What can you say about a kayak, having paddled her only for 10 minutes.
As Hans described in his blog we had a very nice sunday, together with Monique and Stef (click here for Hans' blogpost) while they showed their Black Pearl in her home: salt water.
While paddling next to Monique in her new, self made kayak, it is nice to see how the White pearl (Monique painted it in white) slices the waves. We in our "modern" kayaks (AnasAcuta's and an Aquanaut) are rocking much more than the pearl, who is just piercing the waves.
Of course you have thus a somewhat wet-ride, but who cares if the sprayskirt functions well.
The black pearl is a really nice kayak with a width of below 50cm. Together with a length of 5,33m this makes for a fast kayak. At least she felt very fast when paddling her.
Of course the stability is less than that of an AnasAcuta but the kayak does not feel nervous because of that. The kayak gives confidence while edging.
What did make me a bit nervous was that I only could get into the cockpit with a bit of pain. Logically because the kayak-dimension were tailorfitted to Monique. So I did not dare to try a wet exit, not wanting to provocate problems because of being trapped inside the cockpit.
As Monique wanted to see other paddlers acting in her kayak, I performed some extreme edgings and tried all kind of strokes. Paddling a circle while paddling in waves and while edging, the Pearl behaves very compliant in doing what I wanted her to do.
I think she is easily being corrected for weathercocking and does not really need a variable skeg for that.
Hans performed, without problems, a whole range of Greenland rolls and I added some normal rolls coming up backwards, as well as bent forward. Rolling was easy to do, even with the contact for knees, hips and feet not being optimal for me. Also sculling and high braces were very easy to perform.
What wonders me was why this kayak, having quite a straigth deckline, is not easily to turn completely upside down: with my PDF on I could not easily turn under water to the other side. For someone able to roll perfect on both sides this is no problem ofcourse.
Surfing seems to be exiting and I wonder how deep the bow will sink while surfing bigger waves. Today a stern-rudder was enough for steering in surf as pearly obeyed very good on that, but I can imagine that an extractable skeg could be helpfull in following waves.
After those 10 minutes paddling the Pearl, some thoughts triggered me a bit.
So am I interested to know how a Black Pearl performs while heading out for sea in heavy surf. I expect it could be something like just piercing the waves while disappearing (completely?) under water, but with less chance of being thrown backwards (I expect).
The other way seems also interesting: landing in heavy surf. This makes me think of the film on YTube where the prototype of Freya Hofmeisters' playboat (looking a bit like the Pearl) was tested in surf and where the paddler made a series 2 or 3 cartwheels: looping forward frontally from one wave to another.