It was the first time after my test trip in December that I entered the Skarabee. Of course with high expectations of the seating position and stability. Well, the seat was now a bit wide and the back strap too loose but the thigh support was excellent. Stability was as reassuring as I remembered.
No problem with rolling happily. Also sculling seemed easier because the Skarabee proved to be stable on a side. Probably because of the high deck. Clearly better than the Orion that was more of a 'flip-flop' between up and down and that was more difficult to hold in position while sculling.
Downside of the high deck was however the impossibilty to do a re-entry via the aft deck. The hull is simply too high to climb on easily. And no place to fixate the paddle for making a paddle bridge: the deck lines are not in a position you can put a paddle under it. May be I can make some clamps for that. Well, then I have to rely on a 'wet-re-entry-and-roll', that did work quite well.
I used both the Greenland and the Euro paddle and found the GP easier for sculling and rolling. Another argument to keep using the GP.
Unfortunately the backrest fixation broke off where the strap is fixated to the sides of the seat... grrr, I thought this was such a high quality build boat... I am still thinking about a way to fix it without doing too much epoxy work.
Also, the keel strip must be replaced as it is broken on some places. Well, let's consider this as 'normal' maintanance. The good news is that all compartments appeared to be leak free after all the swimming.
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