Having not paddled the Romany S rm before, the evening of 8 Oct. was an ideal occasion to collect my first paddling experiences with this kayak and to get used to her.
Conditions were very mild on the Alkmaarder-lake (NL: Alkmaardermeer): 8okt 2008, 20.00 h, wind 1-2Bft, no waves above 10cm.
Stability
When fumbling around in the dark to close the zipper of my jacket, while leaving the club, I completely forgot I was sitting in a kayak. Maybe that tells something about the stability.
Edging the kayak felt very natural and did not give you any unstable feelings. In fact the capsizing point is very far away.
Directional stability
Paddling on the moonlight shone mirror-like lake, the Romany S paddled straight ahead. And when I dropped the adjustable skeg it felt like the kayak tracks on rails. Even when I initiated a turn with a sweepstroke, supported by edging, the kayak indicated she would like to return to her original course.
When changing course without using the skeg the Romany S responded very quickly on sweepstrokes and edging. I like this combination, making it possible to choose which directional stability you need in a certain situation.
Sit position.
Honestly I missed the backband only a bit. But I must say that the muscles of your lower back must be in shape to keep your body upright. That’s not a wrong situation, but looking around I see these days that most people does not succeed in keeping the backbone straight. So I can imagine that there are people who would like to have a backband installed behind the seat.
About the grip of my knees I can tell I was not happy at all. My knees did not fit well in the deck-bubbles where my knees were supposed to find grip. The combination of feet-position on the foot-brace-rail, leg-position and the deck-bubbles being a bit far forward for my knees, resulted in the feeling that my knees will not automatically stay in this position if required. In rough conditions this could certainly lead to loose control of the kayak because my knees will slip out of position whenever I relax a bit. I will have to investigate if it is possible to customise the deck and foot-brace to realise a more reliable contact between the kayak and me. It must be said that this comment on knee-grip is based on my legs and cannot be translated to your experiences.
Because of this lack of knee-grip I am just happy now that I was ill last Sunday (a day with 8Bft-winds), because I did plan to join the tour with Hans Heupink and paddling the Romany S.
Furthermore I admired the possibility for layback on the afterdeck. This is perfect and I just could lay flat on the deck and lay there for minutes without stability problems and without breaking my backbone.
Foot-brace
As I wrote above this is a rail with the foot-braces mounted adjustable on it. It looks a bit like the old J&R-foot-braces. The foot-braces on this Romany were a bit different however and had a locking device to secure the adjusted position. The drawback is that it is not possible anymore to slide the braces with hand or feet while sitting in the kayak, like you could with J&R.
Cockpit rim
As I wrote before the cockpit-rim of this PE-kayak is made from polyester; which is an advantage for the staying in place of the spray-skirt.
This turned out to be completely true as I just used an old club spray-skirt, which I could apply without problems.
Speed
I succeeded in paddling an exercise pace with this kayak, but I realised that this is not a fast kayak. That was proofed later this evening when I did a little competition paddling with Anoushka and Wieger. Before, while competing in my Fjord (not a very fast kayak either) with Wieger in his Xcite, I won but now I had to let him go.
[To be continued]