We reviewed the Bahiya november last year and wrote a review about it.
However on the day of our test the surfzone was not ideal for getting
a good impression of the Bahiya surfing down breaking waves.
Because the bow is as sharp as a knive and because the bow burries
itself a little bit when paddling in a big following sea, we suspect
the Bahiya of being able to dive deep while surfing and causing a
salto.
We are interested, just to make the review complete, in experiences
with the Bahiya in the surfzone.

For your interest, you can find underneath the english summery of our
(Dutch) review. The complete review can be found at
dezeekajaksite.tiscaliweb.nl. where we publish kayakreviews. Probably
you can't read Dutch, but there are quite a lot of photographs of the
Bahiya to be found as well.
…………
We tested the Bahiya in november 2003 in Holland. We always try to
test a kayak in challenging conditions in order to get the complete
picture of what the kayak is up to. Because organised kayaktrips in
Holland has the limit of a 6 Beaufort-wind, we try to test under those
conditions.
So we did with the Bahiya in a 6 Beaufort-wind from the east and in
waves of about 3-4 feet

With the introduction of the Bahiya, P&H seems to have aimed at a fast
seakayak with a real Eskimo-appearance. In our opinion they succeeded
very well in this, because the Bahiya is much alike the AnasAcuta; the
kayak with the most beautiful lines.
What really catches the eye is the bow of the Bahiya because it is as
sharp as a knive. However this is combined with much flair to prevent
the bow from diving in waves. However, in spite of this, we suspect
the Bahiya in big surf to dive deep and causing a salto. We found it a
pity that de surf we met during our test, was unsufficient to check
this. May be that other testers can take a look at that issue.

Regarding the cargoroom, the Bahiya has more possibilities then the
AnasAcuta, because with a volume of 305 litres there is enough room in
the Bahiya to pack a complete camping-gear. Only for long expeditions
you may need more volume. For day - and weekend trips the volume is
more than sufficient.

The Bahiya is certainly a very fast seakayak. It is like a
runninghorse and not particularly suited for beginners.
We think like this because of the stability in combination with the
need to edge beyond the capsizing point while manouverating it. The
primary stability is reasonably good on flat water. The secundiry
stability comes in really fast at a few angles of heel. When you edge
further you get the feeling you will capsize because the secundairy
stability is low and the only way to stay uprigth is to use your
paddle. Of course this is no problem at all on flat water.
On flat water you have no stability-problems and you can easily turn
the Bahiya by edging far beyond the capsizing point while making
sweeps. The Bahiya turns out to be quite maneuverable then. However,
if you want to do this at sea in waves it is a complete different
story while you can definitly do this, when your paddling technique is
OK, but you have certainly much less safety-margin. Of course this is
also, partially a matter of getting used to the kayak, but we found
that the Bahiya was difficult to turn in bigger waves and in surf. The
reason for this is that we edged not as far as we were able to on flat
water.

Looking at the behaviour in wind we found out that the Bahiya only
weathercocks very little in 6 Beaufort, which could easily be adjusted
with the retractable skeg. Dropping the skeg totaly made the Bahiya
leecocking. So we think this combination gives a well balanced kayak
that can be trimmed properly.
There is one thing we found less comfortable. While paddling with
waves and wind from rigth or left it is difficult to turn downwind. We
first faced this in 4 Beaufort and could then easily solve this by
dropping the retractable skeg, because of which the Bahiya leecocks
and that was what we aimed at because we wanted to turn downwind.
Trying the same in waves and in 6 Beaufort this didn't work out the
same. Of course, dropping the skeg helped a bit but still you have to
work hard to turn the Bahiya while making big sweeps and edging quit a
lot. With the waves coming from the side we think this is not
something a beginner is able to.

The Bahiya is not really a kayak to play in surf. Of course it is
possible to play in surf and you can have fun with it while reaching a
high speed while surfing. But you don't have much safetymargin with
regard to stability. As mentioned above we suspect the Bahiya to be
able to dive deep with a following surf.

Kayaking in a following see is a pleasure for one thing becuase it
surfes really, really fast. I am still getting enthousiastic when I
think of the speed I reached.
On the other hand when you are just paddling and don't want to surf in
a sea like this, you must stay very alert while paddling to prevent
broaching all the time. Dropping the retractable skeg fully, helps
only a little bit and we think the Bahiya really needs a bigger skeg
for this conditions.

Kayaking the Bahiya is something you must dare to do. This means that
you, for steering the Bahiya, must shift your weigth under
simultanesly edging and making sweeps.
When you are up to that, the Bahiya is a joy to paddle because it is
fast and runs, no it is dancing, ligthly over the waves.

Kayaking the Bahiya in the conditions we tested it, required that we
had a perfect fit in it. The standard seat and knee rests prooved to
be unsufficient in this. When bending backwards the hips lift a litle
bit and the fit becomes too loose because the sides of the seat
becomes wider when going upwards. By fitting quite a lot of foam
blocks in the hip area and for the kneegrip we improved the fit and
could handle the Bahiya very well. Without this perfect fit we felt
quit uncertain in it.
Of course everybody is free to adjust the seat to personal needs and
we advise urgently to do this at the bahiya and to reach a secure lock
in the seat, especially when you are not very heavily build.

We don't like the backrest either, but because of the fact that it is
quit easily to change it to personals needs, it is not a serious issue
for judging the bahiya at.

However a serious point is the tigthness of the hatches. We kept the
Bahiya edged 90° in waves for about half an hour and found that water
had entered in all three compartments: 10 liter water all together. We
think it must be the hatches because the water came in all
compartments and it should be too much coincidence if there were three
leaks at another place. The Dutch Kayakstore Tiekano couldn't believe
it because these hatches are in use for some years without complaints,
they say. They promised to test it at the same kayak to reproduce the
problem and to find out what had happened there. Until now they didn't
report it back to us. In my opinion it could be that the tension
between hatches and rim was a little low. Another cause could be the
fact that we, before taking off in the waves, bended the edges of the
hatch under the rim, just like you have to do at the oval hatches from
Valley. We think it should be fine to find out the cause of the
leakage, just to know wether it is a failure or that the hatches must
be treated in a special way.

We think the position of the spare paddles on the back-deck to be a
bit strange. The hatch is that big that there is no place left for
sufficient bungee cords. Therefore one spare-paddle covers the
day-hatch completely. When you bring that sparepaddle-part to the
foredeck you have a simular problem because the blade covers quit a
lot of your map-area. Probably this can be solved by asking for other
positions of the bungee cords on the foredeck.

Looking at the quality we found some places of unsufficient
impregnation. Especially the internal connection between deck and
hull. Because this kayak was only the 15th from the mould, it was
probably build in a hurry for the introduction. But be aware of these
kind of things.

Because the Bahiya is, in a certain way, family of the AnasAcuta, I
will mention a few words about comparing both kayaks. The paddling -
and edging behaviour of the Bahiya is very much the same as the
AnasAcuta, which, for example has the same broaching characteristics
in a following sea as the Bahiya shows.
Still there is an important difference between both kayaks because the
AnasAcuta is not fast at all especially when there are no waves. On
the other hand the AnasAcuta has a very high primary stability: "like
a rock"! With that you have a better platform in the AnasAcuta then
with the Bahiya, especially in a situation in which you must edge
beyond the capsizing point and have to stay uprigth with your
paddlingtechnique.

Because of this the Bahiya is not such a "heavy sea"-kajak as the
AnasAcuta is, but with the Bahiya you can still, as it has been proved
by us in the test, also face heavy seaconditions.

Summarizing, we think the Bahiya is dream to paddle for the
experienced paddler who, however, has less safetymargins in it; migth
it happen that he runs into trouble. We have no severe criticism on
the Bahiya as a kayak. However we think it is essential the hatches
must be watertigth.
Furthermore we are used to perfect quality of P&H-products and we
think that the quality inspector must, in the future, pay more
attention to the impregnation of the inside seam between deck and
body, to the finishing of the glass from of the inside seam between
deck and body in front and back and to the montage of the seat that
has now been assembled not symetrically,

Finally we want to do some suggestions for improvement of the Bahiya:
- A larger reractable skeg for quieter running in a following sea.
- We also want to plead for a small- or oceancockpit to become
available as extra option, just to realise a very secure fit in de
seat. Or, if P&H thinks the investment to be too high for that, it
should be a perfect idea as well if a special part could be developed;
a part you can screw into the cockpit to make the opening smaller and
giving better knee-contact. This can be usefull for all the kayakers
who like a small cockpit.

The above is a summary of the review we wrote in Dutch. The review can
be found at dezeekajaksite.tiscaliweb.nl. Probably you can't read
Dutch, but there are quite a lot of photographs of the Bahiya to be
found as well.

René van der Zwan