North Bay Owners???

Have a chance to trade My P&H for a North Bay.I wanted to see If any one has paddled one in rough water and coean.I am 5'11" but only weigh in at about 145.That looks like a real nice responsive hull,and a good roller.

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RE: North Bay Owners???

I built and used a North Bay, and was generally quite pleased with it. It was fast, rolled easily and was responsive and fun to paddle. Stability was fine in flat water, but could be very nervous in confused chop. It did weathercock a bit, but that was usually controllable by leaning the hull to one side.

The major issue I had with mine was surfing, which it did not want to do. It would relentlessly try to broach. {I'm talking about waves in Puget Sound, some of them decent sized, not long swells in the open ocean} I theorize that a retractable skeg, perhaps mounted not too far aft of the cockpit, would have been very useful.

Two other issues - the centerline stringer supporting the back deck also makes installing a skeg or hatch there problematic. And, the designed access to the fore and aft compartments is solely through screw plates in the bulkheads.

Here's an only slightly distorted pic of the one I built. Feel free to contact me if you have more questions.North Bay kayak

RE: North Bay Owners???

Thanks Dave,

Would Love to chat.Just picked Mine up.Looking into hatches at this piont.Still too cold to work outside though.I have been looking at a few skeg kits.Olny thing I dont like about the CLC id it sticks all the wat above deck surface,I do a lot of rescue pratice and demo's.I am new here st have not figured out how to contact direstly yet.

Thanks

Bob Adams

RE: North Bay Owners???

My Northbay handles well but weathercocks as Dave mentioned.  I did install the retractible skeg and it makes a huge difference with broaching in trailing seas. I think a lot of less experienced paddlers or people used to wide boats find the NB very tender but she's actually a very stable boat.  Slightly low initial stability but quite high secondary.  I can have her leaned with my coaming rim under water and not capsize.

I've never paddled mine in "rough" weather, having only been out in 1-2 footers that were mildly choppy.

If you're willing to modify the aft deck or work through the aft hatch, installing a skeg box shouldn't be too difficult and the retractible skeg doesn't have much weight above deck.  If you route the cabling under the deck, there's really nothing above deck to get in your way for rescues either.  I will say, I didn't include the centerline stringer in the aft deck so if the boat has one, it may be more difficult to do.  Not a lot more difficult, but a little bit.

I'm in the  process of redecking my NB with a strip deck and will be doing some modifications to the skeg at the same time.  I was going to go with a fixed keel skeg because I find the boat much more comfortable with the skeg and pretty much use it all the time.  I'm going back and forth about that though.

For what it's worth, I'm 6'1" 170ish with size 12+ shoes.  It's a fantastic (and fast) boat and I recommend it.

I will say, if you're only 145 I recommend adding some ballast just to add a little stability.  

FrankP

PS: Feel free to contact me via email (remove the nospam) if you want more information or would like to chat about specific things.

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