19-11-2012
Although 4-5 bft wind was predicted for today, the reality was thick fog and S-SE 3-4 bft wind blowing offshore. This means a rather calm sea.
But a trip was planned and so we started in the fog at Bakkum to paddle along the coast; hoping for nice waves somewhere to surf or playing along.
In a headwind and a rather lively sea it was very pleasant to paddle the Pilgrim. I could, without using the retractable skeg, easily keep course with only minor corrections.
After paddling 1,5 hours we reached our turning point (having 3 hours available for paddling) and paused to eat something while floating in the sea. While floating I noticed that the Pilgrim is not a very stable platform because I had to make a lot of stability corrections with my hips while eating; in spite of the rather calm sea.
With a paddle in my hands I did not even notice this stability-issue while paddling , so it is not very negative but making photo's is less easy. May be this is logical because the kayak has a width of only 50 cm. And the fact that the stability is good while paddling, might be the credits of the superb fit in the cockpit for hips and knees. This contributes enormous to the way a kayak performs.
It would be interesting to know if shorter people than me, have the same experience because I fit very well in the kayak, but with my 1,80m length I am may be on the upper-limit of what the kayak is meant for. I will try to find out later.
During our break we were blown in the direction of the open sea meeting there a bit more swell. Not a big as my trip last week, but nice to paddle because the swell mixes with the wand-waves coming from shore.
The end-stability is fine for me now because making sweepstrokes supported by leaning feels natural in this sea-state.
Returning now I paddled without using the retractable skeg because it was easier that way to keep course in the situation with the swell wanting me to steer me to the left and the windwaves trying to push me to the right. The Pilgrim is maneuverable enough to handle this by paddle-corrections alone.
I tried the skeg of course and noticed again that my hand went under water because of the waves; a bit cold for my hands in the middle of November.
The last part of the trip the wind died away and so I started paddling directly along the shore where I could find cresting waves. The Pilgrim behaved well. I noticed that a wave slams against the side of the bow instead of flowing underneath. I remembered that last week the same thing happened. Not really an issue, but may be it causes along the coast that the kayak turned 90 degrees instantly when a cresting wave took me along. Stability was fine while playing like this.
Finally I can mention that my back was tired again at the end the trip. May be I belong to the group of people needing a back-rest-band. The other group of people just likes this seat without backband.