Finally found some time to take the new Greenland Kayak out on the water for a couple of minutes.
My first impression is that I LOVE the fit. My earlier version of this kayak was surprisingly comfortable for a true Greenland shape, but this one is even better. It’s still a very snug low-volume kayak, but the combination of the new backrest design, the suspended seat, the new Masik shape, and my improved foot rest fitting system makes this the first Greenland kayak that I’d be happy to paddle all day.
We reshot the entire fitting section of the Greenland kayak building videos, so all that information is in the courses now.
Stability feels about right for this kind of boat. Not super stable like a modern sea kayak but comfortable and not tippy. It’s pretty easy to make it even more stable by adding secondary stringers, but I don’t personally do that because it cuts down the glide a bit.
One way to increase stability without reducing speed would be to spread the stringers so wide that the skin touches the ribs. This was common on the originals but not something we generally do today.
Paddling is nice. Beyond being reasonably quick it just has a nice overall boat feel that’s hard to quantify. It just feels good to be in. The big improvement on this kayak is that it edge turns incredibly well. I pushed a variety of shaping details to the absolute edge of what was done historically to get this performance and I’m hoping I can use it to my advantage in strong winds.
It’s not optimized for rolling but it rolls well. It’s easy enough to optimize for rolling however at the expense of performance in other areas.
Overall it just seems like a really nice early 20th century style West Greenland kayak that improves on comfort and performance without sacrificing historic shaping accuracy. I learned a lot redesigning this kayak and gained new insights into traditional Greenland kayaks that I hope to share at some point.
I think it’s a pretty good boat. Looking forward to getting it out in rough water. Plans coming soon.
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