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Arnold inspired me to customize his cockpit better. And so I did. I used foam to make the backrest more fluent without the rim pressing my tail-bone anymore. And for my knees I made some foamblocks as kneegrips and attached them with doublesided tape.
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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.
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Last weekend I spoke with Arnold and Stef; both paddling a Silhouet themselves. I asked them about their experiences regarding leecocking with the Silhouette.
Interesting to get the same answer in both occasions: "No, I don't have problems with that!"
Amazing, because I certainly noticed leecocking under certain conditions.
I experienced such answers before when asking owners for experiences with their kayaks. I guess this has something to do with being experienced, as well as having found ways to handle the certain behaviours of their kayaks.
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For today I asked Tiny to shoot pictures when rolling the Silhouette. I did let go two invitations for a paddle tour and for paddling in surf. But the weather was perfect for making pictures. Yeah, sometime you have to make choices.
The wind was blowing at 5 or 6 bft. and gave some additional information when paddling to our exercise spot. Because I was paddling in shallow water there were no significant waves and now the Silhouette started to weathercock a bit. But she was easy to correct. Tiny, paddling an AnasAcuta, did have much more weathercocking and used the skeg.
So I think the conclusion might be that the Silhouette weathercocks only slightly and can be easily controlled with paddlestrokes. Using the skeg will make correction even easier. When paddling in waves at sea the waves influence the weathercock-behaviour in a way that the balance between weather- and leecocking will move and change the performance of the Silhouette to a neutral behaviour or in strong winds into leecocking.
About the wet exercises I can not add much text, as I described this already after the swimming pool exercises.
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Thinking about what kayak to take with me on the club outing to the IJsselmeer (Durgerdam - Marken vv.) on 1 march didn't take long because I didn't paddle the Silhouette in quiet weather yet.
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Wednesday 25-02-09.
Due to ice, covering the inland waters, it's some time ago that I could make an evening workout. As tonight, when I arrived at the club, no members were present yet I took the Fjord and paddled her for an hour. I took the route just over the middle of the Alkmaardermeer. The wind blew with force 5Bft, arranging some nice waves for me.
At first I surfed with the wind pushing in my back from an angle, which is mostly a direction where weathercocking occurs. However with the variable skeg the Fjord could be perfectly trimmed to neutral. Only once I had to make a few corrective strokes to keep a straight course. At that time I did not realise I was surfing, causing the change of direction, because of the dark and invisible waves.
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I attended a tour at the 25th of January, organized by Hans Heupink for the NKB (Dutch kayak Association). We entered the area around the Hinderplaat (near Stellendam) that has been closed since this year. But in wintertime entering is allowed after consulting the authorities and with the restriction that the event is organized by one of the Dutch kayak-associations..
The weather conditions were not encouraging with a SE-wind of (6 to) 7Bft and a temp 1-5¢ªC. But since I wanted to test the Silhouette in real conditions, I am motivated to withstand the cold. As I used today a dry-suit for the first time, I really felt comfortably under these circumstances. These dry-suits should have existed 20 years before; thinking of all those days while changing clothes in bad weather.
Underneath I describe my observations and thoughts of today:
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Saturday a week ago I practised wet exercises with the Silhouette (Nigel Foster's) in the pool. I preferred, taking into account this time of the year, not to play around at sea but use a warmer environment . 
Underneath I would like to share my experiences:
Rolling.
Although the kayak did not have the foam-blocks for knee-support (of which I am a fan), I could roll easily.
I rolled in 2 ways: rolling while bending forward on coming up and using the hipflick and, the other way, rolling up while bending to the afterdeck.
Both methods worked fine, but especially while coming up on the afterdeck I was happy with the seat-construction featuring a bulb as back-support instead of the usual backband. This way of back-support was very pleasant for my lower-back, as my backbone was not punctured by the cockpit-rim anymore.
Rolling with the paddle extended is not my strongest technique, but in the pool I managed to come up without any effort.
In general you can say that the Silhouette can be rolled normally. I only know of a few other kayaks that are easier to roll.
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Arnold sent me this beautifull picture showing him paddling in surf at the beach near Parnassia in 2006.
It seems that in these steep waves the bow does not bury itself too much. Which fits with my experiences before.
Thx Arnold.
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When Hans phoned me if I was available for a tour, this turned out to be a win-win-situation as he was looking for an alternative for his deleted weekend-camp-kayak-tour and I was looking for an one-day opportunity to continue testing the Silhouette. I would like to mention that the pictures below were made by Hans Heupink: thx again Hans.
We thought that the weather&sea could be interesting as the wind had been blowing hard the night before.
We started at Springersdiep in Zeeland and we had a nice paddling day. Hans paddling his AnasAcuta being of the same hard-chine kayak-family as the Silhouette.
We expected a sea being rough, but at the moment we made our first paddlestrokes, the wind started "dying" till approx. 4-5Bft. 
