There is an organization called TAPS (Trade Association of Paddle Sports) that does a famous "West Coast Kayak Symposium" every year in Port Townsend Washington state. Kayak manufacurers bring thousands of boats and let you try them out in the water. Famous kayakers come and give classes on various aspects of kayaking, like rolling or the forward stroke. I have never been able to justify driving to Port Townsend to attend this, but many BASK kayakers have made the pilgrimage. Last year, TAPS decided to try having one of these symposiums in the San Francisco Bay Area and I was still unable to attend. This year I was the president of BASK and in charge of organizing a club booth at this symposium, called the "Bay Area Paddlefest". So I finally got to attend!
By begging other members of BASK to come and help hold down the booth, (in return for free tickets), I was able to wander up and down the beach and try out boats. The choices are overwhelming. I ended up only trying five or six of the thousand boats available. I stuck with short boats that looked like they were designed for day trips close to shore, like my Coaster.
I tried a boat called the Viking that handled a lot like a Coaster, but did not have as much volume in the bow. It did, however, have a skeg which I thought would have been especially useful on my recent trip in Humboldt county. A skeg is a sort of fixed rudder or adjustable keel that you can drop down to change the way a boat behaves in wind. This allows a boat to track straight in any direction in windy conditions.
Dagger is a company that has started making kayaks with integrated rudders. Instead of a rudder that hangs off the tail of the boat, an integrated rudder looks like they cut out a notch in the tail of the kayak and articulated it in place to serve as a rudder. The cables to turn this rudder are inside the boat instead of outside. Cables outside the boat catch on things, including your hands when you are in the water trying to get back in your boat. I thought internal cables and an integrated rudder was an excellent idea and wanted to try one out. I tried a boat called the Soloquist and liked it a lot. Unfortunately, I have learned to handle the Coaster which is designed to work without a rudder. I discovered that I could turn the Soloquist the same way, and didn't need the rudder at all! I decided that if I wanted a larger touring boat, I would rather just get a skeg for dealing with wind. A rudder can compensate for wind also, but it is unnecessarily complicated, in my humble opinion.
Prijon makes a plastic boat called the Klondike Explorer that is designed for river kayakers who want to carry more camping gear with them. It is an interesting hybrid that is rounded like a river kayak but is larger with bulkheads and hatches fore and aft. The hatches are designed to be flush with the hull so the boat cannot snag on rocks or branches in a river. There is a lot of volume in the bow of the boat, suggesting that it will surf well in the ocean. The volume left lots of room for people with big feet and this made it comfortable to sit in. The boat has an extra heavy hull like a river boat, so it can bounce off rocks in the current of a river without damage. Despite the rounded hull shape this boat turned nicely when I edged it. This is unlike a normal river boat which is difficult to paddle in a straight line in calm water. I could get this boat to go where I wanted it to go! If I didn't already have a Coaster, I would want to have one of these boats to bang around in rock gardens in the ocean!
On Saturday afternoon I had volunteered to be a "safety boater" for the symposium. This meant paddling around the edges of the area and rescuing people who fell out of the demo boats. I assisted in only two rescues in two days. The "safety boaters" were also responsible for suggesting that people keep the demo boats close to shore. Several boats got up and paddled away permanently despite our patrol. I saw two kayaks heading around the point at one time and zoomed off to intercept. They stopped when I shouted and waited for me to catch up, then explained that they were in their own boats. One of the boats had promotional stickers all over it and lettering saying that this was the "Urban Eskimo Kayaker". I discovered that I was talking to Michael Falconari, the famous kayaker who paddled past Humboldt County a few weeks before I did on his way to paddle around the entire USA. He saw my Greenland paddle and asked if I knew some tricks with it. I demonstrated my extended roll and a one-handed roll. He borrowed my paddle and demonstrated a backwards roll (sweeping from the back of the boat towards the front). I have since tried to reproduce this and have been unable to figure it out, even when in a warm swimming pool with my dive goggles on. The other kayaker in this pair turned out to be Chris Duff, who paddled solo around England and Scotland, then returned recently to paddle solo around Ireland. He has written a book about the circumnavigation of Ireland ("On Celtic Tides") and I am currently reading that book! Both Chris and Mike were teaching classes at the symposium.
Maryly took a rolling class from Chris and was able to roll her sea kayak after only a couple one hour sessions! Mike was teaching classes on rescues, (getting back in your boat). Both of these classes were things I already felt comfortable with, so I didn't end up taking a class from either of these guys. Instead I concentrated on forward stroke classes and took on and off-the-water classes from Brent Reitz and Greg Barton. These are both internationally famous kayak racers, with Olympic Gold medals in Greg's case. Brent has been responsible for revolutionizing how recreational paddlers move their boats in the water, using ideas from racing to make the rest of us paddle more efficiently even when we are not in a hurry.