Price: $89.62
Tests/Topics:
- K2 200M
- Panic in the Water
- Inflate/Deflate
- Tracking
- Paddle Power
Thursday: Tracking
Tracking: the ease with which a canoe/kayak can be paddled along a straight line.
As you may recall from Monday's post, our race times with this kayak weren't quite competition-ready. One possible explanation for this may have been our inability to travel in a straight line (if you've forgotten why this is important, dust off that old geometry book and give yourself a refresher). The ideal path from point A to point B is the following...
Had our path of travel looked similar the depiction above, our times may have improved slightly. Although it is impossible to guess what our path truly looked like, a rough estimate/memory puts it somewhere in this range...
Not terrible, but not perfect either. The shape of this line is based on several factors: our experience level (low), our utter lack of coordination between paddlers (honestly, wow), and the fact that we were paddling rigorously in an attempt to improve our times.
While paddling at a more reasonable pace, we were able to come closer to the first image. Although this kayak was clearly made for stability and not tracking, it performed better than expected in a typical recreational situation. Just don't expect it to track like your great-grandpappy's Old Town.
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| there are two skegs (fins) on the bottom of the kayak that aid in tracking |
Bonus Test: Overweight and Out of ControlAs clearly stated on the box, the maximum capacity of this kayak is 595 pounds. In order to test the weight limitations of this vessel, we decided to take it for a spin with 3 people, totaling 525 pounds. With 70 pounds to spare, it should do fine, right? The following is a rough depiction of our 3-person, overloaded path...
Unfortunately, handling and control was seriously reduced when a 3rd person was added to the load. In defense of the manufacturer, it does state that the maximum load is "595 pounds or two people." Is this to say that if two people have a combined weight of 595 pounds, they shouldn't encounter the same problems that we did? Our lack of control may have simply been due to a lack of balanced weight and not necessarily due to us being overweight, but it is hard to believe that the total weight of the load didn't partially contribute to the failure of our pathetic test run.
Taking a different perspective on the matter, we could have simply found one person who weighs 295 pounds and another who weighs 300 pounds to conduct our test for us. Because we don't know two people that fit this description (or don't feel like conducting a "what is your weight?" poll among our friends and family), the world may never know the results of such test. One can only imagine.
An irritating side effect of our overweight excursion is illustrated in the photo below. Look closely and you'll notice that the leg-rests are filled with water. Apparently, 525 pounds is enough to bring the kayak one step closer to sinking.
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