After a few months with the Skarabee it's time for an evaluation. The Skarabee proved to be a comfortable boat with a good seating position and good stability. I have a good fit in the boat and that's facilitates rolling and sculling. So far so good.
However, I expected it to be a fast boat: faster than the NDK Explorer. Well, that proved to be disappointing as I don't get it up to speed as expected. Of course this is my personal experience and other/stronger paddlers may get the Skarabee up to higher speeds. But in fact the Skarabee is not built for speed but for cargo. And I would have taken the huge volume for granted but now the speed is disappointing it seems that the balance of pros vs cons is not that interesting anymore.
Another issue is the weathercocking and tracking in following seas, it is simply not as good as you would expect from a good sea kayak.
Considering everything it brings me to a conclusion that the Skarabee is not my boat for going to sea in all kind of rough circumstances. And that leads to another conclusion: I need a new kayak, a real sea kayak.
There is however some perspective for the Skarabee: lately I got interested in kayak sailing and I even ordered a Falcon kayak sail. I think the Skarabee can be a very good sailing kayak because of it's size and stability. May be adding a rudder would also be a good idea to support sailing.
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