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.