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Necky Elaho HV (high volume)

I bought a Necky Elaho HV for sea kayak trips to rocky islands where I would have tricky landings with surging waves - such at Tasman Island and Albatross Island - both off the coast of Tasmania.  I was disappointed to find that the kayak wasn't very well made, it couldn't fit much gear and it was very heavy for its size.

The positives were that it had a nice chined hull.  If this kayak was made from fibreglass or kevlar and was 1-2 feet longer it would be really good.  Even with those changes it would still probably be 5kg lighter than this plastic boat.

Even though the hull shape looks nice and sleek, the narrow bow & stern mean that you can't fit much gear into the boat.  If you have a compact tent and sleeping bag, you could take this away for a couple of days.  If you have 'big camping gear' you will only be using this for day trips.

I did have some fun with this in the surf because it is quite tough.  I was annoyed with the seat which was attached by two strips of velcro that were poorly glued to the seat.  There were another two poorly glued opposite strips on the bottom of the boat.  The velcro clinging power was stronger than the glue - which separated and I saw the foam seat float away with the next breaking wave.

I soon found the next problem.  The rudder up/down cords run from next to the cockpit through the day-hatch and the rear hatch and out of two holes to the rudder.  The cables run through plastic tubes through the thick foam bulkheads.  The problem was that where the tubes went through the bulkheads there were big gaps where the foam wasn't sealing around the tubes.  This let a big spurt of water through from the cockpit into the day hatch and into the rear hatch.  I quickly had lots of water in the back hatches.

When I took it back to the retailer they said "just fill the holes with selleys 'all clear' - that's what we would do."  I bought a few tubes of that stuff and tried to fill the gaps and changed the rudder up/down cord to go on top of the deck.  I managed to get more 'all clear' stuck to my hands than on the boat but I eventually filled most of the gaps - but I was losing my excitement about the kayak.  It wasn't living up to my expectations.

In the end it sat in my garage for a year or so and only came out a few times when I took new paddlers out.  I ended up selling it for about $600 less than I paid.

Plastic sea kayaks have there uses but they are still boring and heavy.