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A TAD CHILLY IN NOME
April 2001
A high-performance sit-on-top for warm-weather paddling.
By John Luck
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Among serious kayakers, the very words "sit-on-top kayak" elicit visions of tourists haplessly paddling rental boats in dismal circles on man-made lakes. Fair enough: Most sit-on-tops are short and squat with all the handling characteristics of 55-gallon drums. But while the Cobra Expedition kayak ($895;310-237-9216: www.cobrakayaks.com) with its alfresco seating, is technically a sit-on-top, it performs like a deck kayak. The Expedition's curved hull sits low in the water and its 17-foot, 5-inch length, combined with a svelte, 23.5-inch width, lets this boat easily outdistance its broader-in-the-beam, open-boat cousins. A one-way valve dumps any water you take on, and an optional foot-operated ruder lets you carve turns and, more important, adjust for quartering winds so you can concentrate on making headway. For epic voyages, the Expedition accommodates up to four hatches, complete with sub-marine-grade dogging clamps.
The fact is, sit-on-tops have a lot to offer: They don't induce claustrophobia, they're ideal for paddling in warm weather (you might as well install a pop-up oven thermometer on your conventional kayak when the sun's hammering down on you), they're easy to enter and exit in rolling surf, and you don't have to know how to perform a bombproof roll - simply right the boat and clamber back aboard if you get dumped.The biggest knock against open-decks has been their instability in rough water. Flat hulls, with their inherent initial stability, tend to reassure novice boaters, but the lack of secondary stability (which would let you lean into a wave or a swell and stay upright) can capsize you mousetrap-quick.
Undaunted, I took
the Cobra out
on the Chesapeake
Bay in small-craft
warnings, the
wind whipping
the halyards of
docked sailboats
into a clanging
frenzy. Suddenly
I found myself
broadside to a
wind-driven wave,
instinctively
gulping air for
the impeding plunge.
It never came.
Cinched in with
thigh straps,
I hip-snapped
the Cobra upright
- a feat I never
could have accomplished
with a conventional
sit-on-top kayak.
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www.cobrakayaks.com
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