My name is Canoelover, and I’m a kayaker. \u00a0It’s been 21 hours since my last kayak.<\/em><\/p>\n

Hello, Canoelover.<\/em><\/p>\n

The P&H Delphin has been around conceptually for a while. \u00a0I think I saw a drawing of it last summer, and I was immediately intrigued. \u00a0For the twenty years I’ve spent in paddlesports, sea kayaks are sea kayaks, whitewater kayaks are whitewater kayaks, and never the twain shall meet.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

It takes a creative mind like Graham Makereth, owner and designer for P&H, to come up with something new like this. \u00a0Graham is one of those “if it ain’t broke, break it” sort of guys. \u00a0In this case, we have something quite different.<\/p>\n

So a week or so ago I get a call from Jim Hager, the head dude at P&H in the US, asking if I wanted to be one of the first paddlers in the U.S. to try a Delphin. \u00a0Why yes, I said, I would very much, since there’s only one of them in North America. \u00a0Turns out that Brian Day, one of P&H’s field reps, was coming to Madison for a friend’s wedding. \u00a0Well then. \u00a0Perfect.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Brian worked for us off and on for a decade or so, and he is always a welcome sight. \u00a0His old Honda Civic is battle-scarred and has spent most of its days with too many kayaks on top of it. \u00a0I think 5 is the record, about 150 pounds over the weight limit of the rack. \u00a0But I digress.<\/p>\n

First Impressions:<\/strong><\/p>\n

From across the parking lot it looks like a compact sea kayak. \u00a0The closer you get, the more you see the differences in design. \u00a0The hull of the boat is unlike any sea kayak you’ve ever seen. \u00a0It’s fairly flat with a pronounced chine, and a strange but attractive bow. \u00a0More on that later.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

There is rocker. \u00a0Oh yes, there is rocker. \u00a0Gobs of rocker. \u00a0Graham went to the Rocker Store and bought them clean out. \u00a0No one will accuse this boat of lacking in the rocker department. \u00a0Eight fingers of rocker is a fair amount. \u00a0The cockpit placement, however, removes some of the stern rocker and raises the bow, so while it might seem to be highly asymmetrical rocker, it’s not that pronounced in the water.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Like the Cetus\/Scorpio family, the Delphin is a Swede-form kayak, so it’s going to be fast for its length (15’5″).<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

This is a pre-production boat, so we don’t expect perfection here, but it’s clear that P&H put a lot of thought into it, just as with their other boats. \u00a0The Scorpio (Brian says it like Sean Connery) has a similar deck, with a small dry hatch just in front of the cockpit, but unlike the Scorpio, the Delphin has no day hatch. \u00a0Rumor is that the Aries (composite version) will have a day hatch as well.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

On The Water:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Brian and I went out in two boats — me in a venerable NDK Romany and Brian in the Delphin. The Romany is known for its maneuverability, a rock garden play boat. \u00a0 Better yet, Brian and I have similar weights and heights, and the same barber too.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

We took off away from the shop out into a large bay, pushing the boats close to hull speed. \u00a0The Romany is not a rocket ship by any means, but it should be able to pull away from a shorter, flat-bottomed boat with a weird bow. \u00a0It was marginally faster, but the Delphin kept up, partially because of hull design, but also because Brian’s a studly paddler. \u00a0It was a little noisier but that’s it.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

We started playing around with edging and turns. \u00a0Follow-the-leader is a great way to compare and contrast boats, so we did some standard sweep\/edge\/counter-rotate\/hold it there turns to see how the hull would react. \u00a0Three-two-one-go. \u00a0I intiated\u00a0a turn with a sweep and holding an edge, the Romany began its typical turn, the bow holding fast while the stern bubbles and skids.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

I turned around, and Brian was facing the other direction. \u00a0Same movements, same power. \u00a0I had turned 45 degrees, he had turned 150 or so. \u00a0 Wow. \u00a0That’s\u00a0maneuverability.<\/p>\n

Then we did bow draws. \u00a0The Romany turned. \u00a0The Delphin whipped around. \u00a0Brian says it should come with a neckbrace. \u00a0I appreciate the salesman’s hyperbole, but it’s almost true. \u00a0After we swapped boats I did a typical whitewater bow draw and bang<\/em>, I snapped around like I was catching an eddy. \u00a0“Try a cross-bow” said Brian. \u00a0I did, and again, it whipped around so fast I almost capsized. \u00a0A second one was a little better.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

The Delphin edges effortlessly. \u00a0My feeling and observation is that it edges better without aggressive knee driving. \u00a0Just lift up one butt cheek and push down with the other. \u00a0A bit of edge goes a long way with this boat. \u00a0If you really crank it over, it doesn’t seem to help much. \u00a0Beginners can learn to edge their kayaks. \u00a0Pretty cool.<\/p>\n

It rolls well. \u00a0Sea Kayaker Magazine will praise its low back deck to allow for layback rolls. \u00a0They always do. \u00a0Didn’t try a layback roll, but both a C to C roll and a screw roll were easy.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Carving an onside turn doesn’t have the same dramatic difference. \u00a0It works fine and carves nicely. \u00a0Yep, it turns faster this way too, but it’s not like offside sweeps and edging turns.<\/p>\n

Philosophical Musings:<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong>This is what I came up with.<\/p>\n

\n
• A surf ski is the kayak equivalent of a triathlon or high end road bike. \u00a0The Cetus is a cyclocross bike. \u00a0The Delphin is a full-suspension mountain bike. \u00a0It’s not a hybrid city bike, a short day touring boat with a little rocker. \u00a0It’s designed to be an extremely rough water boat.<\/li>\n
• I regret not being able to surf it.<\/li>\n
• Conventional wisdom is that sea kayaks steer from the stern. \u00a0The bow sticks, the stern skids. \u00a0This isn’t at all true here. \u00a0Whitewater paddlers will love <\/em>this boat. \u00a0When edging and skidding offside, I felt like the rotation was under the bow hatch or thereabouts. \u00a0The b0w moves, I saw it. \u00a0It’s cool.<\/li>\n
• I think a lot of sea kayak owners are going to want a Delphin for a few reasons. \u00a0First. it’s a great rough water boat and is clearly designed as a surf boat. \u00a0Second, it’s stable enough to loan to friends. \u00a0Drop the skeg and it tracks like a streetcar. \u00a0Third, it’s plastic so you can abuse the hell out of it and save your longboat for less abusive situations.<\/li>\n
• The Aries (the composite version) will be out shortly. \u00a0I think some instructors will purchase one just for teaching.<\/li>\n
• I want one. \u00a0It violates the 1989 Marriage Retention Boat Non-Proliferation Act, (co-sponsored by Wife 1.1). \u00a0I will attempt to introduce an amendment in the house. \u00a0Wish me luck.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

  Respectully sumbitted,<\/p>\n

  Canoelover<\/p>\n

  P.S. \u00a0I wrote this on 5 hours of sleep. \u00a0Typo fixes and feedback are welcome.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  My name is Canoelover, and I’m a kayaker. \u00a0It’s been 21 hours since my last kayak. Hello, Canoelover. The P&H Delphin has been around conceptually for a while. \u00a0I think I saw a drawing of it last summer, and I … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canoelover.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/991"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canoelover.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canoelover.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canoelover.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canoelover.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=991"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.canoelover.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/991\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1016,"href":"https:\/\/www.canoelover.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/991\/revisions\/1016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canoelover.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canoelover.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canoelover.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}