did see a kevlar Force 4 with a small area on the hull where the gel coat failed to cover the cloth - it was not being sold as a second, and the dealer appeared surprised by the problem (genuinely, I think). I was bothered enough by this lapse in quality control by Impex and/or the dealer that I made a point of buying my boat from another dealer, and checked it out especially carefully.

Overall, I like the seat and backband in the boat and feel very comfortable even when in the seat continuously for 7 hours. On my first couple of trips, it seemed to me that the seat had too much of a backward tilt. So I took the seat out, removed the two-three inch thick foam that was under the front edge of the seat and replaced it with a thin piece of minicell so that the seat is angled more forward. With this simple fix, I find the seat and backband very comfortable. The backband is an Immersion Research (Reggie model, I think). A weakness is that the ratchet mechanism is easily unlocked when reaching behind the backband to grab something stowed behind the seat. Also, after a year of salt water exposure, there was some corrosion of the ratchets and they started slipping occasionally. I ended up putting small bolts through the adjustable straps to hold the band at a fixed length.

The boat has molded-in thigh brace areas, not enough by themselves to get a good purchase for a hip snap but perfect for glueing additional minicell thigh braces. I did this and feel perfectly locked in for bracing and rolling, with plenty of room in the hips for good torso rotation. I could be bigger and still fit well in boat. Cockpit is big enough that at 5'11" I can re-enter butt first easily.

I don't have enough experience with other boats to evaluate the handling of this boat in comparison. But I can say that I love the handling of the boat. When aggressively edged (very natural with a Greenland paddle), the boat turns very nicely, especially with an extended paddle sweep. I often paddle with a friend who uses a Nordkapp LV or an Anas Acuta using a Euro paddle. Of the three boats, the Anas Acuta clearly turns more easily, but even in tight quarters in rocks, I've never felt at a real disadvantage - just need to edge a little more and use extended paddle strokes when there's room. I used the boat for a class in Woods Hole, practicing bow rudder eddy turns, and it worked fine. I've used it for many sessions practicing in surf where I need to get swiveled around pointing into the waves in a hurry. I'm sure that boats with more rocker would do this more easily, but I've never found myself thinking "I wish this boat would turn more easily."

I find the boat very stable. When stopping to eat or pee at sea, I feel very comfortable pulling the spray skirt and attending to business with the paddle stowed, in pretty much any size swell. By comparison, my friend's Norkapp LV and Anas Acuta sit lower in the water around the cockpit, and in the same conditions, he will often ship water into the cockpit with his spraydeck off. When we practice rescues in rough water, the Force 4 has a clear advantage in shipping less water while pumping than either the Nordkapp LV or Anas Acuta, for which this is a significant problem, especially for a self-rescue.

Overall, I find the Force 4 a perfect boat for the ocean paddling I've done with it, including trips with winds up to 20 knots and fairly big seas. If I could try an experiment with altering the hull of the boat, I would like to see the effect on handling of adding volume to the bow. Even when unloaded, when paddling into sizeable swell, the bow tends to drive into oncoming swell, while my friend's Nordkapp LV rides up more, which seems to be a little more efficient.

A change I would definitely suggest to Impex is to add bungies or perimeter lines immediately behind the cockpit (the back perimeter lines start fairly far back) to hold the paddle during a paddle-float self-rescue or to hold the paddle out-rigger style for additional stability when stopping to eat. There is a groove for the paddle shaft just behind the seat, which works great for self-rescues while just holding the paddle, but bungies would give more flexibility.

The skeg works fine. I don't use it much, only to reduce broaching with big following or quartering swells. A couple of times I have forgotten it was down when doing a beach landing: never any problem, the skeg just pushed back up on its own. It has never gotten stuck. My friend's Valley boats have gotten stuck skegs from pebbles from landings in the same conditions several times, so there seems to be some difference.

I suspect some leak into the cockpit, because after 3-4 hours in swell there is routinely 2-3 inches of water in the cockpit and it doesn't seem to depend on the newness of the sprayskirt or how carefully the skirt is mated to my drytop or drysuit (and happens even if I never rolled). It isn't enough to be annoying, so I've never tried to diagnose it. I suspect leakage through the skeg cable mechanism or around the bolts for the seat and/or foot peg tracks, but can't really rule out leakage through the spray skirt. Both main hatches and the dayhatch stay totally dry.

I read a lot on paddling.com about people who have had many different boats and who are still thinking about trading or buying another one. Probably it's partly my lack of experience with other boats, but there hasn't yet been a day on the water when I wished I had a different boat than the Force 4. At least for me, the Force 4 has a perfect combination of speed, stability in big seas, and maneuverability. The maneuverability is undoubtedly less than shorter or more rockered boats, but I've never felt limited by it even when following my friend in his Anas Acuta between rocks.

I love the boat for messing around with long-boat surfing or playing around in tidal races just as much for as for point to point paddling. I would recommend the Force 4 highly and it were ever stolen or smashed beyond repair, I would buy another one in a second.

So far I have paddled my 6 week old carbon/kevlar Cat4 (51 lbs) three times this year in CT and one week in the FL Keys. I am a 5' 10", 180 lbs. and 63 year old male that has been paddling for 8 years. I also own and paddle a Meridian SK. The Cat4 rounds out my little fleet well.

The Impex quality is exceptional. The Valley hatches stay bone dry even with frequent rolling. Minimal rocker makes this boat a great tracker with or without the retractable skeg. I have no problem executing tight leaned turns. So far I haven't seen a need to add extra padding to make my fit more secure as I did with my Meridian. At 18' X 20.75" it is plenty fast.

I am looking forward to a fun week of ME island camping with the Cat4.