in article , J. Thomas Jeffrey
at wrote on 8/15/04 3:11 PM:

I would be interested to hear from people who use the following
kayaks:

Current Designs Soltice GT XL
http://www.cdkayak.com/kayaks/comps/solsticegtxl.asp

Necky Telsa NM http://www.necky.com/teslanm.htm

Seaward Vision
http://www.seawardkayaks.com/Product...uctName=Vision

I will be buying one of these boats this winter and would like to hear
what you think of them and of the company that makes them.

I will be using these boats on lakes and non-white water rivers and
eventually the ocean. I am interested in making trips of from one to
two weeks.

My wife paddles the Solstice GT high volume (narrower than the XL you are
looking at). I have a Seaward kayak, not the one in question, althought it
says that the Vision is based on what I have, a Navigator.

The Solstice is very smooth through the water and way more manoeverable than
my boat, but it sounds like they have made some changes to the Vision to
address some of the "bathtub" characteristics of the Navigator.

It's my opinion that a lot of the detail work on Seaward kayaks is of higher
quality than CD kayaks, such as seams and combings etc. I don't know if they
have changed this, but the hatch seals are not nearly as good on the CD
kayaks as the Seaward system. Seaward also has a superior pedal system, in
my opinion. I don't think I'd put Necky in the same class as CD or Seaward.

You will notice that the Vision has a raised bow, whereas the Solstice
barely peaks at all. We've found that into a headwind the Navigator is
better. But in our experience that's about the only circumstance where it
outperforms the Solstice.

You'll obviously have to try them out :-)

Hope this gives you some things to think about!

Cheers,

Keenan
gokayaking.ca