Any thoughts on C-1 converting one of these?

[jrsh92]

http://www.eddyflower.com/ShowBoat.aspx?BoatId=309
A Perception 3D-- looks like an early playboat... long enough to not be totally silly, short enough to be more maneuverable than a Gyramax at the least... It's wide enough to be stable with the high CG of a C-1 too.
I've seen a reasonable price on one around where I am, any thoughts?

[ezwater]

Width does not have as much to do with stability as you might think. Remember that some of the slalom c-boats are quite stable, but, discounting the "wings," they are only 26" wide. Kayaks are generally not over 26" wide, but whether they are stable enough to make decent c-1 conversions depends on the design of their sides. It isn't the flatness of a boat that makes it stable, it's what happens when the boat starts to tip and the sides are submerged.

You need to get a firsthand report on whether the kayak you want to convert has real firm initial and secondary stability.

[jrsh92]

Someone seems to have bought it before me

[sbroam]

You didn't miss much - a friend had one for a couple of months and swapped to an Amp. Never was very popular with the kayakers either. You'll find another deal on a better boat!

[knu2xs]

The 3D was hard to initiate and slow, a real lemon of a design. A year later with the Amp, they got it right. This boat however, was horrible.

[marclamenace]

Ditto on the AMP, I got one and is a great playboat.

Yakers are looking for shorter playboats today and the AMP is the kind of used boat you may find for quite cheap also.

[AYockey]

When I first heard of c1 I asked my college club for a boat to convert as a teaching or trying it out boat. They gave me an old 3D mostly because it had a 6 inch crack in the bottom of it.

I duct taped an unrolled coke can to the outside to patch the crack. I did a super clean conversion with webbing and tons of pop rivets, learned to roll it and then they declared the land around our boathouse as an environmental disaster area and I never saw it again. Turns out the chemistry building had been on the land and they had not properly stored all the lab waste.

Short story long this is in Golden, CO and now that I think about it all the rain runoff from that land went straight into the playpark in Clear Creek. I guess that explains why I never caught a fish in all the time I spent upside down in that river.