Subject: RE: baidarka Inuit boat plans - any firsthand experience?
From: wayne steffens (wsteffen@mr.net)
Date: Thu May 04 2000 - 15:22:09 EDT
At 11:00 AM 5/4/00 -0500, you wrote:
>john Winters wrote:
>
>Probably the most overlooked fact in searching for a boat. So many people
>pick a boat based on some one else's subjective assesment of the boat
>rather
>than using quantitative information to help them in making their selection.
>
>
>Since most of use can not demo a native design before we build it, using
>other peoples opinions is about the only thing we got to go by, as
>imperfect as that is.
>
>Sea Kayaker reviews are mostly opinions and impressions, other boat and car
>magazine reviews are no different, movie and restaurant reviews, etc. you
>name it. Are home made kayaks so different? Are you guys being too
>snobbish to help us out, come on, give it a try. Instead of making a bunch
>of technical objections just try it and let us make our choices at our own
>risk, at least we would have something more to go on than we have now!
Yeah, but those reviews are written for money by people who like to hear
themselves talk. Here you have experienced paddlers who dont want to risk
giving someone misleading information.
Peter, you live near a number of places where you can try out a variety of
commercial boats. Why not try as many as you can yourself, and then compare
their designs to various Inuit designs and decide from there what you might
like? You can go to Northwest Outdoor Center in Seatle and paddle a
smorgasboard of boats for something like $10 half day (7-8 years ago). then
you can go upstairs and try out some of the designs at Mariner. Closer to
home you have Eddyline. Once you've paddled a variety of designs you'll
have a much better idea whats good for YOU. Personally, I wouldnt recommend
a design to build to anyone unless they had that kind of on the water
experience. When you've done that you'll have a much better idea whether a
Copper kayak or an Umiak is the boat for you.
Wayne
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