Oracle GTS

It's a North American style kayak with it's main objectives being straight tracking, efficiency and stability. In wide rivers and bays, the straight tracking and the efficient hull design, is a strong advantage but in meandering sloughs, it becomes a hindrance and inefficient. It takes forever to turn and the the effort leaves you exhausted. The Dagger is more suited to narrow rivers and sloughs with it's flat bottom and slight rocker.

That being said, I really love the profile and the sleek design. And the details such as the recessed deck hardwares makes it a well designed expedition kayak. It cuts through calm waters like a hot knife through butter. Leaves very little wake and the ride is smooth. Being just over 21 inches wide and 17 feet long, it take very little effort to get it up to cruising speed. And with soft chines and shallow v hull, choppy water doesn't affect it's stability.

Me being 150lbs the bow action in choppy waters is very controllable. In larger waves, it doesn't carve as well as a hard chine boat, but can surf smaller waves without much effort. The seat isn't the best compared to current modern offerings but I can paddle for hours without problems. I'm a 62 year old male with size 8 shoes so fitting into the cockpit is no issue. Anyone taller may want to look at bigger volume kayaks.

When it comes to rolling, because of the upright resting position of the rudder, it's a little difficult. Also during couple of self rescue practices, I noticed afterwards that 1)both hatches leak...rear hatch more, and 2)the rudder need to be lower to get back on to the kayak... hard to straddle a rudder sticking 1 foot above the deck when you're neck deep in water.

So here is the detail:
Pros: Great tracking, fast, great turning, good volume (if you are an overnighter), light enough to load onto a full size SUV by yourself.
Cons: I have had to contact CD a few times with leaking in the front hatch (odd since it has a rubber cover and a cover over that). I have been told that I am not the only one who has discovered this, but they resent me a new rubber cover with new band that has "almost" resolved the issue. On a really rough day or the "oh-no-here-I-go" roll, I still get a few tablespoons of water.

My final comment is that as of 2009, CD no longer makes the TCS material. This concerns me a little but all around, a great boat.