My Favorite Kayak

 

 

 

I started kayaking about 18 years ago. Over those years I have had a fun hobby of buying used kayaks, refurbishing them as necessary, paddling them for some time, and then selling to try the next boat. I have paddled many different sea kayaks from manufacturers such as North Shore (before the Valley takeover), Mariner, Sterling, NDK/SKUK, Valley, Necky, P&H, Seaward, Current Designs, Boreal Design, etc.

No kayak is perfect for any user nor for every purpose. For example, a very nimble and maneuverable kayak could be perfect for rock gardening, but will likely be a poor choice for an expedition. Personally, I prefer a skeg to a rudder, but if I were into expedition journeys and camping along the way, I would opt for a rudder. The paddler’s skill level is also a crucial factor. For my skill level and choice of paddling location, I have a favorite – yet other kayaks I have owned (e.g. NDK Explorer) would come close.

I am not a highly skilled paddler, nor adventuresome. I am a small person, ~140 pounds and 5’ 5” in height ... continuing to shrink as appropriate for a person born in 1940. Nowadays I only take day trips and accrue merely 200 nautical miles each season. I have a favorite kayak from the long list of kayaks I have tried, not an overwhelming favorite, but nonetheless a favorite. It is the Boreal Design Ellesmere (red deck rather than that in the picture above). I have owned 2 of these over the years and currently have the Kevlar version. Its specifications:

• Bow, stern, and day hatch

• Skeg

• 17’ x 22”

• Depth 12”

• Weight 47 pounds

• Keyhole cockpit 16” x 30”

This kayak is similar to several of the kayaks I have owned. I am a bit small for this kayak, but have padded it with minicell foam to fit well.

The Ellesmere is reasonably fast and, since I am a slow paddler, it provides a nice compromise. The semi-useful and crude Sound Rowers Classification for the Ellesmere is 9.0. It seems to want at least a bit of skeg, which is deployed via a dial – which I rather like. Even with rolling practice, this kayak doesn’t seem to have leaks via the hatches nor the skeg box. My first Ellesmere had a rather intrusive skeg box, but this later version has a smaller skeg box which doesn’t take up nearly as much space in the stern hatch.

Among my least favorite kayaks, two stand out – a Sterling Ice Kap and a Boreal Design Pakesso. To be fair, the Sterling was a demo model perhaps prior to further development and ultimate release, but it was incredibly eager to weathercock. The Pakesso was the rudder version, and tracked very poorly – poor even for a short kayak.

Rolling Practice

I've tried rolling practice on 2 occasions this last week. Last year, I had zero luck reestablishing a decent roll. However, on today's practice I had modest luck and am inordinately encouraged. I had a decent roll, maybe 10 years ago for a season, but lost it. At age 84+, will I find it again? Maybe.

The kayak I have been using is the new-to-me Boreal Design Ellesmere, a model I used to roll consistently during that long ago season.  So far (including the occasional wet exit) the hatches do not leak water. I think I'll keep this kayak until I'm done with the sport. Note that it's difficult to find a nursing home that provides kayak storage. 

The Ellesmere Comes to Sandpoint

 

We brought the Boreal Design Ellesmere back from Plains, MT. The drive between Sandpoint and Plains is very pretty, following along the Clark Fork River. It takes a leisurely two-plus hours. There is a short stretch west of Plains where one must drive more slowly because of the occasional presence of bighorn mountain sheep. We did not see any on this trip, but have in the past. 

Initial questions to settle: 

Q1. Will I need to adjust the seat back, as I must often do?

Q2. Is it too big for me? Maybe I need to pad it.

Fresh Answers:

A1. I did need to adjust the seat back, using minicell foam so my back could be well supported when sitting erect. I crushed a disk in my lower back many years ago and a supportive seat back is crucial.

A2. It is a bit big for me, so I padded the hull interior at my hips.

What else did I find? I also padded the hull interior further forward, so my knees had enough contact to attempt rolling. And since I like a keel strip, I installed a 2" wide strip of EazyKeel. I've used this product before and have found it quite adequate for the kind of paddling I do e.g. no barnacle encrusted landings, rather on sand or non jagged stones.

The kayak behavior was more or less as expected. The Ellesmere seems to crave at least a wee bit of skeg. Perhaps I will load the stern more heavily to judge the effect. At slightly below 140 pounds, I may be lighter than the kayak expects. I do like the 'dial' used to deploy the rope skeg. 

I am no longer a camper, but the kayak has plenty of room for packing gear. In particular, unlike some of the skeg kayaks I have owned, this skeg box is quite small so the rear hatch has more usable room than I expected. My prior Ellesmere had a more intrusive skeg box.

How light is the kayak? Boreal Design specified this kevlar version at 46 pounds. I haven't actually weighed it, but probably will when the time comes to sell it.  Supposedly some vendors weigh a kayak without deck lines, seat & seat back, and hatch covers. I don't think that is true in this case. It feels to be somewhere in the 40 to 50 pound area.

Is the kayak fast? My prior Ellesmere provided my fastest time in the now defunct Sand Creek Challenge. That was 12 years ago and my paddling speed is significantly slower now.  Can I keep up with a group? Only when I am solo, a rather small group.

As of today I am precisely 84.5 years old. This is likely the last kayak I will buy as my primary kayak. However, I may want a wooden kayak so my wife can shoot flaming arrows at me to provide a Viking funeral. She is clearly motivated and her practice has been going well.

 

Boreal Design Ellesmere

In the last article, I related how I discovered that the Boreal Design Pakesso would happily leecock and was resistant to changing its ways - so I returned it to the seller. I had a Boreal Design Ellesmere when in my mid 70s and quite liked it. I was hoping that the Pakesso would be a smaller version of the Ellesmere - not so!

As it turns out, there was a Kevlar Ellesmere in Somers, MT. Rather far to drive, but the owner was willing to meet me in Plains, MT only a 2 hour drive. So on the day prior to kayak pick up, my wife and I will drive to Hot Springs, MT (near Plains) to stay at the Symes Hotel. We had stayed at Symes in the deep past, quite the funky establishment. The next day we will meet the Ellesmere seller in Plains.

So what will be my experience, returning to an Ellesmere? My current favorite kayak is my composite CD Squamish, essentially because of its light weight and good behavior. But the Squamish is slow. As a very crude measure of potential speed, I note that the Sound Rowers classification ranks the Squamish at 7.3 and the Ellesmere at 9.0. The Squamish does not weathercock at speeds below 10 knots, but my recollection of the Ellesmere is that it wants a bit of skeg. 

The adventure will continue. 

The Pakesso

On May 27, 2025 I purchased a used Boreal Design Pakesso. Pakesso is the Abenaki name for the partridge aka the ruffed grouse - not sure why a waterfowl was not chosen. Here are the specifications:

Length: 14' 6" (441.5 cm) - the shortest kayak I have used
Width: 21.6" (55 cm)
Height: 15.2" (38.7 cm) - hmm, room for big feet
Weight: 38.8 lbs (17.6 kg) 

Maximum capacity: 260 lbs (118 kg)
Outer cockpit dimensions: 16” x 30” (40.5 x 76 cm)

Serial No. QBOPK614M03J

The latter suggests that the kayak was born around 2003. It is swede form, rudder (not skeg), with fore and aft hatches. The less ancient Pakesso kayaks provide a skeg and day hatch by default. Although I like a day hatch, this kayak seems too short for that feature. In particular, it is trivial to stick my kayak cart in the rear hatch; otherwise with a skeg box that would be problematic. For its length, this kayak has quite a bit of water length.

The rudder control is via the justly derided sliding foot pegs. Yet the skeg deployment system is easily repaired in the field. Since this would be our guest kayak, I am unlikely to move to a Sea Dog system or some other fixed accelerator style foot peg - as I did for my wife's Necky IV Looksha.

My only other Boreal Design kayak was an Ellesmere, which was a splendid kayak. Nowadays kayak models come and go, also true of the original companies. This is true of Boreal Design in both cases.  

So, in an optimistic frame of mind, I took the Pakesso for a drive on Sand Creek. For starters, the skirt fit the boat ... but the tunnel was too narrow to fit me. I am not slender, but at 5' 5" and under 140 pounds, I am not plump. I should have checked the fit! No big deal, but how did the kayak behave? Yikes, it leecocked fiercely; so back to shore to load the kayak as stern heavy as I could. That helped marginally, but it remains a somewhat dangerous kayak. Well, back to the seller.

 

Start of 2025 Kayak Season

On May 2, I made my first day trip of the current season starting from Sandpoint's 3rd Avenue Pier. Generally I don't take photos, and this one of a Western Grebe was downloaded from the Internet. It was a sunny, calm day, with Fahrenheit temperatures in the low to mid seventies. 

Among the birds I encountered, these were the most notable:

• a large flock of Western Grebes in the bay south of Condo del Sol 
• a scattering of Buffleheads
• Coots (probably)
• Mallards
• Geese with goslings
• many osprey cruising Sand Creek
• swallows and killdeer

Although I saw no mergansers, a friend saw many near Hope. In spring the grebes migrate through on their way to somewhere else, typically hanging out in the aforementioned bay. Just a few remain for the summer. As a paddler approaches the grebes, they flee by diving; whereas the coots run across the water before finally lifting off or else settling on the water further away. 

As expected, my left shoulder was dismayed by the paddling. Hopefully, it will come around. However, my back was reasonably happy. The next day I was still tired, despite only covering ~6.3 nautical miles, but at age 84 and puny that is acceptable.

I paddled solo in my composite CD Squamish, using a Nimbus Chinook, my preferred paddle.

 

Refurbishing the NDK Explorer

I have more or less finished fixing up the elderly Romany Explorer. It was already quite sound, but there were a few things left to do.

I drilled a hole in the skeg and attached a line to aid a paddling companion to free your jammed skeg while on the water. I've only used such an aid once in nearly 20 years, but it was very useful at that point and is an easy modification to implement. I next filled the holes in the front bulkhead with well nuts. They can be removed to reinstall the foot pump, which I stored. The blemishes on the hull were small and easily repaired, but need to be smoothed and gel coat applied. The gel coat should show up next week.

The deck mounted tow rope was already set up to install except for the rope itself i.e cam cleat and fairlead bullseye. For the tow rope I used a stout bright blue rope and added a short section of shock cord. I'll need to try it out, having only used a waist mounted tow rope myself. I very rarely require using a tow rope, but when needed it can be crucial - or at least helpful.

I used minicell foam to support the back band and attached the preexisting NDK back band to that. This isn't even semi-permanent because I must try it out to see if my old back injury likes it. I may need to modify it.

The compass rotates smoothly, but seems confused about finding north. This is not resolved, but I have a strap-on compass which works fine.  

I have neither named nor weighed the kayak. At the moment, I have it on Craigslist. Nevertheless I may keep it and then give it a name. I'll likely weigh it next week, once the gel coat is applied.