I used to think that the most wonderful kayak in the world was the Tsunami X15 and that was the boat that I would buy when I was rich. But then I spent a week in an X15 one day and discovered that I didn’t like them. Not only that, but I didn’t think it performed much better than the plastic sit-on-top boat I already had. I joked with Eric Sores, a famous kayaker and member of the Tsunami Rangers, about it one day. I told him that the X15 and the Scupper Pro were very much alike. They are both sit-on-top kayaks. They are both short and wide. They were both a little slow. They both have leaky hatches. So what is the difference between these two boats? “Around $2000.00”. OK, there are other real differences. The X15 is Kevlar and the Scupper is plastic. Some people like Kevlar because it is lighter than fiberglass or plastic, but I have decided that it is brittle compared to a flexible plastic hull and I had just about decided that I was going to stick with plastic. The X15 has a rounded bottom and a rudder, the Scupper has a combination hull shape that tracks (paddles in a straight line) reasonably well without a rudder.
I know a lot of kayakers who have sit-inside kayaks but who do not know how to roll them if they get knocked over. Many of these people are willing to go out on the open ocean in their kayaks anyway. I would not do this. I go out on the ocean in a sit-on-top kayak that I KNOW that I can climb back on to, even with a 30lb lead weight around my waist. People who paddle sit-inside kayaks and cannot roll try to fool themselves into believing that their friends will do assisted rescues with them, or that they will be able to self rescue with a device called a paddle float. Sometimes this actually does work, as it did for Peter Degoey on one of my BASK trips. However, I think the probability of this working is slim in the conditions where you would need it the most, and I was unwilling to go out on the ocean in a sit-inside boat without a roll.
But now I can roll! So the number of boats I am willing to consider owning has increased dramatically. Of all the kayak designs in the world, what one boat would I like to have? My good friend Roger Lamb has a Coaster built by Mariner in Seattle, and he thinks that it is the best kayak ever designed. Actually, he is quite adamant about it. He says, with a puzzled look on his face, “I don’t understand why kayak companies keep designing new boats. There is no need to do this! The perfect kayak has already been designed. And that is the Coaster”. I’m not sure if Roger is kidding or not when he says this. But he is not the only one with this opinion, as many people in BASK have one of these boats. And most people who have Coasters love them. I have tried this boat out several times, and even paddled one for a few days during the BASK Novice Clinic last year. The Coaster is short so it is maneuverable, but it has a reputation for tracking well in difficult conditions. It has a large volume in the bow so it doesn’t pearl in a wave (the bow doesn’t sink into the trough in front of the wave and flip the boat over). This makes it an excellent surfing boat. This also means that there is lots of room for people with big feet. The boat is DESIGNED to work well without a rudder. The hull is designed (as are all Mariner kayaks) with a shape that turns the boat if you lean it correctly while you paddle. I like the idea of a boat that doesn’t have all the pedals and cables and pulleys and rudders and all those moving parts that can stick or break. The Coaster will turn nicely without any moving parts just by leaning it (in a non-intuitive way that you have to learn). So now I lust after getting myself a Coaster.
But a Coaster is an expensive boat. Like the Tsunami X15, it is essentially a hand made kayak. Mariner is a company that consists of two guys, the Broze brothers. They can only manufacture one Coaster a month, and if you order a new one you may have to wait six months or more before they can get around to making it for you. They are such a popular boat that they rarely ever show up for sale used. My friend Don Fleming spent a year trying to find a used Coaster and failed. He even tried tricks like calling up people who owned Coasters who were moving to Utah. “Want to sell your Coaster, since you are moving away from the ocean”? The answer was always “NO WAY”! Don gave up an ordered a new Coaster from Mariner. I resigned myself to not getting one of these wonderful boats until I was rich and could afford to order a new one for myself.
There is another boat called the Sportee that is supposed to be “The poor man’s Coaster”. There is actually a strange relationship between Northwest Kayaks, the manufacturers of the Sportee, and Mariner, the manufacturers of the Coaster. Mariner sub-contracts all their fiberglass manufacturing to Northwest. Northwest is a large company that makes a lot of kayaks and can afford more modern fiberglass production equipment, like a vacuum mold. This produces a far superior fiberglass. Mariner gives their molds to Northwest under some sort of confidentiality agreement. Northwest agrees not to steal the designs. But after the Coaster became such a popular boat, Northwest suddenly came out with the Sportee, a very similar boat. People looking at a Sportee and a Coaster side by side have mistaken them for each other. In the kayaking community there are people who are pissed about this. They say that the big company, Northwest, stole the design from the little guy, Mariner. They say that Northwest made the minimum number of changes to the design to avoid violating their contract and getting sued. Many kayakers refuse to buy ANYTHING from Northwest in protest of this theft of a great design.
Most true blue Coaster owners will tell you that their boat is so perfect that even the slight design modifications that Northwest did to the Sportee were all bad. The Sportee has a larger cockpit and the large spray-skirt that fits it is more likely to blow off in a wave. The Sportee has harder chines (a sharp angle between the sides and the bottom) that defeats some of the maneuverability of the design. It weathercocks in the wind when a Coaster does not. A Sportee is more difficult to turn without a rudder. The market backs up these opinions. Used Sportees are easy to find and buy for typically $1000.00 less than used Coasters (when you can find one) even though their new list price is similar. At one time I despaired of ever getting a Coaster and considered buying a used Sportee. When someone was selling two of them in the BASK classified WEB page, I sent them a letter listing all the bad things about the Sportee (as a bargaining ploy to try to get the price down). The guy selling the boat took my letter and showed it to the manager of the kayak store where the boats came from. He threatened to sue the manager for selling him a “bad boat” three years before. Unfortunately this kayak store manager is a friend of mine and he found out who had written the letter and caused all this trouble. Fortunately the Sportee owner calmed down and didn’t sue anybody. Sportees are so easy to come by that I decided to wait and not buy one just yet.
Northwest Kayaks came out with a new version of the Sportee made out of roto-molded plastic. I thought this was the perfect kayak for me. It was sort of like a Coaster, but it was made out of tough flexible plastic instead of brittle breakable fiberglass. But when I tried out one of these boats, I found that Northwest had changed the design again! It was not even shaped like the fiberglass Sportee at all! It had a smaller volume in the bow, so it would not surf as well as the Sportee (or the Coaster). The volume in the bow was so small that it was uncomfortable for me to fit my feet into it! I had to give up on the idea of getting a plastic “Coaster”.
I manage the BASK WEB page and it has a classified ad section. One day someone sent me an ad for a “Mariner touring Kayak, 14’ long, for sale, $1300.00”. I thought that was an unusual ad, since 14 feet is a little short for a touring kayak and I thought that all Mariner’s touring kayaks were much longer. I put the ad in the WEB page “as is” and didn’t think much more about it. The ad stayed there for over a month and then the woman who placed the ad called me up to tell me “I finally sold my Coaster”! Coaster? That boat was a COASTER? I COULD HAVE BOUGHT A USED COASTER! I kicked myself for months for not asking for the model name of that boat! I kicked myself for months for not buying that boat! It still makes me sick to think I could have had that boat for such a reasonable price.
I bided my time, and eventually my day arrived. A friend of Penny Wells decided to sell his Coaster and asked her advice on how much to ask for it. It just happened that the very same day I was at a dinner meeting at Penny’s house (a meeting about our upcoming trip to Baja). Penny knew that both Maryly and I were looking for a used Coaster, so she gave us the guy’s phone number. I called the guy the very next day. I arranged to go and look at the kayak. I made an offer on it right away. I bought the kayak of my dreams used at a good price. Maryly is still mad at me for buying that boat out from under her. I think she missed this opportunity without any help from me. She didn’t call him right away and blames me for “sneaking” off and buying it without giving her a chance. She claims that I did this on purpose to prevent her from getting it first. I claim that I did it to prevent EVERYONE else from getting it first and there was nothing personal about it.
When you order a new Coaster you get lots of options (all of which increase the cost). You can get it with and without hatches, bulkheads, rigging lines, Kevlar or graphite fibers, extra fiberglass for strength. You get to choose the color scheme. But if you buy a used one you get whatever the first guy chose. There is debate about whether it is wise to have bulkheads in a kayak. On one hand, they create water tight compartments where you can store your camping gear. On the other hand, they create stress points in the hull where it is more likely to break. A bulkhead requires a hatch to get into the compartment, and hatches decrease the structural strength of the boat more. A hatch is a complicated device that is likely to leak or break. My new coaster was a standard fiberglass lay-up (no Kevlar). It came with a rear bulkhead and a hatch. It also came with a small screw-in hatch in the bow. The color scheme was muted, with a white hull, an off white (ivory) deck, and a purple stripe between them all the way around the boat. The boat was five years old but the previous (original) owner had always used it in calm bays and rivers. The paint job was still shiny. There were practically no scratches on the bottom of the hull. The hatch seemed like it had never been used and it still smelled like fresh fiberglass inside. I was in love.
Unfortunately, I was busy preparing for my upcoming trip to Baja and had no opportunities to actually paddle my new boat. It is not a touring boat and does not carry nearly as much gear as my old faithful Scupper Pro. I was tempted to take my new boat to Baja but knew it was not the right boat for the job. I had to put my shiny new Coaster aside and wait to try it out when I got back from Mexico.