hi friend,
compared to my T160, it's not noticeably faster until I'm cruising with my buddy in his Revo 16 in Mirage Go.
It keeps up without inordinate effort, and my T160 is close but won't quite get there.
Where you really notice the difference on this boat is picking it up - it's nothing to single-hand.
yangjianhunt wrote:I am learning a lot from your rigging . Beautiful, neat, and thorough rigging.
Also the Kestrel 140 SOT has been one of my dream SOT kayak. 24'' wide, 14' long, super light Kevlar material, extremely fast for SOT, super fishable too. It's just near impossible nowadays to find a used one.
I was wondering how much faster do you find this kayak?
Me drooling...
If you really want one of these boats, CD will make you one. I had to contact them with questions about the hull construction and whether the sealed pad eyes were backed with nyloks before they installed the sealed bulkheads.
I was very happy to find my boat at TG in San Marcos, and she at CD mentioned they'll still make you one custom.
Thanks for your kind comments.
I found something I didn't like in my rigging - my front trolley attachment causes the webbing to cry uncle and rotate on its mounting bolt. Since the webbing mounting bolts are accessible through the front hatch, they're easy to remove the backing and replace.
I'm going to solve that with one of 2 fixes making a new mount for the front scotty clip - trying both - a D-ring on a single-fastener plate installed as a washer,
![Image](https://i.imgur.com/VOzmCgf.jpg?1)
Since this is 1/8" hole, I'll have to drill it open to 3/16" to accept the M5 - a nice thing is I have a box of M5 bicycle fasteners to pick from.
or shouldered M5 eye-bolt+washer replacing the webbing mount M5 panhead
![Image](https://i.imgur.com/WMdmhyn.jpg?1)
Another nice thing about ebay, piecemeal small parts like this are sold and shipped for very reasonable prices. Just imagine what you need, and go hunting. I even started at Bolt Depot and, as good as they are, they didn't have any eye bolts smaller than 1/4"/M6. Found both stainless options by googling "deck eye images" and clicking on what looked right, which linked me to ebay sellers.
I'll post the final solution this weekend.
Since I had never showed under the front hatch cover, here it is - it's sealed amazingly well, with the same primary hatch cover and tension band as the rear hatch -
- of course the one webbing strap is removed.
![Image](https://i.imgur.com/OUT8OA4.jpg)
I mentioned this boat was bought as a demo - no one has been inside this front hatch. I was afraid there was water inside it, but turned out to be excess resin (more likely catalyst) from when the hull was laid.
I cleaned it out with a sponge and denatured alcohol, and the resin smell is filling the garage today.
Next time out, my icemule is going into this hatch, to help counter the weight of me in the seat, especially since the sternwell will carry more (light) gear when I go fishing.
There's a beauty ABS Eddyline Caribe 14 in the for sale forum - maybe not quite as light, but fast and more stable.