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Name: CapeFear
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I am a fairly experienced sea kayaker. I've been sea kayaking for 14 years, and am an ACA Level 4 Open Water Coastal Kayaking Instructor. While I do really enjoy instructing, at heart I'm a sea kayaker who enjoys the ocean waters - swells, waves, and surf. And there's nothing I love more than getting together with a group of skilled sea kayakers. I own a small collection of well-respected sea kayaks, and I enjoy paddling different sea kayaks for the different nuances that each one offers.
The Boreal Design Ellesmere entered my world after I already had a pretty good collection of sea kayaks. The main thing that first attracted me was the rounded/arched hull between hard chines. The kayak that I own that shared that characteristic is the Nigel Foster Legend. What I learned from that design in the Legend is that it makes for a pretty fast kayak, while still maintaining maneuverability. Yes, all kayaks advertise this, and we all know that it's generally a compromise between stability/maneuverability/speed. And many can't get comfortable with the Legend's primary stability, but it does have quite solid secondary stability. But that rounded arch between hard chines is one of those designs that pushes the speed/maneuverability boundaries in both directions, and leaves you surprised.
A unique feature the Ellesmere advertises is a "reverse hard chine". Now I'm not sure what effects that does or doesn't have, but I can tell you that it really is an impressive-performing hull, and I cannot be a naysayer regarding this. I think it proves itself to be a good thing.
The first thing I found was that the primary stability is comfortable, and the secondary stability is comfortable as well. A beginner may feel a little twitchy at first, but an intermediate or advanced paddler should be perfectly comfortable right off. The second thing that I found is that it feels fairly low-volume compared to something like the Legend. The third thing was that it tracks well in the wind, and feels settled in and not too effected by wind. The next thing I found was that it really does have a good turn of speed for a 17' kayak. It's not a racing kayak, but it's not pushing up a bow wake prior to a fast cadence like more play-oriented kayaks. Next, I found that it is crazy-maneuverable for a kayak that tracks so easily and is that quick. A lot of times strong-tracking kayaks need just a little more skill and patience to spin around, but the Ellesmere truly rewards good technique, and is quite simply surprisingly maneuverable.
The other big area where you will definitely notice a kayak's volume, besides strong wind, is in broken waves. Whether it's in a surf zone, where you can get pushed long distances towards shore, or in open water with whitecaps, where the broken tops can give you a good push, lower volume contributes to being pushed around less. This behaves like a lower volume kayak in such conditions. Another really cool thing that I discovered, and this may be helped by the reverse hard chine pattern, is that when whitecaps or crumbling waves hit the side of the kayak, the kayak will want to lean a bit into the wave, which is just what you want to counteract the force normally pushing you over the other direction- but will automatically happen without thinking about it. I find that a very cool and useful little nuance. Now this isn't a kayak where you can sit in the steepest part of a 4-5' break zone and expect a hugely-rockered, voluminous bow to keep itself above water. But those kind of bows come at a wave-slapping sluggish price at all other times on the water. The Ellesmere has plenty of speed to catch waves early, and already be riding along when the wave gets steep. So it's quite fun and easily manageable in moderate surf. It's open water characteristics are quite impressive, and as above, it's just very impressive how well it maneuvers. The Ellesmere is definitely a stand-out winning all-around sea kayak design in my book.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7ARookAFdE
www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdJ8cFc5PCQ
The Ellesmere is 17' long, 22" wide. As you can see from the tennis balls in the video, it has a good amount of rocker evenly distributed along the length of the hull. I don't know how noticeable it is, but the Ellesmere and Capella were the only 2 hulls in that group that a tennis ball could fit under the normal keel line underneath the kayak. The rest, the tennis ball had to sit against the end of the raking portion of the stern curving up to the deck. I figured anyone could go home, sit their kayak on a flat surface, level it, and see what room there was under their own kayak using a standard sized tennis ball, compare to these pictures, and get something of an idea of the rocker profile. Odd approach perhaps, but it's something I always want to get a glimpse of when looking at kayaks, it’s really hard to get a feel for in photographs, and I hoped this might help.
It is a solid build. This kayak is 15 years old, kevlar, and going up and down the kayak pressing on it, I found no soft spots. It is very stiff. None of the 3 KajakSport hatch covers have leaked at all. This may be my most solidly built kayak. I didn't weigh it, but lifting it and all the others, the published specs are probably pretty good. It felt lighter than the fiberglass Legend and Greenlander, as you would expect. The Greenlander is noticeably a bit less stiff. The Legend was a little less stiff on the side sections from the deck to the chine. The rounded arched bottom of the Legend is very solid and stiff in line with the Ellesmere. You can see from the inside that both have more layers built up along the bottom. On the Legend, it's the entire bottom between the chines. On the Ellesmere, it's a very wide strip running the length of the keel line. Both the Greenlander and the Caribou have a little more give in the flat sections of the bottom, which I think in part points to the arched configuration being more solid in general than a flat section. In part, I suspect the Legend and Ellesmere add additional layers of composite cloth to the bottom to beef it up.
I'm 6'0", 190 lbs., size 11 shoes, 33" waist, 32" inseam. This one has an ocean cockpit. I found the sweet spot for me is to sit so one side sits centered over the day hatch. From there I can bring my feet in, and scoot my way into the kayak without having to squeeze my way in at all. It is somehow a secure feeling in the boat with the ocean cockpit, but the Ellesmere is sold with the popular keyhole cockpit as well. There is plenty of room for my feet, and the footpegs have a ways to go to get to the furthest back adjustment. There's a little space beside each hip for me. I'd probably go another 1/2 inch wider for perfection for me, but that's a very subjective matter. I like room to rotate. The next guy might like a snugger fit vs. more room.
The deck has just enough room for me for comfortable movement. It's fairly low, the lowest of those presented in the video. A nice minimized fit without extra volume for someone my size.
It was the rounded between the chines, or arched between the chines, hull that attracted me to this kayak. This was based upon my experience with my Nigel Foster Legend. It's fast and maneuverable, and I've always felt that it's the rounded vs. more V'd with flat sections that helps this along. We all know that overall round is fastest, but also lacks stability. So trying to keep things rounded as possible for efficiency, between hard chines for solid secondary stability, is my take on this type design.
I love it. This thing feels playful and maneuverable, and doesn't feel sluggish under my 190 lbs. One of the things I found with the Valley Gemini SP is that its max recommended weight is 190 lbs., and with gear and all, it felt like I overweighed it, and negated a lot of its playfulness. The ever-popular Romany always feels somewhat sluggish when I'm needing to get going. The Ellesmere allows me to get more out of that extra effort. I was instantly at ease with the stability profile. Most feel very uneasy in the Legend, and I'm comfortable in the Legend. But the Ellesmere doesn't feel so loose in the primary stability without primary stability being overdone, and has solid secondary stability. There is no nervousness for me out in waves regarding the stability.
15 knots is the most wind I've been out in so far with the Ellesmere, and she tracked fine for me without the skeg, and remained maneuverable in all directions. She has a light tendency to weathercock into the wind, as any kayak should. And there's a built in skeg to take care of any directional control issues should a person find it necessary.
Out in the waves, it feels very settled in – it doesn't feel twitchy at all to me. The footage I have is from 2 separate days. You can tell from the green top and the grey top that I’m wearing. The day in the green top, I don't think I pearled at all. The day in the grey top, I managed to dive the bow a few times, but it resurfaced without issue, continuing through the ride. Part of me thinks I would like to put a peak on the front section of the bow, because I think that helps the bow surface quicker after a dive. Part of me knows that adds a little volume and would be an experiment with overall behavior. Overall, I took some fairly steep drops dropping in on a few waves that would have bow-dived and stalled out some of my other kayaks. And part of any surfing is timing, and not dropping in too late so that you drop into a thrashing. The Ellesmere manages the whole process very well, and I'm not worried at all about having her out on bigger days. I will actually be looking to the Ellesmere for this.
Directional control riding in front of a wave is very good. My Capella 169, my go-to sea kayak playboat for years, requires a little more control. The chine profile seems to help direct the Ellesmere in a line out front. It resists broaching better. And yet I can still straighten her out and manage directional control to avoid a broach quite easily.
She proved forgiving in the waves. The low volume feels settled and not bounced around much. An interesting thing regarding the angle of the chine profile shown in the video, as I sat with my back to the broken waves, when a wave would hit me at any quartering angle from behind, the kayak would edge itself in towards the wave. I'm not talking about getting clobberblasted by an intense wall of wave that's just gone critical. I'm referring to broken whitewater washing over. The kayak automatically guided itself to exactly where a person would want it. It leaned inward towards the wave without input on my part. Now that’s a forgiving nature. It’s the first I've noticed it in a sea kayak, so at the very least, it feels more pronounced in the Ellesmere. Sometimes you can have the wrong reaction when you're not expecting broken water, such as a whitecap, so it's nice to have a kayak that guides you into the proper reaction.
You'll notice when I got back-surfed in the surfing video, all I did was try to anticipate which direction my kayak might broach. It just felt to me like she has a very forgiving nature overall. No quick broach, stern dive and stall, twist and turn. Given the evenly distributed rocker, this kayak might actually surf as well backwards as forward. I have a feeling my stronger direction will always decidedly be surfing forward, so I'll probably never really know the answer to that.
I felt I could paddle out in a hurry when I needed to, I could catch waves in plenty of time to settle in before they went critical and started breaking. It's just a real nice surfing kayak, remaining predictable and easy to control. It's not attempting to be an Aries or Delphin. Just a kayak built to travel through conditions – built to travel efficiently – and still be very playful and fun for park-and-play days.
I personally never looked to the Capella 169 (this is the older version – more rocker, less stable, more squirrelly than the updated versions) for travelling distances. It weathercocks a bit more than others, and a bit less efficiency – although pretty good efficiency among playful sea kayaks, which is probably where it lined up well with me. The Ellesmere is maneuverable, good efficiency, less squirrelly and less weathercocking, seems to have good rocker and profile for waves, settled, predictable, and forgiving in broken waves. I find it to be an exceptionally well built and great performing sea kayak.
Since getting the Black Magic 7 months ago, I've done some 30+ nautical mile days, play days in the surf zone, and everything in between with it. I typically paddle several days a week. Always edged turns, rolling, bracing, surfing, rescue practice, actual rough water rescues, all just a part of normal use the past 7 months. Regarding my general paddle preference, over time I've found that I've come to disfavor the dihedral concept, but I am aware that switching from dihedral to neutral or spoon (edge to edge curvature of paddle face), or the other way around, requires a transition in getting used to blade angle control and linking strokes, at least it does for me if I switch up.
Edge to edge (the narrow way across), the Black Magic is not dihedral, it is not spooned - it is neutral. It is spooned end to end of the blade. The first day I took off with it, I noticed some flutter, just like when I first took off with a Greenland paddle the first time this summer. A little attention to planting the blade, and this blade plants exceptionally smoothly and quietly due to the lengthwise spoonlike curve of the blade, and flutter was gone, and I've never noticed it since. (Always keep a loose grip - using grip to control flutter is unnecessary bad practice.) This flutter is what dihedral is supposed to prevent (at the expense of a more solid catch - not so prominently advertised). I think dihedral disguises flutter as a useful symptom of a less than ideal plant or stroke. I prefer the more solid catch achieved in a smaller blade size by not promoting flow off of the edges of the blade. Looking around, it appears to be an unpopular opinion, but I swear from an experienced user's point of view it has merit.) And the Black Magic gives an impressively solid, smooth, and quiet plant and catch and efficient forward stroke.
This idea of minimizing weight in the blades by using a lighter wood core (wood, like foam, gives the blade buoyancy and a light bit of lift from the water when submerged, which is also a very nice property) and finishing it out with carbon for lighter blades...well...it actually works. For the first time I experienced an appreciably lower swing weight while still giving me that wooden paddle and all the feel that goes with it. Blade behavior during turning strokes: Slicing the blade through the water, a spoon shape edge to edge curves naturally through the water in the direction of the paddle face, dihedral naturally curves through the water away from the blade face, and the neutral Black Magic, it naturally doesn't curve, and so no compensation needs to be made. I have no idea why everyone seems so sold on dihedral (and I've read and heard it all many times over & understand the concept) to prevent an easily correctable moment of flutter as a symptom, I do understand spoon edge to edge for a solid catch with a smaller blade size, but for slicing through the water for skulling, rudders, linking strokes, rolls, etc., the tough fine edges and neutral design of the Black Magic make this paddle feel a step above the rest.
Is it tough enough? I haven't babied it. I've laid my weight onto that paddle right into breaking waves that have hit me and carried me sidesurfing many times, bouncing up and down on the support of that paddle shaft. I've launched off of a lot of beaches, punched through a lot of waves, put it through its paces. It's solid. This isn't my lightest paddle, but it has become my favorite. It doesn't feel heavy or clunky during use, it feels well balanced, a light easy swing from one side to the other, with exceptionally natural feeling and predictable behavior in terms of fine tuning my blade angles during strokes. It gives a solid catch for those fast days, or powerful moments of sprinting down the face of a following wave, or punching out through breaking surf. You hand me a paddle, and I'll go out and use it and make it work. But I can still appreciate the pros and cons it presents to me given my uses. Hand anyone a bunch of paddles, and eventually one will become that familiar extension of his/her body that is most often reached for. Sometimes I think that can be as much mental properties of the user, as physical properties of the paddle.
If you're the type that dials in a good plant and mechanics for your forward stroke, uses the support of the paddle blade to allow you to edge further and get more out of your turning strokes, and you like that blade angle to guide you around precisely and efficiently without adding extra turbulence or tendency to twist, the Black Magic just may win you over strictly on it's physical performance characteristics. Two solid thumbs up.
It was not my first boat, not my most expensive, not made with the fanciest materials, nor is it my newest. I believe I do have to consider it my favorite (1 of 7 sea kayaks). I've paddled it for a number of years now. A couple fun trips would be from Cape Cod, MA to Martha's Vineyard,and more challenging, a 37 nautical mile day trip circumnavigating Cape Fear (It was named Cape Fear for a reason.) I paddle it loaded with gear, many times on camping trips, but more frequently unloaded, just going out for a few hours.
As far as stability, I consider it very comfortable. Lower stability than my Solstice GTS, but higher stability than my P&H Sirius or Kayak Sport Viviane. (Don't read me wrong - I own, paddle, and really like all of the boats I've mentioned here. They are also all designed to be very seaworthy and cover some distance - not to turn super easily and play in one area. They represent my favorite kind of paddling.) It's a perfect level of stability for this boat. The Extreme feels responsive (edging and turning), especially vs. the Soltice GTS, which takes pretty good force to put and hold on edge.
The Extreme handles quartering waves quite well. Front quartering I don't even notice myself making any compensation for tracking. Rear quartering only presents a significant tracking problem when it wants to take off surfing. At that point a lean (responsiveness to leans is good)and a stern rudder will keep you on track going faster than you can hope to propel yourself with paddle alone. (Always a good feeling to surf - and this boat is fast for such a wonderfully seaworthy hull.) I should really mention here that I never use the rudders or skegs in these mentioned boats - probably part of why I love them is that they handle any reasonable conditions, including small craft advisory days on the open coast, without aid of a rudder or skeg.
I surf this boat on the Atlantic coast - sometimes just looking for fun, but also necessary entering inlets into the intracoastal waterway from the ocean or doing beach landings, or the mouth of the Cape Fear River, or the Frying Pan Shoals....you get the idea - it's necessity for a lot of paddling. It holds its course well perpendicular to the wave, picks up waves easily, and side surfs with ample forgiveness if you end up parallel. As far as turning, I find the Extreme turns the easiest of the 4 boats I mentioned. Paddling in groups, turning has never represented an issue for me, although tracking regularly has for others. For the paddling that I most often witness people doing, turnability seems to regularly be given too much clout vs tracking. I also have more playful sea kayaks, but their attributes just don't offer a significant advantage to me nearly as often as the attributes of the 4 boats I'm mentioning here.
If I have to choose one boat, the Extreme has a wonderful turning/tracking balance for me. The Sirius and Soltice GTS track best, but I would never consider tracking a problem with the Extreme.
The Extreme and the Viviane are the fastest, and I'm not really sure which of those two outdoes the other in speed. The Extreme is fishform, the Viviane Swedeform. The handling characteristics between the two are just different enough that when I've been paddling one consistently, it takes an hour or better in the ocean to get back into stride paddling the other. Considering the speed of all four, sprinting aside, I seem to average 4 knots, give or take, just doing my thing for 10 to 20 nautical miles in all 4 of them. So Derek Hutchison seems to have something when he says the Sirius is a fast boat and others take it out for a sprint and say they're unimpressed. Take it out for a 20 mile run with some swell and wind blown waves. Make your decision then.
I know a lot of folks ask about bracing and rolling, but once I had it truly learned, it's hard to tell the difference anymore. As a beginner, I found the Extreme and Solstice GTS easier than the other two to roll because they have a point that you can feel (I think it's the same feeling as secondary stability.) where once beyond that point, the boat wants to roll up the rest of the way. It's kind of like standing an egg on its point, it wants to go one way or the other, and once it starts, there is a force making it continue that direction. This feeling gives a strong sense of where I am at in the progression of the roll, which can be nice if you feel at all disoriented. The Viviane has this to a lesser degree, and the Sirius less yet. They will lay on edge without feeling like you have to keep pulling it on edge, but require more deliberate hip action to bring them back upright. The Extreme and Viviane represent nice mediums to me, with the Soltice GTS and Sirius being the opposite extremes in this sample of boats.
In any case, I should just sum up by saying that in the more extreme conditions and on my most challenging trips, to this point I have preferred my Extreme for the task. It is solid, the hatches do not leak, and it's a very sleek and beautiful looking boat. Even if I'm only paddling for an hour on flatwater - I prefer 4 miles to 3.5 - I love this hull design!