Re: Baltic
Here's my mini review if that helps any...Sid
As you all know I've been in the market for a Baltik. I ended up buying the 9.5 with the air floor. Some advice from here was to go for the wood floor due to increased ability to plane out. I decided it was more important to give up some planing ability in order to be able to more easily store the boat on the boat.
I used the Best Offer feature on Ebay and after summiting a couple of offers I acepted a price of $729.00 plus a free extra seat and free shipping. I believe that was a fair price. I know they have gone a little cheaper if you wait for an auction, but I didn't want to wait.
Shipping was fast and it came packed in large cardboard box. The box looked a little rough around the edges, but hey, this was UPS. My only concern with the box was that anything sharp could have poked a hole through the box and into the boat. Mine was OK.
Included in the package was the boat, an air pump, seat and short directions on proper inflation. It was missing the extra seat, but one e-mail and now I have a tracking number. They responded very quickly.
The pump is the hand type and total assembly and pumping took about 30 min. Now that I've done it once you could probably do it in 20 min. Everything was fairly straight forward. The only concerns here are the manual doesn't tell you inflation values. I happen to know from reading their website info. Also the pump does not have a pressure gauge so I had to estimate the PSI and tried to error on the low side. You will have to purchase a gauge.
Carried the boat down to the dock and put it in the water. I was concerned about how stiff the air floor would be when I stepped in the boat. There was no concern at all after the first step. It was very stiff and I'm not really sure it had the recommended 11.5 PSI. Remember it came with just a hand pump. Anyway, it felt very stable and was easy to enter. The Walker Bay when you entered you had to be very careful and slow.
Went ahead and mounted the motor which is a 1980 7.5 Chrysler Sea Horse. Loaded the gas can, which had 5 gallons in it in the bow and me at 6'0-192 lbs. Motored out past the dock and open it up. The bow rose up and seemed like it might stay there so I leaned forward a bit and she came right down and was on plane. I startled myself a little because the boat handled very twitchy. It only took very small inputs and you were off in a new direction. Part of the twitchiness was probably due to the size of the boat and also the steering on my motor is stiff. Once I got used to it, the boat was a blast. It held sharp turns until the motor cavitated. Kinda felt like a go-cart on the water.
Once the trim was dialed in she planed very easily. She, however, would not plane with both myself and my son, who clocks in at 180lbs.
The boat looks like it was built quality in mind. The seems look good, there are no loose or sloppy looking joints. All the hardware is stainless. As far as longevity, time will tell. I plan on using a boat cover when it's out on the dock and deflating it and storing inside during the winter. All in all, I'm happy with the purchase.
