Price: $89.62
Tests/Topics:
- K2 200M
- Panic in the Water
- Inflate/Deflate
- Tracking
- Paddle Power
Tuesday: Panic in the Water
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| photo credit: http://www.inflatablekayakworld.com/ |
Stability is a major concern of anyone interested in a kayak in this price range. Remember, everyone has to start somewhere – if that somewhere happens to be in the water instead of on the water, you may never return. A valid fear for any beginner is to end up in a situation like the one pictured above.
How might we eliminate this fear? By attempting to sink/capsize/swamp/flood our inflatable kayak, of course. Lacking the availability Class 6 whitewater rapids, the alternative is to simulate the most extreme kayaking conditions in a calm and serene mountain lake (while imagining ourselves engulfed in the last gripping scenes of The River Wild
).
). In several “panic” tests, we tried a variety of sudden movements in all directions in an attempt to cause the kayak to tip completely. After all other attempts failed, we were finally successful when both of us leaned in the same direction until the kayak dumped us.
As this photo illustrates, even during a full lean to the right, the kayak remained generally level on the water. Shortly after this point in the lean, we were able to push our weight far enough to one side to cause the kayak to tip completely on its side, leaving us treading water and gasping for air.
After coming to grips with our dire situation and reciting several quotes from Titanic
and Jaws
, we formulated a plan to re-board our stable craft. For this event, we decided to use the stopwatch in an attempt to put some sort of metric on our efforts. Our time: approximately 10 seconds (from kayak overturned to back on and paddling again). Although this time is hardly a good metric of anything, especially when compared to all of the other kayak re-boarding data readily available in the public domain (none), it should be an indication of how relatively easy it is to get going again after falling out of this flat-bottom inflatable kayak.
and Jaws, we formulated a plan to re-board our stable craft. For this event, we decided to use the stopwatch in an attempt to put some sort of metric on our efforts. Our time: approximately 10 seconds (from kayak overturned to back on and paddling again). Although this time is hardly a good metric of anything, especially when compared to all of the other kayak re-boarding data readily available in the public domain (none), it should be an indication of how relatively easy it is to get going again after falling out of this flat-bottom inflatable kayak. The good news here is that this kayak is extremely sturdy and very panic-proof. Once you’re seated in this surprisingly comfortable vessel, it’s going to take the force of some fairly large waves or one extremely panicked paddle-partner to cause capsization (this word may or may not be in any dictionary).
Stay tuned! More paddling adventures to come.
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