Are you asking for comments from those of us who design kayaks? Certainly a designer without any paper qualifications.

Having seen badly designed commercial kayaks. Being happy with the current design one sells and which does the job well that it was designed for, I'm reasonably happy. My partner built the first one about 1998 and she is part way through a second, delayed by earthquakes and a new house.

I paddle the narrow version simply because, having built it to prove it, it might as well be used. They are fast and good load carriers for multiday trips, Don't pound or bury their bows going into a head sea. So how should they be rated? A success? I've not hear any complains from builders.

As for paddles, what is a feathered paddle? A sort of duck-feathered one? OK OK, they've got the blades set at funny angles to each other. I've never owned or made a feathered paddle in over 3 decades of paddling. I've only made about a dozen GPs after moving from Euro style blades. I've never seen a sensible reason for feathering and don't say forward wind resistance.

Trips (not all in my own kayaks) - many parts of NZ, circumnavigated Vanu Levu,Fiji, a little in Australia, paddled in the Queen Charlotte Islands BC. More distance than rock gardening.