Hi - In terms of fit - I think you'll both be more than fine in the boat.

I'm building one now, so I can't give you first hand opinions on the stability of the boat, but I've heard they are a touch more tender than some S&G's available, but they do have a decient secondary stability.

Physics will indicate that they will be slower than say a 17" boat, but I choose the tern 14' because it's going to be a feature weight! ~And a boat you can pick up and take to the lake is always, always, always going to be better than the boat you leave in the garage because it's too much trouble to load up!!!

I spend a good part of my life in Klepper Kayaks - another "folding" brand, I have owned several. They are neat, great boats - well suited for touring and expedition work in my opinion. But they are nearly always going to be pretty heavy boats.

Good luck,
Scott

: My wife and I had the pleasure of recently kayaking on the Colorado river
: below the Hoover damn. We had never kayaked before, and immediately fell
: in love with it. Now we want our own kayaks. The problem is, my wife will
: need to be able to get a kayak up onto the car by herself at times. One of
: those 50 lb plastic jobs just isn't gonna cut it (I may even have trouble
: with one of those).

: I am intrigued by the possibility of building a couple of the wooden kit
: kayaks. The Pygmy Arctic Tern 14 "looks" like it might do, and
: would easily fit on top of my wife's Civic.

: Q1) How different is a sea kayak compared to a non sea kayak like the slow,
: heavy Loons we were in on our trip?

: Q2) We plan on kayaking on lakes, slow streams, saltwater inlets, swamps, and
: the like. No whitewater, and no open ocean. I was looking at the Folbot
: foldables, but my impression from reading about these is that they are
: very slow. Am I wrong about that? If not, then would a pair of Arctic Tern
: 14s be right for us, or would they be too unstable for a couple of
: novices.

: I'm 5'8", shoe size 8. My wife is 5'7", shoe size 7 1/2.

: I am no where near anyplace where I can test drive various kayaks, so I've
: gotta use my best guess as to which ones to purchase.

: TIA