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Recently bought two Eclipses, a small and a large, and they are great, and we have been on them every day for a week. Not nearly as fast or agile as the longest hobie kayaks but fun and different. Several comments that I would like to have passed along to Hobie if possible. 1. The larger Eclipse for me seems to not have enough flotation or the right balance front to back for someone my weight (200lbs)—when I stand in a normal position on the pedals, the bow is often under water, in fact most of the time. The bow just digs in and goes under a couple of inches and I am sure that this is not very efficient in terms of pedaling effort or steering (although I know on SUPs some prefer to have the bow at least in the water). Really it is a matter of where the pedals are front to back. If I stand with just my toes on the back part of the pedals, the bow comes up out of the water a little. I don’t believe that the board should be set up so you have to stand on the very back of the pedals to keep the bow from digging in all the time. My wife's shorter board works fine with her 100lbs weight and the bow stays up and just a little out of the water. 2. The lack of hand straps on the sides and bow of the boards is a serious omission. When we are handling the boards near the dock and stepping down to our floating dock to put the boards in the water, it is awkward at best to have the person carrying the front of the board trying to do that without any handhold. Same problem in trying to get the wet board back out of the water onto the floating dock. What you would like to do is nose the board into the floating dock, then get on the dock and pull the board onto the dock from the front (as the rudder prevents pulling it on from the rear or the sides). It would also be good to have hand straps on each side for lifting the board out of the water from a slightly elevated dock. It just does not work to have only the rear hand strap. Is there any way to retrofit handles to the back and sides of the boards? This would make a tremendous difference in handling the boards in any situation. 3) The foot well needs a drain. When you pull the board up on the floating dock (and rinse it off) and want to leave it there for a few hours or overnight because you are going to use the board again fairly quickly, water stands in the recessed area and there is no drain—the black rubber plug in that area apparently is not designed to remove to drain water. And it is not easy to pick up the board to tilt it over on its side to drain the deck, nor does water naturally drain into the open area where the Mirage drives go. I don’t think that it will be good for the boards to have a water trap on the deck. But great fun and good exercise.
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