Our paddling group is:

husband = 162 lbs, 5'9"
wife = 103 lbs, 5'3"
daughter1 = 50 lbs, 4'2" (10 years old)
daughter2 = 48 lbs, 4'0" (8 years old)

We are novices, just started kayaking. We are currently doing some easy lake paddles to get the feel of kayaking in general and to get the feel of a Wilderness Systems Tsunami-145 and Tsunami-SP that we recently bought. We hope to build toward some weekend or maybe longer touring/camping trips on NC/Va lakes and on the sound-side of the NC coast. The camping is obviously a ways off for us, but it is the goal after we've built our skills, confidence, etc. We're not interested in open ocean water while our daughters are this age. Maybe it'll prove to be something we can't resist, though, as we gain experience, who kows ...

The idea of tandem is appealing to us. It would allow one of our daughters to be (essentially) resting in the front seat of the tandem at any time (with adult in rear seat) wile the other daughter paddles the Tsunami-SP and the other adult paddles the Tsunami-145. (Also, our car rack will only hold 3 boats!)

We can't afford the best, lightest, etc. boats. You probably understood that from the relatively inexpensive starter boats we've already bought. However, we also don't want to really get into this and then have to buy a new boat.

So, after all that background, I'm hoping that someone out there might have some ideas to share --- specific boats we might consider, issues we haven't considered, etc. --- or past experiences that might be instructive for us.

Thanks very much,
StumpWater

Stumpwater,

We paddled with our children using two doubles when they were younger. In the days we were doing this paddlers didn't think about dressing for immersion so our children started while still in diapers.

We looked for doubles that could be easily paddled as a single in conditions rougher than we ever would intentionally have our children out. We looked at how comfortable we were paddling, how the boat handled with a very light load in the forward cockpit and an adult in the aft cockpit and stability. Now days with center hatchesavailable I would add to that a 4 bulkhead boat.

Safety as always has to be a primary concern.
1. Always wearing a proper fitting PFD.
2. Dressing for immersion in the waters you will be paddling
3.Take time to practice capsize and rescue with your children in a controlled environment, using the boats you'll be touring in.
4. Not putting a spray deck on them till they have had a chance to do a practice capsize wearing one. When ours were young we had a half cockpit cover that kept the sun off their legs and shed some waves while in no way hindering their ability to fall out of the boat if it were to capsize.

We kept our trips within the attention span of the kids and limited our exposure. When they were little we set our exposure limit to not paddling more than 10 minutes from a landable shore - this meant we never did crossings of more than 20 minutes. Watching the weather closely, being aware of tides and currents and paddling protected waters we felt we could get our precious load to shore before things got out of control staying within those parameters.

Having a paddle that was sized to them made it possible for them to participate at the level they were comfortable with.

Hope this is of some help

Michael

Hi StumpWater,i have read your post.The places you have chosen for touring are good.They are much watchable places.Have a good camping.
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gomez

Camping