Kayaks

[txaggie08]

I'm a little confused why the cobra fish and dive hasn't been mentioned multiple times yet. by far the most stable and best weight rated kayak on the market today.

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/hawaii-ohana/243718-molokini-kayak-dive.html

I prefer double yak's. With all my dive gear in the front it rides pretty much like when I take a gf snorkeling. Malibu 2's are wide, stable and track across wind very well. My older FeelFree Gemini turns a little more into the wind than I remember the Malibu, but I'm OK with slightly turning into a wind.

I had a Frenzy, and I'd call it a tank well in back, but the bungies are "too" secure so I often just wore the gear out to the dive, then throw it in back for return.

Cobra's are heavier from my experience; the double I occasionally use is too heavy for many divers to handle by them self.

 

[Tropicalwolf]

There are quite a few exellent "sit on tops" that have good storage and adequate weight limits suitable for diving. Most are inexpensive as well. I wouldn't shell out too much since diving from a yak can cause a lot of abuse.

 

[Peter_C]

I'm a little confused why the cobra fish and dive hasn't been mentioned multiple times yet. by far the most stable and best weight rated kayak on the market today.

Fat and stable equals slow...very slow.

 

[danvolker]

Fat and stable equals slow...very slow.

Exactly....I used to use a 19 foot long racing surfski to freedive off of....It could average close to 7 mph for an hour paddle...these can actually be made with a tank well in the back....the whole surfski weighs about 40 pounds, and is narrow like a knife..

On big swells a mile offshore, a following sea can let you ride waves for many mintes, going more like 12 to 15 mph.

Down side is the moment you stop paddling, the stability is LOST. You really don't want to even tip your head to one side
However, I have heard of people putting an outrigger on them, creating a stable platform for gearing up.

SFDJ ( old article on the surfski for diving)

 

[txaggie08]

Slow= work on paddling technique. I've done 10 miles both round trip at a perfectly reasonable pace. you dont need to paddle at 4million miles an hour to fish or dive from. I'd MUCH rather have a stable platform than a tippy boat, especially for someone over 200# or 6+ feet tall

 

[fjpatrum]

Slow= work on paddling technique. I've done 10 miles both round trip at a perfectly reasonable pace. you dont need to paddle at 4million miles an hour to fish or dive from. I'd MUCH rather have a stable platform than a tippy boat, especially for someone over 200# or 6+ feet tall

Spoken like a true "tough guy". Paddling technique has very little to do with speed in a boat like you mentioned. The size is just not compatible with a reasonable speed, especially over long distances. Of course "reasonable" has a wide variation for different people.

You may not need to paddle fast but if your dive location is significantly far from shore, or far from easy access, being able to paddle faster than you crawl is a good thing.

YMMV and all that, but I'd much rather have a faster boat than a slow stable one. Personally, if I lived in a place suitable for kayak diving I'd build a very light-weight skin-on frame kayak suitable for my gear and have the best of both. Fast and stable, not to mention ridiculously cheap.

 

[txaggie08]

I have friends that fish 15+ mile through the breakers offshore in cobras on a weekly basis in the summer. If you're paddling farther than that in a kayak to dive, you might want to re-evaluate how you're getting on site.

"Slow" is a completely relative term, the hull speed on that boat with even a moderatley in shape paddler at about 325-350# load out is maybe 2mph slower than most 13ft SOT yaks. The boat will take a legitimate 650# load out.


There's nothing "tough guy" about it. I've spent the summer fishing out of a kayak. After having a "fast" boat dump me two miles off shore, and then be so unstable I ended up tangled in a man o war after multiple re-entries failed, I'll paddle for an extra twenty minutes to not loose everything I own when the first sub 2-foot roller bowls me out. I've stood up and casted in my cobra in in light chop and wind, and been in 2 foot rolling seas with absolutely ZERO instability.

 

[fjpatrum]

I have friends that fish 15+ mile through the breakers offshore in cobras on a weekly basis in the summer. If you're paddling farther than that in a kayak to dive, you might want to re-evaluate how you're getting on site.

"Slow" is a completely relative term, the hull speed on that boat with even a moderatley in shape paddler at about 325-350# load out is maybe 2mph slower than most 13ft SOT yaks. The boat will take a legitimate 650# load out.

There's nothing "tough guy" about it. I've spent the summer fishing out of a kayak. After having a "fast" boat dump me two miles off shore, and then be so unstable I ended up tangled in a man o war after multiple re-entries failed, I'll paddle for an extra twenty minutes to not loose everything I own when the first sub 2-foot roller bowls me out. I've stood up and casted in my cobra in in light chop and wind, and been in 2 foot rolling seas with absolutely ZERO instability.

Your comment about stability sounds, to me, more like a technique problem than the speed issue is. See, it's all relative to your own comfort and needs, really.

I have absolutely zero need for 650# worth of anything in a boat I'm planning on paddling. Put an engine on it and I might consider carrying that much weight. Maybe. Otherwise, even with me and the biggest person I know, that's over 250# of extra gear. I know some doubles setups are are 100+ pounds but I suspect most divers won't need anywhere near that much cargo capacity.

 

[danvolker]

Slow= work on paddling technique. I've done 10 miles both round trip at a perfectly reasonable pace. you dont need to paddle at 4million miles an hour to fish or dive from. I'd MUCH rather have a stable platform than a tippy boat, especially for someone over 200# or 6+ feet tall

A surfski is not tippy when you paddle, unless you don't know how to paddle.....It is just when you are not paddling or not bracing.
Like I said, an outrigger or what is called a sponson ( I think) would render it stable when gearing up, or even when a poor paddler is doing everything wrong....

So the deal is, lets say you just want to take your time....with the surfski, you could paddle and coast for 10 seconds while a guy in a cobra or a scrambler had to paddle once per second just to keep up with your mostly coasting pace