Hi Capm, my daughter and I started tandem kayaking when she was 9. I looked seriously at tandem kayaks, they're really not made to single-hand, the front seat is way too far forward and if you're by yourself, the boat will have a tendency to always nose downwind (in the wind, you function as a big jib). They're made for 2 adults.
So my choice was the Tarpon 160, because after she was done with it, it would be a great boat for me.
I rigged her up a rear cockpit, even with a dashboard and compass
A 110-, 115-lb passenger in the rear well is an easy float.
here are some friends in my boat
when I was borrowing my buddy's Malibu X-factor, for 4 to tandem in 2 boats
It worked great, but before too long, she would rather paddle her own boat and by the time she was 11, we had my buddy's old Kahuna on permanent loan.
Even though his two daughters are 3 months and 3 years older than mine, they don't paddle like she will - she's a charger (with her mother's mitochondria - at 12 years old, she will bicycle 15 miles).
My daughter will get in the boat and beat the wind across the flat, but she's always been the type who doesn't want you to see her squirm.
So the choice of whether an 11-y-o or 15-y-o is ready to single-hand a kayak is a combination of determination and stamina.
The two girls paddling together? You might be able to rig a 12-foot boat for them to do that.
I'm familiar with your boat, and you could likely rig a tandem seat to paddle with the girls one-at-a-time, either at the front of the cockpit facing you, or possibly in the rear well. It's also plenty of boat to rig for them to tandem together. Really, all you need is a seat and plan to tie it down.
Here's a good discussion of tandem rigging on Texas Kayak Fisherman
http://www.texaskayakfisherman.com/foru ... 3&t=163145
Last summer, my buddy's 15-y-o was wanting the Kahuna back, so I bought my daughter the Redfish 10.
(it was made by Heritage, but by the same designer who made the Tarpon, after he sold Wildness Systems).
The Redfish 12 is probably a better all-around and certainly more substantial boat, but tossing around the 44 lbs of the 10 is not such a chore, which makes it a great boat for a youngster, and it's still enough for a grown-up to borrow under reasonable conditions.
This year, my buddy also got the red Redfish 10 for his 13-y-o.
The Redfish 10 is a great little boat, but you sit kind of far back in it, making you a mainsail, instead of a jib. In winds above 15 knots the windcock would always turn my daughter upwind, so that she couldn't paddle downwind (I would have to lash her to my boat, and that was the squirm no one was supposed to see)
I solved that with a skeg - I found a commercial skeg and designed a bracket to mount it in her boat. She only has to deploy the skeg going downwind (above 15k wind) and its first real smoke test was last week - it worked perfectly - she paddled home down a wind gusting over 20k.
You can see the skeg retracted in this photo,
and if it interests you, here's the whole story on TKF
http://www.texaskayakfisherman.com/foru ... 3&t=176920
We not only paddle the flats - we paddle some local lakes, and I plan to occasionally borrow the Redfish 10 for the rivers.
Back to the Tarpon 160. It is not a river boat, because it's all about keel, and will not spin. In fact, a rudder is pretty much mandatory on it, and even then, it's slow to turn. Not a problem on stillwater and coastal flats.
OK, it does work well in lazy rivers - we also paddle the San Marcos R., which is a spring-fed river that is a series of impoundments and weirs.
Oh, and you see the blue line in my bow bungee? It's rigged to my trolley, so even in deep water I can always lash to the bow of a girl's boat, trolley the tow line to my stern, and haul a girl home.
