: Mike, your criteria so far seem to be related to stability and the lack
: thereof. If you are looking for a particular design and not just a boat to
: build I'd suggest paddling a lot more so that other characteristics of
: handling that are important to you can be realized in a particular boat.
: So if you paddle a rental Sea Lion, you can ask "is is easier/harder
: to keep on course than the sea lion?" or if you paddle a Looksha 4
: the same question. The idea is to get away from terms like good/bad/better
: without a comparison to work it against. I don't know those boats well
: enough, and there are folks here that do, but my encouragement is to get a
: boat that you are in the upper range of it's paddler weight, most of your
: learning and day paddling will be in an unladen kayak. Paddling around a
: kayak that can easily accomodate a 225lb paddler when you weigh 175lbs is
: paddling too much kayak around most of the time, especially when you want
: to take your more advanced skills out into wind and waves.

Thanks, Lee. I understand what you're saying. Around here most of the kayaks that I can borrow or rent are pretty much lower end designs that the main emphasis is on initial stability. I'm just beginning, but they just didn't seem to track very well. I know that there are other considerations ,such as tracking and handling, but the boats I've mentioned supposedly track and handle very well. The reason I mentioned these is that the Silver and the Shooting Star seem to be more geared to a paddler my size. I'm going to keep trying to paddle other boats , but it's very difficult to find someone in my area with strip-built kayaks. ( I have looked at the builder's directory on Redfish's site)Thanks again.