IAN FERGUSON

OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALIST

"As well as renting kayaks from Okahu Bay, I run guided trips for people ranging from school groups to work social clubs. Safety is of paramount importance, which is where the Sea Bears come into their own. They are really stable, they handle rough seas well, and we never have to worry about people tipping over. Our customers have lots of fun, even when paddling in the dark, through rough water on the way back from Rangitoto.

This gives a good indication of how comfortable and safe they feel. One of the design features that I really like is the easily adjusted foot pedal steering system, which is user friendly and virtually foolproof! It is comfortable to use and so easy to adjust, that you can even do it in seconds on the water. The boats are built to a good light weight, while the quality of manufacture and finish is great. That's why Sea Bear is my choice of boat"

Region-X

Joshua Waterson

"Took out 'the bear' as we have named her on a still day with glassy 3 ft swell, our daughter 11 months old sat in the middle compartment and watched the sea eagles, swans, fisherman and yachts. The boat kept her and my partner dry on the way out through the shore breakers.

The bow displaced all the oncomming swell nicely, the packhorse rudder system is fantastic with the spongy bungy elastic system, very smooth and soft turnning motions, super easy to adjust too, best system ive seen. We headed up our nearby estuary, surfing the swell on the river mouth, surfed well. The boat felt super safe and moved along quite swiftly for such a large boat. Even felt safe when we caught a nice swell home to the beach, managed to keep it straight with the rudder alone.

The verdict

10 out of 10

very happy with the product."

Mark Jones
on the new SeaBear Waitoa

“Have just returned from a trip in big seas and strong wind and loved the new design features of the Sea Bear Waitoa. It has noticeably more storage space and the large front hatch makes packing bulk items a breeze. The rudder is the same robust unit but has been coupled with a super user friendly retraction system- One hand, one side, one movement- Brilliant! The same tried and proven hull lines have been retained offering unsurpassed stability and surfing performance while the deck lines have been enhanced for superior performance in wind and water and look great too. The layout of deck bungies and rescue features have evolved to be second to none. The Waitoa is a well designed craft and is simply a great touring machine”

ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION

MARK JONES, GRAEME CHARLES, MARCUS WATERS - ADVENTURE PHILOSOPHY

"We approached Ron and the team from Paddling Perfection New Zealand Limited to build us three kayaks that were stable, fast, had the capacity to store a huge amount of equipment and food, and that wouldn't let us down in the worlds harshest environment. It was a big task and the Polar Bears proved perfect for the Antarctic Peninsula Expedition.

The Polar Bears handled well in all conditions we encountered, stood up to some severe punishment landing on rocks and ice and bashing through miles of brash ice and they provided a stable platform to film and shoot photos from; in short they were a large factor in our success."

ALAN MELVILLE

I’ve had the Polar Bear a little while now and have paddled it in various seas, from dead calm through to 5M seas. It’s an expedition boat, not through and through but about 90%. It is large and needs space to be turned. It is more difficult to paddle empty in the wind as it sits up out of the water and the wind can catch it. However fully loaded with gear it is a very different boat.

I paddled out into a head wind of 20Kmh and a swell of1M with a with a wind generated wave of about the same so occasionally I was getting hit by two meter waves with a 20km breeze behind them and it performed flawlessly, I was toddling along at 3.5 to 4 Kph, on flatish water it cruises at 6Kph effortlessly.

On my return I found it hard to catch any of the waves, 1. they were traveling very fast ( about 20-25Kph ) and 2. I think I had too much weight forward, I did however hit a top speed of 13 Kph and I caught and surfed a wave to shore and hit 21 Kph. Getting out through the shore break was quite easy, the boat behaves very well and can be held stationary whilst one waits for the opportune moment, because of the length it’s possible to get the tip of the bow up to 3M off the water when coming off the back of a wave, great fun and handles it well. I’ve bought it in through the surf a couple of times and the length works well in it’s favor as one is able to do a reversing stroke as a wave picks the boat up, enabling the wave to pass under and therefore being able to keep control of the situation. It’s a big boat to be doing 21K’s down a wave in and it broached hard, I managed to get the rudder up and when the wave broke on me I only had one hand on the paddle and had to use my body alone to keep it upright, it’s stability is very good and I didn’t have to bail out.

I feel very confident this is going to be a great boat to own and providing I have the skill levels it’ll keep me safe in very adverse conditions.

BreakSea demo paddle in Raglan

By Greg Morrison

I was not expecting a boat as stable as the majority of kayaks out there that are 600mm wide and the Break Sea is 540mm wide which is just the width of boat that I was looking for and 5.2m long. Most of the overseas kayaks that are known for speed are in this region width wise and I was looking for something quicker and livelier than the 7-8 stable kayaks that I have test paddled for the last month. And many of the boats just feel too big for me, and slow. The closest that I enjoyed paddling was a Euro X at 570mm but this did not have the required day hatches that I wanted and the Slingshot at 520mm wide was just too tippy for the kind of paddling I want to do. The BreakSea has two day hatches, one in front above the cockpit and one behind the cockpit along with the two larger flush mounted hatches for ease of fitting larger dry bags. Yeah but these big hatches are sure to leak.

The cockpit opening is larger than many of the bigger boats that I have paddled but not quite as large as my Beachcomber. I was able to get in and out without problems although not quite being able to sit and then pull the legs in. The cockpit itself and the seat were still plenty roomy enough for a 75kg 5'8" paddler and in fact I will need to fit the cockpit with hip pads and knee braces as I have done to my Beachcomber.

Firstly paddling into the headwind and small chop and waiting for the spray to hit me in the face I was pleasantly surprised to see that the waves would wash over the bow and not hit the hatch cover and fly up into the air and then hit me in the face but would continue over the flush mounted hatch covers and disperse back over the side. And a nice wave was flaring out from the shaped bow area. When I was finished I was happy to note how dry my upper body was.

Its unfortunate that I had not brought my small dry bag for my GPS so that I could keep an eye on the speed for the effort that was going in, but this boat felt quick whether I was going with the tide and against a 15 knot headwind or if I was going with the wind and against the tide. The narrow width helped with my feeling of speed as being able to get the wing paddle closer to the center line and using correct wing paddle technique where the paddle is moved outwards rather than back gives more area of water for the paddle to work.

Next I sought out the clapotis and confused chop. I did feel a little cautious just because I was a little loose in the seat and cockpit and the wave and chop was very unpredictable.

Padding out the cockpit would definitely help some of the tippy moments I had paddling the BreakSea in the confused chop and waves at the mouth of Raglan Harbor. The tide was strong and the waves were coming from two directions with clapotis. I had to do a couple of low braces and I could feel my core muscles working to keep everything level. Once I fit the boat better with added padding, control should be enhanced. A few low braces now and again and I went in search of some following seas to see how the boat responded.

There were a few swells coming through and while the boat would not turn as quickly as my Beachcomber without railing, once I have a better fit and can rail the boat I'm sure the cornering will be very quick and it was certainly quicker than many of the boats I've been paddling recently. Anyway I got the boat around in time and paddled with the swell and holy heck! The boat just took off! I was flying on the swell and I wouldn't even really call it a wave cause it wasn't anywhere near breaking but would Peter out further into the harbor mouth. The feeling of speed was exhilarating and I've been in a few boats that are known for their wave catching abilities recently. I had to have some more and went back out to the entrance and caught another 3 or 4 waves. I didn't get up on any real surf type waves to feel how tippy the boat was in these conditions but the speed that the Break Sea reached on these swells had me excited.

Back on land and checking the hatches for water and they were all dry with the exception of the rear hatch which looked like a little water had dripped in. All the hatches looked like they had done a good job of keeping the water out.

My GPS that had been sitting inside one of the hatches indicated that I had reached a top speed of 17.8kph on one of the swells and I wasn't even trying to reach a top speed.

So a fast boat, not for a beginner but fun for someone with a bit more experience in the rough stuff.