This made for a great (test)…
This made for a great (test) day out yesterday. The first time in the kayak and I was very impressed. It is made of very sturdy material, and I felt very confident that this was going to last, and not sink or turn over easily. The instructions weren't the best, and fitting the fin/skeg wasn't as easy as it appeared, but perhaps there's a knack? It came supplied with 1 (set of) oar(s), so bought another for my 'passenger'. It would have been much more effort to use only the 1 set between us, although they do break in half for that purpose. We tied on a painter to the front of the boat, so if needed, it wouldn't have floated away, and we could tie it up if we needed a rest. (We didn't!) There are good decent handles at both ends of the boat to assist with carrying. There are a couple of hooks so you can put your water bottle within easy reach (I hang ours off with a carabiner) and you there's space for stuff in the criss-cross wires behind the seats. I also tied on my dry bag to make sure that if we did fall in, that it wouldn't get lost. However, the kayak felt really stable, so probably wasn't really necessary.
The only reason I'm not giving this 5 stars, is because the instructions on how to set it all up weren't very clear, and also due to the manometer which was supplied... after several attempts at trying to work out how to use that, and failing, we opted to use our own judgement on how much to pump it up. I think we did well. I also don't understand why we're not supposed to use an electric pump, as that actually has a gauge on it and would be much easier. Having said that when we finally worked out how to pump it up, it did take around 10 mins (but we had at least 10 mins faffing beforehand, and we're not exactly stupid either!)
My friend in the front seemed to have a lot of chaffing on her hand due to the position of one of the seems, but I'm going to sort this with getting her some gloves for next time. Also, once I re-positioned my seat further back the comfort level definitely went up as I felt a bit squashed to start.
All in all, a very good buy. We had such a lot of fun on the river, and I felt confident that nothing was going to happen to us due to the kayak. Can't wait to go out again in it next weekend.
