daperrin wrote:
Hi, hoping someone can give me first hand experience about how stable the Oasis Tandam is with two people in it offshore in swells or rough water (moderate roughness). Planning to go down to Pensacola next month and have never been offshore in it. Just in rough lake water.
Thanks.
David
I bought my Oasis Tandem on the Island of St Croix in the USVI.
I think it's pretty stable. Much better than the "Malibutwo" I had previously used.
The waters around St Croix can get pretty rough, and the shores have reefs which means "breakers" in many areas even on a calm day.
My 5' 6" 160 lb daughter in the front, and my 260 lb 6' frame in the back did the annual kayak race from Cane Bay to Frederiksted (12 miles) which goes around Ham's Bluff ...a point where the deep water meets the shallows and swells/currents can be rough on a good day. (that race no longer goes around the bluff)
In the 2010 race we were
one of the FEW kayaks which DID NOT tip over in 5-7 ft cresting swells. Going around the Bluff/point, we road the swells, but also had reverb coming back off the cliff at an angle. We road straight down the swells and zigged at the bottom to hit the reverb perpendicular coming off the cliffs. Fun and tense.
Those who did tip over,
and many of them were single kayaks, were either inexperienced or the unlucky, (or they were the two yahoos who had just bought a new hobie they had never taken out, and strapped a beer cooler on the back of it).
Prior to the race, my daughter and I had spent many hours on that water in lesser seas. We knew how not to OVER COMPENSATE in those moments when the boat leans or slips sideways a bit.
Over-reacting is probably the greatest cause of tipping. Experience helps, so does watching the swells, knowing how to properly steer, and being lucky.
The biggest problem was people getting BACK in their boats in swells. There's a great thread on this board about self-rescue, self-boarding techniques. If you haven't read it and practiced it, good luck. We stopped frequently to stabilize other kayaks while the owners tried to heave themselves back in.
One day in much lesser swells in the same area, I had
a friend in the front who was 220, 6' 1', and our center of gravity was so high and bow so low that we turned around and went home.
Hope this info helps.
Here's a photo of my daughter and our kayak at the start of the race at the calm/sheltered Cane Bay. Ham's Bluff can be seen in the distance. Water looks pretty calm, doesn't it? That's another factor in your decision making:
do you know the water in the area?