iTrek11 experiences here

I have started to use the rarely seen iTrek11; have you any questions I might opine on? I can't comment on fishing but use it for sightseeing in sometimes wavey conditions, and might adapt it for sailing which Hobie didn't do.

The most distinctive feature is radical turn authority. I'm bored by various demo's of turning almost within your length. Try a high G turn at speed. Don't snuff your speed with full rudder deflection, but lean into turn and smoothly increase rudder to 75%. It's like when cars cut donuts in parking lots. If it resists turning, then may be due to a wave which will next maximize your turn and threaten roll over if you don't counter lean first. Well, I'm sure I have a higher center of gravity than most, and find even 40" width a bit tippy.

It is less fun in chop than my old Hobie i12s which parted the waves at lower psi. The iTrek just slap-slap-slaps in steep chop. It gets you thru it, but a corkscrew motion can go from the hull into your rigid frame seat and tire your back. A conventional rigid paddle kayak did the same thing to me in that test location. In proper waves of about 5 feet and medium steepness the iTrek maybe did better than my old one. The stern and bow aren't pushed by waves but you kind of slide from them. It even did some mellow surfing, which needs caution with conventional rudder and fins.

Anyway, it's kind of heavy and awkward to ground handle so I might carry the fin drive with a separate shoulder loop. I know you are thinking iTrek9 solves that, and it might give a smoother but wetter ride in chop with the bow submarining more. I posted some videos that talked up the 9 over the 11, but there were others that preferred the old i11s to new 9 which I didn't post since without iTrek11. Well, chop isn't everything and I will gingerly explore bigger waves plus flatwater (windward shore) sailing. Normally I avoid strong offshore winds but the iTrek11 has the power to probably slug back to launch if needed.

I got the turbo fins but hard to judge the speed except that I overtook paddle kayaks. Is it my imagination or does the kickup drive have a shorter stroke than my old GT drive, so I try to avoid hull slapping. I did have a (personal?) problem with feet slipping off the pedals which I proposed a quick fix in the general kayaking topic.

A few more thoughts... The seat is great; the best I have experienced, and due to upper curvature it even tolerates life vests that aren't super high-back. The kickup fin feature gives huge peace of mind. I would never bring my old fin drive to the shallows I experienced there, altho due to high tide I wasn't aware of any hits. I prefer the rugged simplicity of the included non-180 fin drive. I added lanyards to both drive and paddle (which did pop one end off a time or two).

The manual pump is great even with my sore back. If you use the 2 way feature early, the electric prefill seems not needed. Nice to have a pressure gauge, although hard to pick out the 2 target levels. Too early to tell if the folding up is gonna remain hard, since when new they are stiff and unmanageable anyway. I may prefer the old style bag which had built in 2 way cinch straps and could be rolled up and placed on the boat enclosing pump.

Probably due to the side bulbs I experienced the most secondary stability ever. So I can tilt and just hold it steady, to for instance perch level on a big broadside wave (seen in picture B below). I used it for turning fast also, mainly to avoid being tilted outward by centrifugal force. A crazy application may be to heel a sail into the wind like the world speed record boats (75mph) depicted below. Then I am counter weighting the wind force while remaining centered in the seat. Maybe get dumped in a lull tho:





(Windward shore flatwater; the white shape at stern is a hydrofoil that holds body down, and the sail outrigger airborne)