Chesapeake Light Craft Sea Island Sport

So I had a chance to give this boat a test at the West Coast Sea Kayak Symposium.  This boat was only announced like 3 weeks ago.  My first impression was "what beautiful lines".  My second thought was "wow, what a light boat" as I drug it to the water.  It seemed lighter than the 48 pounds they are quoting.  I talked to John Harris, the President and CEO.  He told me this boat was designed for speed.  And it showed when I paddled it.  Yes, it's a quick boat.  BUT ... it was very, very hard to turn.  In fact, it was almost like the boat was trying to stay on track when I was trying to turn it.  It was very "sticky" if you know what I mean.  There is no rudder option for the kit, but you can try to figure it out yourself and add one.  The guys on shore said I looked a bit tippy on it, but I didn't feel like that at all.  Perhaps they thought that because I was working so hard to turn the boat.  I was even trying as best I could to lean/carve a turn, but there is only so much carving you can do with a SOT and no thigh straps.  The other negative I saw was that the scupper holes were very small and few (one forward and one rear I think).  Also, this boat was hull number 2.  The leg room was cramped.  I needed another 3".  Good news though, their production model lengthened the leg room by 4".  John said they were considering a shorter model made more in the style of what we'd like to see for fishing.  I'm going to pass on the Sea Island Sport for a project and wait and see if they do a fishing yak.

I also talked to the Pygmy Boats guys (again!).  Nothing going on there.  Apparently John Lockwood (owner/designer) is off travelling in South American and communication has been spotty.  No one has any ideas what sort of designs he is working on, IF he is even working on them.  They don't even know when he'll be back.  Long story short, don't expect anything anytime soon from them as they have long design cycles (up to 2 years I was told).

-Allen

I was looking around and came across this ... http://www.guillemot-kayaks.com/guillemot/SGSOT.  The drawings looked familiar.  So I went back to the CLC site.  It turns out these are the same boat, with the designer being Nick Schade of Guillemot.

-Allen