How fast do I cruise?
So far a lot faster than any geeks who obsess about cruising speed or hull design / speed! That is a fact… So much so that I will no longer paddle with anybody who brings this subject up because I know they will NOT keep up.
I’l paddle with anyone who doesn’t care…
Safe paddling all
I Don’t Rightly Know
Don’t have a GPS or a speedometer on my kayak. I usta stay out in front of the pack but found I could do loops or work on skills and stick with the herd. Besides, my girlfriend paddles like she is in molasses and if I leave her behind, no fun stuff for me later.
My whole life is fast and the reason I kayak is to slow down and unwind from the BS of the workweek.
That said, fast is still good
not too fast lately
– Last Updated: Mar-20-09 6:32 AM EST –
wicked out of shape. Speed has not been a priority at all. It's been a lot of effort just to want to paddle. Just getting outside and on the water has been the goal. Paddling less than 10 miles at a time once a month since the end of November until about two weeks ago when the ice started to go away. Last weekend I did a ten mile, round trip, upriver and back and it took me 2 hours to paddle up (5 miles) and 45 minutes to paddle back with time to take pictures and enjoy a smoke. (OK...maybe two smoke breaks) That felt great and at no time was I working hard at all wearing a drysuit to inhibit any further exertion. Typical effortless cruising speed for me in that boat this time of year.
Mariner Express Sea Cruiser
bad fat laden posture. lowish angle Werner Camano
omf it's spring today! Can you believe it! Made it through another winter.
cruise at…
Average Cruising speed (flatwater, no current, no waves)
5.5 mph
qcc 700
epic mid-wing
William Reitzer-Smith
WilliamRS that is interesting, I am
looking at the purchase of a QCC700. Last weekend I averaged 4.8 mph in my Nordkapp over a measured mile in no wind/current/waves anything. I consider this an athletic pace that I could do for 2-5 miles. The Kapp cruises with half strokes at ease in the 4.2 mph range in the same conditions. I am looking for a fast gear hauler with decent sea manners and have looked at the Viviane and the QCC700 as possible options. My speeds are with a homemade GP. How much faster is the QCC700 than other boats you have owned? How much faster is the wing paddle than other paddles you have owned? Thanks for any help/enlightenment. Bill
Cruising to me means easy effort
which can be sustained indefinitely. In that case, almost every boat I have, I consistently turn in 3.2 mph at end of day. GPS set to stop logging below 1MPH. Same number no matter if I take the 9 footers, fat and flat, to the 17 footers, sleek and light.
GP vs. wing
– Last Updated: Mar-20-09 1:16 PM EST –
So far, especially in my slower boats, I have seen virtually no difference after 10 miles at a brisk pace in the average speed wheather I use the Epic mid-wing or a GP. With a GP I'm usually a little less tired and diferent muscles are used too. Theoretically, the wing should be more efficient in the water but also uses more energy from the paddler to keep it in the correct posigion to be efficient is my gut feel so at the end they probably average out. For flat out speed, the wing is better though.
Sorry, do not know about the QCC speed over a long distance but it is known as one of the faster boats out there if you have enough power to keep it up at speed (some shorter "slower" boats may be easier to paddle at a little slower speed for a longer period of time though).
I’m not a fast cruiser
I’m a half-fast cruiser!
2nd that
I occasionally paddle with teenagers and while they are all fairly athletic, they sometimes have a hard time keeping up with those who are “almost 50 and getting old.” Endurance and keeping a steady pace over longer distances is about technique, efficiency, experience; all which they are still developing. Look up Cliff Young, ultramarathon runner.
info requested…
– Last Updated: Mar-20-09 5:03 PM EST –
moparharn,
Right now my qcc700 is in a dead heat with my Prijon Kodiak. Neither have moved an inch all day so I guess they are really slow hulls...LOL
Joking aside,I haven't really compared cruising between the two boats...back in 2005 I did a 11.8 mile race in just a minute or two under 2 hours (up and back on a slow river)in the q700.[trinity river race] The prior year I did the same race in the Kodiak in 2:11 {a week after finishing a 100 mile race in 17:08 hours}
In the Q700 I can hold the 5.5 mph for (at least) 5 hours...which comes to about 26 miles. I can ease up and hold just above 5 mph all day. 6mph for two hours.
Sprinting--After about 6.3mph the Kodiak starts to hit a wall, but in the qcc I'm the one that hits a wall at about 7.4mph. needs a better engine.
I think I could gain just a bit more mph if I lost about 80lbs (currently weigh 280)as that would decrease my draft by almost an inch in the q700
What is a "half-stroke"?
4mph
– Last Updated: Mar-20-09 4:59 PM EST –
Discounting nature breaks and stopping for lunch--last weekend my wife and I paddled 26 miles on a lake at her all day pace of 4 mph. She paddles a Prijon Kodiak. Her 26.2 mile RACE pace is 4.8 mph.
Bill
{keep in mind we paddle a lot of miles and are pretty efficient wiht our forward strokes}
Thanks, I appreciate your response.
I guess I should have chosen my words more carefully. By half stroke I mean a lazy effort that does not result in a full forward stroke whereby I stroke in the 3/4 forward to 1/4 rearward area of the normally full forward stroke area. 4/4 being a full reach and 1/4 being the exit point. The Kapp loses little speed in this lazy semi arm paddle 1/2 stroke. Obviously there is a steepening of the resistance curve with me in the Kapp between 4.2 and 4.8 mph. All this is only relative to last Sunday’s conditions. Sorry for the lazy 1/2 characterizations of the lazy 1/2 stroke:)
Bill
Kayak cruising
The last time I checked my speed was Sep 2006 during a solo trip around a lake with no wind or current. I paddled my Nordkapp using a Lendal paddle with Kinetic blades. I paddled 25.3 miles in 6 hours 17 minutes with a 30-minute food break and a few other short breaks while chatting with fishermen along my route. I averaged 4.8 mph the first hour, 4.5 mph the second hour and 3.95 mph the third hour. After my food break, I averaged 4.8 mph (from mile 14.0 - 18.8) and then averaged 4.29 mph from mile 18.8 - 25.3.
Thanks…
for all the good input. Very interesting to see the wide ranges of numbers and how they correlate to boat and skill level.
“Cruise” and “fast” do not belong in the
same thought, much less the same sentence.
70 miles in 9.2 hours
www.canoeregatta.org It was sort of a cruise becuase I had no pit crew so I had to take my time but current was fast downstream. Did 20 miles of www.blackburnchallenge.com in 3.3 hours out on the ocean. With eft and turbo wing, I often go 7mph downstream and 5mph up. A little faster with mohican ski.
If you are cruising at 3.5 all day
– Last Updated: Apr-08-09 11:12 AM EST –
congratulations.
You are not a braggard. Your are not a BS artist, and you are enjoying the day.
Cheers,
JackL
i’ll bite…
a question was asked and various answers were received…where do you feel “bragging and/or bs” was involved?
ot:
We enjoyed the B&B with you two–too bad it was the last year for it to be held. we had fun and would have made the trip again.
Bill (and Ann)from Texas
So far - only 1 “good” answer
– Last Updated: Mar-27-09 1:33 PM EST –
May be a few more close to good, but only one substantiated the numbers (the poster with the QCC various pace rates).
Most others say they do not count breaks, their GPS stops below 1 mph, unknown currents, etc. That's very misleading. To me cruising speed is the average speed over the entire trip. Obviously, long breaks/overnight stays should be excluded, but short rest stops on the water and bio breaks should be included. If we start including wild life, photography, enjoying the scenery - that's also meaningless.
I think the original question was meant to solicit responses on reasonable top maintainable speed, not about how slow can one go. No offence meant to slow goers, just the question of how slow can you go does not really matter much as there is no constraint - you can always go slower -;)
Also, a day trip pace will likely be different from a multi-day trip. On a one day or a half-day paddle I can exert more effort knowing I would be back and resting in the evening.
To provide another example from my morning paddle today: average 5 mph over 2 hours (including all breaks) and I was pretty tired at the end (not exhausted as I have another 12 hours of work after that, but a good workout). I'll try to beat that when I have my "new" Rapier 18 ready for use -;.
Kocho, are you the Roger Ebert of posts?
My input did not pass muster? I wasn’t even “good”? I have my dagger at my belly and will do the honorable thing unless you give me back my dignity. Wait, this won’t work, I have a 10" dagger for a 40" belly. Hari Kari is off for today so let me leave you with this story in an attempt to characterize “cruising”. Last summer I got a chance to paddle with Greg Stamer on Lake Michigan. We had a few hours to talk about mostly his expeditions when invariably the question of speed came up. “So Greg do you cruise at this speed generally when doing a 50 mile night crossing?”. “No” he said. “I guess you might slow it down to conserve energy for an unexpected event” I said. “No” he said. “Well what is your cruising speed?”. At this point he studies his stroke and speed in a way that made me certain he was “hitting his grove” and pulled away from me like I was caught in a fishing net. “About this I would guess” he said to a paddler that used to be next to him. He was in an Anas and I was in my Naut LV RM. We were cruising around 3.7 to 4.0 in two footers and 15 knots of wind. I would guess his “cruising” pace was closer to 5.0 to 5.5. If he were in the Greenlander Pro he used for Newfoundland it might have been even more. This experience reminded me of when I would play summer hockey with the CCHA college kids after just finishing our winter league. It is not the same game. The speed at which sports are played professionally is the difference between pro and not pro. So why worry about it. Wanna race? Well, do ya punk?
Bill