Well, I finally took that Sea Eagle PaddleSki 435 out for a paddle! I'm a noob with only six paddles to my credit, including the initial instructional one, but I felt comfortable enough today to try out this inflatable catamaran-kayak hybrid...and all on my own! Yes, safety rule violation number one -- newbie alone on water. We'll get to that in a bit, but for now I'd like to just chat about the PaddleSki. I am impressed with it. I felt extraordinarily safe in it -- never was I worried I wold capsize! Of course, I'm getting more and more confident with kayaking in general, but this inflatable was a total unknown to me: for starters, I didn't even have a gauge (does anyone make gauges for Halkey-Roberts valves?), so I wasn't sure whether I'd pumped up both pontoons equally! Once on the water -- courtesy NYPD (cops pulled up as I was getting my gear ready; I was afraid they were going to give me Homeland Security hbuttle, but they actually wound up helping me launch!) -- I noticed right away how "light" the boat felt. Indeed, it practically glides over water, barely sitting on the waves. In that regard, as I'm sure all y'all pros and old salts can surely imagine, wind plays a greater role in paddling this boat than with a regular kayak. On the other hand, waves actually play less of a role -- yes, that's right! I was on the East River, whose currents are even stronger than the Hudson's, being, among other things, much narrower, and as this boat barely touches the water it seems to "ride out" an opposing current with as much ease! For I wound up going against the current on my return trip, and though very hard, it wasn't impossible. Now, I'm a noob, so I probably got lucky with it being low tide and whatnot, but it was actually possible to paddle against the East River! I'm talking at nine o'clock on the 27th, when the current should have been fairly near its strongest, if I'm reading the charts right. I've paddled the East River before, in a kayak, and it wasn't nowhere near as easy or pleasant. Another thing I immediately appreciated about the PaddleSki was being able to easily adjust my posture, as it's an "open" boat -- really a sit-on-top. I was even able to paddle cross-legged! Other things I noticed about this boat: it has a tendency to keep going, since it's an inflatable and barely touches the water (probably like only 15% of it actually touches water), but definitely doesn't track as well compared to a kayak. It is extremely manuverabe, however, given, again, its inflatable nature and its catamaran design. A simple boat, really, for quick and easy pick-up-and-go recreation. I think it's perfect for fla****er, but it handled the East River very nicely for me today! NOW...here's where I need some input, noob that I am: I've been told to hug the shoreline and leave the middle and greater part of the river to motorized traffic. But does it make sense, then, for motorized watercraft to speed along the coast? It was dark, nine-something, and so of course I'm paddling very close to shore -- no more than ten feet at any given time. Then this NYPD Harbor Patrol boat comes up the river towards me! I'm paddling even closer to shore now, when suddenly it zips by like five feet away and capsizes me with an eight-foot wave!! (I know it's at least eight feet 'cause that's how long the PaddleSki paddles are.) Doormen questionJonathan Wolfson You are at the whim of a bunch of buttholes, albeit rich buttholes. You will have to schelp, grovel... I'm dashed to the rocks and all cut-up: right cheek, forearms, right shoulder, right thigh.... Anyway, I survived to make a Civilian Complaint (just for the record -- these things never go anywhere, the NYPD does not take anything short of liquidate seriously), and to ask -- WTF?? Is that police boat "supposed" to be speeding up the shoreline in the dark??? And yes I know about the "law of gross tonnage" but I'm just wondering where the hell is it safe to paddle if I'm not supposed to be in the middle of the river and yet can also be capsized by motorcraft along the shore...?!?!?! Needless to say, that PaddleSki fare a lot better than me! No damage that I can discern....lost my glbuttes, my pith helmet (LOL), and have broke my "fall," as it were.... What's the worst that's happened to you in all your years of paddling?
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