A website is sometimes a nice communication medium. This time Arnold contacted me last week and offered me to try his Silhouette before he was going to sell it.
The Silhouette looks like she had an active paddling life yet, but seems to be in very good condition. She was built by John Van Leeuwen of Watermark, a company existing till approximately 1999 in the Netherlands. Watermark produced the NigelFoster kayaks at the time. As I heard strange stories about the construction and watertightness of these Watermark-kayaks, this one seems an exception, being well built.
Today some clubmembers were going to sea for surfing at the beach near Bakkum and I happily joined them with the Silhouette.
Normally I try a kayak first at flat water before entering more turbulent situations. Oh but yes, I did paddle on flat water; 1,5 km from Bloem, where I met Arnold, to my home.
The contact for hips and knees in the cockpit was pretty good and gave me confidence enough for entering surf conditions.
Circumstances at sea were quite friendly with some sunshine, a NW 3 Bft. wind and waves up to 1 meter. As the tide was going down, the waves curled steeply down on us.
And how performs the Silhouette?
Well, her primary stability is not very high. But the secondary stability is much better. I think you can get used to that while learning to rely on the secondary stability. Today I was happy with the stability, although I didn’t try leaning back while eating an apple.
The Silhouette nicely sliced through the waves but not submerged into them. Instead she silkily came down after having hit a wave.
The design of the bow seems balanced; being sharp but with enough volume.
This volume in the bow helps also while surfing down a wave. And in the conditions today the Silhouette did not give any indication that she would like to loop on a steep wave.
I will have to find out later what happens in heavier surf. As the stern seems to have somewhat less volume, may be she could loop backwards. More on this will follow later.
I only capsized once while trying to push another kayak, floating around, to shore. Floating in shallow waters, I was not able to roll up. And as Anoushka was standing there, she simply turned me upright. Not a strange feeling as waves sometimes do the same: turn you upright before you even started to roll.
After this capsize, I tried at least 10 rolls, each of them very successful as the Silhouette rolls very quick and easy.
When not bending forward (while upside down) you can roll op bending more backwards, laying on the afterdeck when coming up. Or, when you do bend while rolling, you come up easily while doing the hipflick.
The layback in this kayak is very good as a result of a unique bulkhead and seat. The bulkhead is profiled for easy drainage of the cockpit. In this bulkhead profile a “bulb” is modelled which supports your lower back. Perfect: because now you don’t need a backband.
Exploring the stability of the Silhouette, I paddled for some time, more close to shore, parallel to the breaking waves. Most waves nicely passed underneath and only the strongest waves required some low-bracing: not too bad for such a nimble kayak.
Most seakayaks are not very manoeuvrable in waves. The Silhouette is no exception in this. Although the Silhouette is quite manoeuvrable, while edging strongly. On flat water this is shown clearly. But in the waves at the surfzone I was not yet familiar enough with this kayak to do so. And also because I need better knee-contact to do so. As Arnold nicely added a comfortable foam layer to the complete underside of the foredeck, it will not be easy to customise this deck to my knees.
About surfing I can tell that I made some very nice and fast rides, while still being able to control the kayak and change course.
Surfing parallel to the waves, in a bongo-slide, is also easy because it is easy to edge the kayak into the waves.
So these were my notes on the Silhouette in surf.
More will follow later. (I will also add in a short time pictures to this post)
To be continued.