Post
by gladie » Thu Jul 28, 2011 11:14 pm
tothewest,
we tried several configurations: passenger in the bow facing the paddler w/ feet crossed; same but w/ knees up/feet on the floor; and both facing forward/knees up/feet flat. i'd previously tried what i believe was about a 2009 yak (maybe alpaca, but in any case w/o the big butt and pointy bow), and the explorer definitely tracked better than the smaller boat. part of that might have been that having experienced the smaller boat previously and gained a little experience overall, i learned to dip the paddle less extremely into the water. that is, i found that i tracked a lot better when i took somewhat more frequent, less-aggressive strokes, alternating right to left and back. we also had a tributary tomcat tandem with us, and we noticed that -- while you had to paddle a lot more aggressively with that larger boat -- it tracked somewhat better (at least until we made adjustments to our paddling style with the explorer). again, we were only on flat water, but we ventured pretty far into hebgen's main channel and experienced some white caps, and we always felt very confident. the bow sat somewhat lower in the water with the passenger, but we never felt unstable. in fact, we participated in a pretty gnarly water fight in the explorer, but we never tipped and were able to maneuver and even switch positions in the boat (e.g. passenger from facing backwards to forwards) to better douse our opponents. although the explorer is "unrigged," we did spring for the skeg, but we never bothered to attach it on this trip. i'll let you know if i experience a difference when i experiment with it down the line. in the end, we loved the boat, so much so that we both thought, "damn, we maybe should have just gotten two yaks or something smaller," but no loss... we can always add a smaller boat down the road. and the best part... carrying an explorer a 1/4 mile or so up the hill under your arm beats the hell out of lugging the 53lb tomcat any day. in that regard, our goal was definitely met. from now on, we're keeping the alpacka in the car for spontaneous paddles on mountain lakes and lazy rivers. the tomcat is simply impractical for that as it eats up much of the space in our vehicle. hope that helps and good luck with your decision!