Hobie odyssey

[manlystanley]

A friend is offering me a Hobie odyssey for a great deal. My wife really wants a tandem to take a grand child on. I was thinking that I could use it as a single seated yak to take a friend fishing, when my wife doesn't use it.


Has anyone out-fitted a Hobie odyssey to fish??? How did it handle, track, etc??

Thanks,
Stan

[ski357]

image (27).jpgimage (27).jpg

Hopefully I attached the image. Not me and it is a Hobie Outfitter in the picture, I fear that you might experience ballast issues using a tandem as a single seater. There are tandem options out there that reconfigure for solo use such as the Hobie PA 17T-but that is a beast of a boat and a bear of a price tag. The Native Ultimate FX 15 also comes to mind, but that is more like a canoe in my opinion. A buddy of mine just got the Native Ultimate FX 15 and we're taking a trip down the Shenandoah next week. I'll report back then on it's performance.

[RavensDfense]

When my wife and I ventured south to the OBX, we rented an Odyssey. It was great with two of us in there, but the following morning when I went out solo, it wasn't all that great. As the above picture shows, if you sit in the back seat, the front sticks out of the water, and if you sit in the front seat, the nose of the kayak digs into the water.

I've heard of some guys countering this by placing a cooler in the front seat while they sit in the back. I suppose this would work, but would be a pain to do each trip. Besides that, the kayak was a great ride.

[mchottie]

Depends on your idea of a great deal, these are only $1375 brand new, $1100 slghtly used 2 years old (i did 30 seconds of research) if you researched in depth, i'd think you could find these very reasonably priced regularly via classifieds. That said, its not a pedal, and you will need to counterbalance it, a friend told me excactly what Doug RavensDfence says, he uses an RTIC cooler in the front seat to distribute to a more even load so it tracks OK.

[baynovice]

Depends on your idea of a great deal, these are only $1375 brand new, $1100 slghtly used 2 years old (i did 30 seconds of research) if you researched in depth, i'd think you could find these very reasonably priced regularly via classifieds. That said, its not a pedal, and you will need to counterbalance it, a friend told me excactly what Doug RavensDfence says, he uses an RTIC cooler in the front seat to distribute to a more even load so it tracks OK.

I have the Oasis model which is the pedal driven tandem. I often go out alone and ride in the rear seat. I carry a 5 gal bucket and fill it 1/2 - 1/3 full and place it either in the front seat or front pedal area depending on the size of the waves. When I'm done, I just dump out the water in the bucket and it doesn't add any additional weight going back and forth from my truck. As far as performance goes, I've really not noticed much of a difference in stability or speed with the front seat empty. The primary issue is that if I don't have the bucket in the front position and there are waves of a certain size, the front end slaps down on the waves and makes a lot of noise. Not sure how much fish underneath are bothered by the noise, if at all. For me, the flexibility of being able to take another person is a benefit without adding too much additional overhead.

[manlystanley]

Everyone: Thanks so much for your help. I'm not going to do the deal. The key for me is: Just OK as a single person yak; my wife and girls really don't want to fish much. So, why get the thing to store.

Again, thanks for your help.

Best Regards,
Stan