I'm starting to look at designs for a kayak for my wife. She likes my Night Heron well enough, but I think that another design might fit her better. I'm slightly intrigued by Rob Macks' Firestar. I'm curious if anyone has built it and paddled it enough to give a review, particularly in comparison to other designs you may have paddled.

Speed is important, but not as important as handling. She is not as strong as me, so tracking is much more important for her, and at the same time, it's got to turn fairly well. Stability in chop- sometimes pretty steep chop- would be good. Wind can be an issue as well.

Does anyone else have any ideas for other high performance designs? Is an Outer Islander too big for her? I have heard of someone doing a straight-up 10% reduction in size of a NH and getting really good results, but I'd rather work with something as designed. A hybrid or S&G is totally not out of the question.

m