Yesterday I joined the club KVU playing in surf at the coast near Bakkum.
As I am reviewing the Romany-S, I took this kayak for today.
Circumstances at sea were a bit rough as the tide was lowering in combination with a NW-wind that was blowing at 4-5Bft for some time already .
The results were steep dumping waves. At first I had been accompanying a member who wanted to stay closer to shore. But when I was going to accompany the other members, who were at the outer banks, I could not reach them anymore as the dumping waves were grown so strong that they let me flipping backwards on every attempt.
If this flipping backwards is a characteristic of the Romany-S or that it’s just the waves during this session, I don’t know yet. So I will have to go for another surfing session to investigate this. 
While flipping backwards, the kayak was still under control as I made high braces and was able to land safely on the bottom. Most times! The other times I had to roll back up.
Rolling was not a problem at all, as this kayak is easy to roll.
An hour later, when the tide was lowered a bit already, the dumping became less and I could make some beautiful rides.
On the front of a wave this kayak is manoeuvrable enough for fun with a seakayak in surf.
Only when you want to make a quick 180° turn to catch an approaching wave in front of you that’s not so easy of course: Most seakayaks are not able to spin like a whitewater kayak. But when catching a strong wave more or less sideways it was possible in most occasions to turn the kayak while surfing it. By leaning backwards it is not necessary to sit out a broach because most times it is possible to turn.
As the sea was quite rough, this was an perfect occasion to experience the stability of the Romany-S.
To begin with I must explain that I did not feel completely at home in this kayak because it was not tailor-fitted to me yet. The only adjustment I made was sliding a foottube over the JR-footrests for better and more reliable foot-contact. But hip- and knee-contact were not optimal for me. Nevertheless I did not experience any stability problems . Honestly, taking into account that the kayak was not tailor-fitted, I think the stability was very good without the unstable feeling after piercing a braking wave or when passing some crossing waves
Looking at the Romany-S more technical I was not completely happy with the seat. The kayak was outfitted with a new seat-model which does not need, according to NDK, a backband anymore. Looking at the seat this seams logical because the seat runs high up at the backside thus giving some back-support while making layback possible as well.
The only issue is that you need probably more volume, than I have, in your own body at your "sitting-parts". After adjustment of the footrest in a way to create proper foot- and back-contact as well, I sat too far back on the seat and the blocks that should provide hip-contact were pressing somewhere in my upper legs. This does not feel very comfortable. The only way to improve is to glue in more foam at the back-end of the seat. Probably this will work, but with the drawback that you can land on this foam-pack while entering the cockpit from the afterdeck.
But with the seat as I paddled it this time, I missed the backband too much to feel at home. Next time I will have to try how a foamblock will help. Or otherwise I will have to use a backband.
As I was at first somewhat critical about the kneegrip, I should also write about this.
Looking at the scene of a rough sea with dumping waves were I was completely shuffled sometimes, I can say that I did not meet any problems or close encounters because of the kneegrip: My knees stayed just in the place where they should be. I think that the improved feetcontact, with the tube over the JR-footrests, also made my kneecontact more reliable.
Adding some more foam in the back of the seat could not only result in better hipcontact, as described above, but could also improve kneecontact more because I will sit more forward: as described in the first post about the Romany-S my knees thus will fit exactly in the kneebubbles (I hope) in the deck.
So next time, paddling the Romany-S, I will investigate this issue. I am curious if a more forward sitting-position will influence the characteristics of the kayak. The result could be that the kayak starts weatercocking a bit. But looking at the neutral characteristics, this can not be very disastrous. We'll see.
A more technical issue is the watertightness. In front- and back compartment I did not note any leakage: not one-drop water to be found.
In the dayhatch however I found half a litre of water, which was enough to soak my bread in the lunchbox I put in there. As I did have water in the cockpit, leaked in between sprayskirt and my waist, it could be that the water passed the foam-bulkhead. I will investigate later if the bulkhead aft of the seat is watertight or that I did not close the hatch in the proper way.
(To be continued.)