1 year later - a new ski

I’m 1 year into fitness paddling and am really enjoying it. First time in my life (age 35 now) that I have “really exercised” and feel much more motivated this past year to stay “relatively more fit”.

Anyway...I’ve been plugging along doing solo paddling and some online coaching for technique and my coach said I can benefit some at this point from an upgrade from my v7 (which I am keeping for my local rivers and such).

Found a good deal on an SES 2nd generation excel layup and am gonna meet up in 2 weeks to pick it up.

I’ve been absurdly stable in the v7 - i have never fell out of it except once in a class 2 rapid trying to ferry across it) - I can stand up paddle the v7 (tenuously) . I’m somewhat concerned about stability in the SES but worst case I resale it if the stability issues were to be a detriment and go back to the v7....my coach doubts I’ll have an issue...but who knows...I’ll be finding out. It’ll be fun I’m sure!!
I paddle almost exclusively flat water living dead center of Alabama btw.

How hard is getting a kick up rudder in this boat? I’m hoping I won’t need to but I may end up needing one - kinda nervous about this ultralight construction y’all - I plan to paddle primarily in a small lake nearby and some bigger rivers but yeah - don’t want to put any holes in it

Hey PharmGeek,
It shouldn't be hard to get a kick up rudder fixed to that ski for couple hundred bucks. I've seen guys on the rivermiles website use them all the time. Not sure what everyone else thinks but if you are in water that shallow, it's gonna be tough to paddle with the hull suck. Not to mention your paddle blade sinks deeper than the rudder.

As for stability, yes it will be a big step for sure. I went from a V8 to a V14 after my first year. It was a big jump for sure. Take your time and work on your stroke. It will yield you great benefits in stability. Good luck

Thanks! Yeah my assumption at this point is that I’m not gonna bother with a rudder and just paddle in my local smallish lake and I’ll be fine

I perceive myself as having excellent balance - so I’m interested to see how humbling this will be haha

Nabbing it used btw - like new condition - 2400 USD excel layup - to say I’m excited right now is an understatement

Congrats on the new boat. I demoed the SES 2G when I bought my SEI 2G last November. I could paddle it easily enough on flat water but it was a gusty day and I was bracing frequently when the wind would hit me on the side. Besides stability, one of the reasons I bought the SEI is that all layups come "prewired" for a stern mounted rudder. The multi-sport layup of the SES and SEL also come equipped for stern mounted rudder. I race in central and north Florida and many of our races are in rivers and spring runs where there are unseen logs. So far this year, two of my buddies have holed their skis during races by hitting logs with their rudders.

Installing the fittings required for a stern mounted rudder is quite easy. I actually installed the Stellar system on a wooden racing kayak that I built. You can order everything on line but it may be best to talk to a dealer if one is nearby. The hardest/scariest part will be drilling a hole in the deck at the very stern and gluing the bayonet pin sleeve in place. Boats that come from the factory prewired have tubes for the control lines running aft under the deck from the rudder hatch to just forward of the stern rudder. You can probably forgo installing those and just run the lines aft above the deck from the rudder access. All the parts will be somewhere around $200.

The rudder and housing that Stellar uses are made by Smart Track. Although Stellar does not carry it, Smart Track also sells a shorter racing blade (about 4" vice the standard 6.5" blade) that works very well on flat water. You do not want to be in waves with that short blade! Speed wise, I find the Smart Track racing blade to be indistinguishable from the Stellar 4" weedless under hull rudder. I switch between the two depending upon race conditions. Going from one to another takes maybe 10 minutes. Hoipe that this helps.