I believe the bottom is pretty sandy around there. You might do okay for halibut? but the rockfish are going to be closer to the reefs. Even though the shore is rocky and there are a few rocks sticking out of the water doesn't mean that the bottom is rocky.

I would not be afraid to try one of the epoxies specifically made to bond to plastic. There should be something at the local hardware store for plastic. I would put some tape over the backside of the two adjacent holes, fill it up, and then refill and sand it flat once cured. Worst case it pops off and you are back where you started.

Every store will let you demo a kayak.
The best thing about demo days is you can compare side by side.
Don't have to travel to different stores and try kayaks
I fair ness to dealers they are expensive to put on

We should add a demo time at the end of different fishing meet up/tournaments.
Should be part of entry requirements. ???
You register you kayak make and model so can get different kayaks and not all same
At end of fishing remove personal stuff and allow folks to try
Maybe a donation for demo goes in pot for big fish ???????????

I was specifically told by kayak city that they don't do demo's because kayaks pretty much sell themselves, so i drove straight to Headwaters and bought a kayak there. lol.

Is this with just the bars, or when you have a kayak on the rack? I know that tie-down straps can cause some gnarly noise if they are allowed to buzz in the wind. Putting a twist in them generally helps.

Success! I met up with Lineside Bounty Hunter at SWN for a nice little morning on the water yesterday. Fishing wasn't on fire, but i did bust my ling slump with a fat little 25"er and a handful of rockfish. The kayak performed fantastic. Plenty stable, pretty quick, even surfed a couple of big following swells (not on purpose, but it handled it great). I get quite a bit of spray over the bow when headed into the wind, i may try to incorporate some sort of spray rail in the future.

The cheap plastic paddle holder did not work at all, luckily there was plenty of room to stuff the paddle on the inside under the gunwale. There is a reason the Vibe seat is 5x's less $$$$ than the hobie vantage seat. I will probably have to figure out some way to add some padding and removed the bar that was digging into my back. Much to my surprise the homemade steering worked really well.

An interesting thing that happened, when launching and landing with the mirage drive stowed the drive well was like a vacuum and hoovered water up into the boat. i don't recall this ever happening on the Hobie, I may think about bringing the plug for the drive well and stowing it in the front hatch if it will fit.

The inside of the kayak stayed pretty darn dry. If it wasn't for the drive well water suck i bet it would have been even drier.

Anyway, on to the pictures:









Next trip is to try and get some Chrome, we'll see how lucky this new boat is!

stillgoin,
The best/only source i could find for marine ply was MacBeath Hardwoods, they had 4mm in stock in Berkeley and Stockton, i went to Stockton.

I have actually considered scaling up the Sabalo12 to ~13' x 32" to be closer to the dimensions of the new outback. I think that would be an awesome size. The cockpit on the blufin is super tight now that i am trying to rig it up, another 3" in width would help a lot.

If you ever want to check out my build in person let me know, i would certainly be willing to share all the tips and tricks i picked up.

On another note, it sounds like roads are open to the coast, i just talked to the store at Ocean Cove and they said it was all good there, so i am probably going to drag the kayak up there on Saturday morning to try to break it in for real.

Made me think of this Far Side...

I'll tell you what this means, Norm... No size restrictions and screw the limit!

Almost forgot. I fired up the old sticker cutter and made these for each side. The JEM Watercraft turned out real good. I like the font for the Blue Fin 15, but i am not sure how well it is going to hold up.