Super informative day on the water yesterday. I had the opportunity to launch the new 140 pound size LPB and paddle it next to my 165 pound flat-deck sail-modified F1 and a plastic Valley Gemini.
The Gemini belongs to Jessi, an avid Seattle area kayaker who built an LPB last year and is planning an F1 build as a lighter alternative to her Gemini.
I never automatically assume that my kayaks are better than anyone else’s so I invited her down to spend some time in an F1 to make sure she actually wanted one!
My ulterior motive is that I’m currently building a custom F1 for a Gemini owner in the bay area and I wanted to spend some time in that boat to inform my choices on his build.
With a few notable exceptions there are no bad sea kayaks, just compromises, so there’s always a lot to like about any kayak. At 5’8” and 160 pounds I find the Gemini to be a little snugger than I’d want for an entire day in the cockpit, but it has a nice fit with no obvious deficiencies. It flat spins just as well as an F1, although edge turns didn’t have the same crisp surgical precision. I can’t speak to cruising efficiency or speed until I upload the GPS data, but as a flatter boxier boat, it’s probably a little bit less efficient and a lot less efficient with a touring load. If it weighed the same it would accelerate just as fast as an F1 though.
On the positive side that boxy shape should make this a great little roller. Having forgotten my hood and just experienced a severe ice cream headache in the LPB I didn’t try to roll it but I’m certain that I could hand roll this boat which I can’t do with the F1.
I wish we’d had some wind and waves so I could compare weathercocking and surfing. The F1 is pretty hard to beat in those conditions but as sea kayak design advances, there’s always a chance that somebody will come up with something better.
Finally as usual I love the plastic. I’ve never actually put a hole in a skin boat in 20 years of coastal paddling but has a former whitewater guy there’s just something about plastic that makes me wanna go crash into stuff! Out of space, more tomorrow…
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