I'm bought my stealth 12 about a month ago. So far I've taken it out about 5 times, 1 in the marina and 4 of the coast. I haven't had any water go into my side compartments at all even with a botched surf launch (I'm still learning!
). I do however get a lot of water spilling into the bait hatch from waves going over the boat on launches.
So far as I'm just getting used to the yak, the weight with gear, the sea etc. I'm slowly loading up my yak on each outing to see how it feels. Even though from launches I get water in the bait hatch, nothing spills out of it. I am however getting a little water from the front gator hatch, not too much (again depends on how successful my launches are).
I have noticed that I am accumulating water inside the gator hatch itself, meaning inside the plastic cover. It's annoying because it ends up adding weight and is very difficult to drain. I've reached out to Malibu Kayaks a couple of weeks ago but so far I haven't heard a peep from them. As much as I'm enjoying my kayak it seems they don't have any customer service at all and that I'm on my own to come up with a solution.
sanjuancapokayak, has Malibu gotten back to you at all?