tandem touring kayaks

[Gam]

Anybody know anything about these? I've got the hots for black water rivers, and swamps, estuaries, and paddling to barrier islands. I went to REI and stared at them and scratched my head. Most of theirs were "recreational" kyaks, they all had these big open cockpits, which would be just fine for everything except going to those barrier islands, they may be fine for that with a spray skirt, I dunno. Do you roll those things or just kick out?

[brad nicholson]

You can roll them but it obviously takes a little practice! The benefit with a tandem is that you have not to look for someone else with a boat to go, anyone of your backpacking buddies can go along. Also you can easily knock down some damn long passages...look at Sea-Kayaking by Dowd great book well written by a climber-kayaker.

[Jay H]

Not sure if this applies to tandem kayaks but I know from looking at single Sit-In Kayaks, that recreational kayaks tend to be wider in the beam than traditional touring/sea kayaks. They would allow more for things like fishing/diving from a kayak or for photography, whereas touring kayaks would typically be narrower given the same length more geared for going places easily and quickly.

Jay

[Gam]

Yeah I have a Kiwi which is a little recreational Kyak, use it for fishing rivers up to about class two, it will take a classe three, but I don't have a spray skirt for it. Don't much like anything over class two in a kayak, while I have a great roll when on a lake or in a swimming pool, it seems to go away when I actually need it.