After my experiences with the Cetus in the second half of 2009, it's about time now to describe some technical details about her before finishing my testperiod with the Cetus.

The hull
The Cetus has a rather rounded underwatership with flat midsection and a sharp bow. Furthermore the hull is given a swedeform shape which helps making it a fast kayak.

Deck layout


The decklines are not very thick, but thick enough. They start and end close to the cockpit: also aside of the day-compartment, which is rather remarkable as most modern kayaks have the decklines never aside of the hatch. This feature gives full access to decklines in whatever situation and wherever you grab for lines. :-)
Elastic shockcords are available at the required places.
And, very tidy, the toggles are held in position by a shockcord; standard!

The compass is recessed nicely in the deck just before the front-hatch. This position is nowadays rather common, but for me as wearer of glasses a bit more close by is welcome.


The fourth hatch is handy for direct access during trips. But it has also consequences as described below under "cockpit".

The hatches are round and big enough to put your head (mine fits) inside.

Just behind the cockpit P&H constructed, as on most of there other kayaks, a groove wherein your paddle-shaft fits to form a paddlebridge.



Cockpit
The seat is very comfortable and has a separate liner offering some isolation and elasticity.


One drawback is that after some time this liner moves a little while edging the kayak. This can be fixed with some velcro like on the picture left.


When you like perfect hip-contact and your hips are not wide enough to contact the seat, you will have to do some creative work to make the seat a bit narrower. May be it is possible to add some filling underneath of the seat-liner next to your hips. Remember it is important to have good hip-contact in a large kayak like this.

Because the seat is positioned quite aft in the cockpit and the deck being rather high, it is not easy to do a layback while rolling.

The knee grips are comfortable and provide good grip and control over the kayak. It is however advised to improve the grip by adding a thin layer of foam like you sea underneath:


Furthermore the cockpit is, with its 87 x 51cm, big enough for easy entrance and exit.

The footrests are easily adjustable even when seated by means of a stick you can turn. They are more comfortable than the former (type J&R) small adjustable footrests because now the surface, where your feet rest, is much bigger which results in better spreading out of the forces on your feet.
As I had the experience that one footrests moved by itself out of reach of my foot, I would like to advice to check always if you locked them properly. My fault was, may be, having done the locking wrong.

When you want to install a foot-operated pump inside the cockpit, the bad news is that this will be impossible once the kayak is ready: the 4th-compartment, just in front of the cockpit, makes it impossible to work inside the cockpit. You will have to order your Cetus with a factory installed footpump on a front bulkhead positioned at your leg-length
But be aware: When you have rather short legs there is a chance that you will not be able to operate the pump because the compartment prevents to move one feet behind it. But also when you have longer legs be careful in your decisions.

Variable skeg
The skeg is operated by a newly developed system which makes the system not vulnerable anymore to cable-cinking when you forget to retract the skeg while landing.
The natural position of the skeg-blade is down: lowered by means of an elastic shock-cord pulling at it all the time. The skeg-blade position is operated by a rope from a system where the operating button is locked by a rattle-device and a pinching button.

The operating if the skeg is not that simple. OK, of course you have to get used to the different way of operating: first squeeze the button and move it. But that is not the problem: sometimes you have to squeeze too hard and then it is hard to move the button. This was the case with both Cetus' in the club. On internet you can find a lot of comments on this. Having read some I understood that it could well be that it has something to do with the rope-material.
Some stories report perfect operation after replacement by P&H. Others are less lucky.
As P&H uses this system on other kayaks as well its not a specific Cetus-problem. May be this helps P&H in finding quickly a good solution for everyone.

Furthermore I observed that the skegblade is very flexible; may be too flexible. I would like to refer to my experiences in following waves where a bigger skeg blade or else may be a stiffer blade could improve the kayaks performance.

Quality
I can be very short here: Quality is outstanding.

Compartments
When you look at the total volume of the Cetus, you know it already: this is a kayak with an big capacity for carrying loads

As you know watertight compartments are vulnerable for over- and under pressure because of temperature changes. Until now kayakkers drill small holes in the bulkheads to normalise the pressure in the compartment.
In the Cetus P&H finally introduced another solution for this problem:
pressure valves.

I was not able to test the functioning of them, but I certainly embrace the idea. Maybe you, reader and Cetus owner, can add your experiences.

Dimensions & size
Length: 17’10” # 5,43m
Max. Width: 22.5" # 57 cm
Max Deck Height: 12.2" # 31 cm (front coaming)
Total volume: 100 gal. # 379 litre
Cockpit: 34.25"x20" # 87 x 51 cm
Material/weight:
- Carbon/Kevlar # Weight: 57lbs # 25,9 kg
- fiberglass/diolen # Weight: 64lbs # 29 kg
Optimum Total Load (approx.): 143-297 lbs # 65-135 kg

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Today I attended a tour, organized by Hans Heupink for the Dutch Kayak Association. Due to the expected 7Beaufort-winds the planned surf-session was canceled and instead we made a nice tour in the Voordelta; to say hallo to a lonely seal.

I did not take a testkayak with me today, but paddled Willem's Breeze (a clone from Plasmors' Ligue de Bretagne) a trustworthy kayak I did not use frequently yet. Given the wind 5-6Bft, I felt very secure in the stable kayak giving me plenty of opportunities to watch my companions.

Thus I noticed that Govert paddles his new Cetus. Having tested the Cetus myself, this was an opportunity for me to interview him and to record his experiences.

In fact his former experiences did not differ much from mine; written down on this website earlier.

First of all he was very happy with the stability, the great maneuverability, the responsiveness to edging and the big loading capacity.
Less positive he was about the new skeg-rope control because it requires too much force to operate it.
He also mentioned the bad habit of the Cetus to broach quickly in following, surfable, bigger waves.

At the end of the tour I asked him how it was in the following waves today. His experiences were a bit different , more positive, in today's smaller waves of approx. 50cm height. He mentioned he could, in these waves, anticipate well for broaching by just edging the kayak. It takes a moment, but than the kayak responds and kept course well. Probably, paddling in a following sea in a Cetus is something you have to learn.

If the Cetus will respond like that in bigger waves is the question.
I expect that edging in rough(er) conditions can help.
But because most kayaks responds well to their skegs in a following sea, I think that the skeg of the Cetus also is part of the issue. As her skeg is very flexible and because the high forces on the blade, while it works on preventing for broaching, it bends away sideways significantly. As a result, the effective surface of the bent skeg is reduced and while the skeg is a bit small already, I think that the explanation for the behavior in following waves can be found there.
So I think it is a good idea to experiment with a stiffer skegblade. Even better it would be if Valley increases the surface of the skegblade.

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Today I played in the surf near Bakkum at the Dutch coast. We were there with club-members of the KVU and two guests: Axel and Hans.

During the day the westerly wind increased to 6 Bft, offering good conditions with waves up to 1,5 meter for kayaking in surf. The only drawback was that the tide was going down at the time that the wind was OK. The low tide produces, in combination with the wind, steep and powerful dumping waves which made it a challenge to break through them in order to reach surf-able waves.

I thought that it was about time to paddle the Cetus in surf. Today I could use Leo's. Thx Leo.
And again I was impressed with the stability of the kayak in the confused, hissing sea.

My paddle friends all used short manoeuvrable WW-kayaks, except Axel who brought his surf-shoe-kayak. Normally a seakayak is superior to the short kayaks where it concerns breaking through cresting waves with a kayak. I was surprised however that in the conditions of today the Cetus had definitely no advantage in this. On the contrary, some WW-kayaks could break easier through waves. Whether it was the 5,5 meter length of the Cetus or the high volume of the front-ship I don't know, but the Cetus rose to steep angles when I "climbed" a wave. Probably it was this angle being responsible for the waves pushing the Cetus backwards on every passage.
Looking at the slender bow and the speed of the Cetus I expected the opposite.


That the Cetus did not surf easy wasn't a surprise to me after the last trip on the Hoornse Hop. When catching a wave the Cetus broaches quickly and that was also what I expected. But it goes further than that because she turns very quickly further until she completed a 180 -turn letting me face the wave again. Normally when something like that happens the power of the wave is decreased already but because the Cetus turns so quickly it happened that, once turned, the wave steeped further with me backwards on its face and let me flip backwards.
It could be an option to drop the skeg to improve on this broaching behaviour, but because the forces in surf are high I didn't dare to drop the skeg, being afraid the skeg would break.

Of course today's waves were steep and powerful but I expect this quick-turn habit also to happen in smaller waves only without the backward-flip in that case.

Honestly I did not like the flip because I hit the sand bottom very hard. Knowing that boats can split because of this, I feared the worst for Leo's kayak. However the Cetus was well built and did not show any sign of deterioration.

By the way, the flip was a natural occasion to test rolling in the Cetus. Apart from the washing-machine underwater, rolling was no problem and I was upright at the first attempt, still being on the front of the same wave, which was being scaled down a bit in the meantime.

After that I did a series of high braces and rolls. Rolling was OK but felt, as it did also after the capsize, a bit laborious. It could well be that this observation was caused by being a bit tired. So later I will do some more rolling in quiet water to compare.

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Today I paddled the Cetus on the IJsselmeer in a 6-7Bft SW-wind.(gusts up to 8Bft)
A perfect area for testing in the conditions of today was the "Hoornse Hop". We choose to start at Wijdenes and paddle against the wind in the direction of Edam. Doing so we could plan our trip better. As you never know how fast you can go in these winds, you can always turn back once time is over. With this crossing we challenged the heaviest part of the area.

As said, our first leg was against the wind and the second the same way backwards promising some nice surfing.

Normally I count with an average speed of 3 km/h against strong winds, but today we paddled near 5km/h , which is not bad at all. The Cetus, but also Wieger's Exite accompanying me, was not hold back in speed by the steep, short waves when we worked ourselves against the wind. On the contrary: she just glided over the waves only occasionally getting water on the front deck. The only spray I got into my face was caused by the kayak slamming down on the water after particular steep waves.

While paddling against the wind the Cetus behaved a bit nervous because she tried to follow the mixed, disturbed waves and wandered of course quickly. At first I tried to calm her by dropping the skeg a bit, but that was a mistake because this caused leecocking when a wind-gust blew the bow aside. Bad idea, so I hauled the skeg up again. After a while I got used to this behaviour of the Cetus. Actually I was quite happy with her manoeuvrability as this made it easy to bring the Cetus back on track once a wind-gust blew the Cetus of her course. So probably it is not fair to call the Cetus nervous; therefor I think it is best to change that in manoeuvrable.

The stability of the Cetus was outstanding. This is best illustrated by the fact that I could easily take pictures and eat something without support: In this wind with one hand on my paddle.

After 12 km we turned back and we tried to surf as much waves we could. Surfing the Cetus is not very easy because she quickly broaches to a side, even with the skeg dropped completely, when the waves are a bit irregular: She just follows the disturbances in the wave-surface. However: in a very big smooth wave she surfs very well. Fast she goes ;-))
Wieger's Exite just surfs better and he had to wait several times for me, to prevent disappearing after the horizon.
After some time I became tired/hopeless of getting swept 90° of course frequently and turning back on course again and therefor I stopped trying to surf. Instead I just tried to keep the Cetus going on our desired course. This worked quite well as the Cetus did not come to surf on her own. You can mention this as a good and safe characteristic because when you don't get into surf it is easier to control the kayak.
I thought this strategy of not trying to surf being the most convenient way to paddle the Cetus in following waves. Of course I did not reach the speed the Wieger's Exite reached while surfing.

When we approached the headland near to Wijdenes, the wind increased to 7Bft with gusts up to 8Bft. This spot is normally the most turbulant of the area, but now the water grew wild and the waves were somewhere between 1,5-2 meters high. Fascinating!
But: in the middle of this circus my footrest on the right side suddenly move forward out of reach of my foot. The adjustment system of the footrest, as I saw afterwards, just released the blocking mechanism. Probably the continuous slamming down waves during the trip made it turn a bit. OR, I just did not block it correctly.
However: without footcontact it is difficult to make fun in these conditions.
If you have a P&H-kayak with this new easy-adjust-footbrace-system, I would like to warn you to adjust and lock the footbraces properly to prevent for the experience I had.

With only 1 footbrace left, I had to switch to a survival-strategy in the big waves, meaning that I prevented coming into a surf, preventing on broaching and keeping the kayak on course while bracing if a wave started cresting and letting the wind blow me further. I was very happy with the stability of the Cetus at this moment because this surely helped in controlling the kayak while having insufficient contact in the cockpit. I am not sure if I could perform a roll with only 1 footbrace.
That this last part had been a tiring way of paddling became clear to me when I entered the little harbour of Wijdenes. I had to turn left into the wind to enter it and I hauled up the skeg to make this turn easier, using of the weathercock-tendency of the kayak. Only a few sweepstrokes were necessary to make the turn, but doing so the delta muscles of my back cramped and I had to stretch them between strokes. This cramping was new to me; never experienced this before.

Nevertheless this was a very interesting trip with the Cetus and I can appreciate her under these circumstances: I felt quite safe during the trip.

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When I asked Henk if I could borrow his Cetus, he asked me what I was going to do. After unfolding my plan to paddle on 12 Sept. towards our club members, who were paddling back from their instruction-camp on Vlieland, he was enthusiastic and liked to go with me.
That is nice, I thought, but now I can't paddle the Cetus. Fortunately Leo, also a Cetus owner, offers to use his Cetus.
So now we were a nice pair: both in a Cetus.

To be able to paddle to Vlieland we must catch the tide early: launching at 7.00h. Which was a bit late really. But otherwise we had to rise even earlier than the 3.30h we had to rise today. It's in the middle of the night. How awful!

In the timing was included the finding of a suitable launching-spot, as well as a parking place for the car nearby.
That wasn't too easy and for not to loose too much time, we launched from a kind of pontoon two meters below street level.
Nevertheless our timing was perfect and we managed to launch at 7.00h sharp.

Once out of the harbour we met a condition with the wind causing slight weathercocking, combined with current coming from the same direction, from our right side, as the wind. An irregular sea was the result. I had to be alert to hold course. It could be that I had to get used to the Cetus, but I got the impression that the current played tricks with the skeg; gripping it and pushing it aside.
But after a while, when the current came from behind, the Cetus kept course perfectly, being helped by the variable skeg for weathercocking.

Paddling the Cetus from Leo made a small difference with my experience last Wednesday: while edging the kayak, the seat-lining moved a bit left-rigth. Henk and Leo both used Velcro-tape (hook and loop fasterner & klittenband) to fixate the seat liner, but obviously there was a small difference between both seats as I did not experience this "seat moving" in Henk's kayak

Paddling at ease we easily reached 10km/h; being helped by the current of course. I also tried of course paddling without using the skeg. That was not difficult while edging a bit and using a sweepstroke now and than. But all without too much effort under the conditions of today. Of course the manoeuvrability of the Cetus helps quite a lot with this.

Later when the wind increased to 5 Bft. blowing up the waves against the current, it became much easier to hold course without using the skeg and from that moment I did not use the skeg anymore. And the Cetus, she danced nicely over the sea.

Occasionally ships and ferries passed by and the waves in their wakes were a welcome intermezzo to look at the stability of the Cetus in waves. Honestly the Cetus is so very stable that that the waves did not require any extra attention from me. She just glided gracefully and in a very natural way over the waves.

We thought he Cetus to be quite fast. When paddling towards the approaching group of paddlers, the current had changed direction already and while paddling fast against wind and the 2 knot-current we were still able to reach a 5km/h. Not too bad we thought.
After turning back we paused a bit to eat something and as the other paddlers went on, we had to push hard to join them again. The current helped a bit and made us reach 13km/h.
While pushing hard with wind, waves and current from behind, it was a bit difficult to keep course as the Cetus wandered of course to both sides. I saw Henk having the same difficulty while making powerful sweepstrokes.
Having the skeg lowered to its maximum helped a bit. We still liked the Cetus and could overcome this characteristic, but I think that a beginner might have to struggle a bit under these conditions.

While paddling in the group again I compared with other kayaks and I think the speed of the Cetus is a bit above average. She is matching the good old Baidarka. Henk and me were also matching very close. Strange huh.. with two Cetus'es

Although the deck compartment can be quite handy, it made it impossible to stretch my legs a bit farther away that the footrests because the compartment blocked the way. This also means that it is impossible to mount a foot-pump in the Cetus.

Although I was a bit stiff after 6 hours of non-stop paddling, I do not complain over comfort: the seat is comfortable, thigh-trips are excellent and the footrests are much bigger than usual. These footrests feel much better under your foot sole because they support a bigger part of your feet.

Being back in Harlingen I felt a bit embarrassed as we got out of our kayaks at a very nice launching spot being no more than 80 meters away from our launching spot where we had been struggling a bit this morning.

Conditions:
Wind - NE 4-5 Bft.
Wave height: approx. 20-50cm
Distance: 46 km

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Yesterday evening I borrowed Henks's Cetus as a preparation for a tour at sea on Saturday: just to get a bit used to her.
I paddled out of the harbour to the Alkmaardermeer and in the protected waters of the harbour the Cetus felt very manoeuvrable; the bow even yawning a bit at every paddlestroke. Dropping the skeg partially compensated for this.
Strange enough I did not recognise this the first time a paddled the Cetus for 15 minutes because I than concluded that the Cetus was only manoeuvrable when edged. That's how it is with testing: sometimes you have to change opinion though.



Once on the lake I felt quite at home in the Cetus. There was not much wind anymore but there will still waves from the stronger wind earlier this evening.
With the wind from aside the Cetus started weathercocking already at the 2Bft-wind. It could easily be corrected with paddlestrokes or the variable skeg; what you like best. I think that I can understand the weathercocking as the aft ship is quite wide and is, because of this, more shallow than average when compared to the bow. As a result the wind can blow the aftship easier away; which is called weathercocking. Contradictionary is the kind of integral skeg integrated in the stern: you could expect that this could prevent for weathercocking a bit.
This was the first occasion I could use the new skeg system with the locking ratchet. At first I fumbled a bit around to adjust quickly, but I think it is just something to get used to. If its easy to do in winter with cold fingers I don't know. But we'll see.

I paddled several courses in the waves and experienced the Cetus being comfortable and stable under the conditions as they were. I cannot imagine any, more or less advanced, seakayaker having stability problems in this kayak..

After an hour or so I turned back for going home, now paddling with wind and waves coming from behind. Under those conditions the Cetus was not very directive-stable and wandered to both sides. Dropping the skeg completely helped a bit but attention in keeping course was still required.

Being back I concluded that I could take this kayak safely with me at sea because the contact with seat, knees and feet was perfect. Finally a kayak that fits me without having to customise the cockpit. In fact quite amazing as this is a high volume seakayak and I am not too big myself.

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Wednesday evening I paddled a short tour with the Cetus on the Alkmaardermeer: for a first impression.
Because I may (Henk and Leo were so kind to offer me the use of their kayaks) test the Cetus, such an impression is important for me to know if it is necessary to do some customising in the cockpit.

My first thoughts are:

- Stability is outstanding: the primary- and secondary stability feel very secure.

- Manoeuvrability. The Cetus is easier to manoeuvre than, for instance, a Sirius. When you are looking for a very manoeuvrable playboat, the Cetus is not for you. But to my opinion the Cetus is easy to manoeuvre when edging her. I expect the Cetus to perform as a steady kayak at sea.

- Edging is not difficult and feels solid.

- Speed. My first paddle strokes felt quite fast. While paddling however, her speed felt quite normal. Therefor I think she certainly is not a slow kayak; but also not extremely fast. May be you can position her as a bit above average of seakayaks nowadays. Of course I have to investigate this further in a later stage.
While sprinting I could easily keep up with an Exite.

- Comfort. The seat-position is pleasant. The footrests are easily adjustable, even when seated.
The knee-contact, for my knees, will require some padding with additional foam to create a painless knee-grip.
The cockpit is big enough for easy entrance and exit.

Well finally: I think that I can trust the Cetus and that testing her at sea will be a pleasure.

More on the Cetus will follow.

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