Should hulls flex a bit?

Well
Only if performance is about efficiency and speed, maybe you don’t want much flex. But, if you are doing Class II or higher whitewater and you’re banging off rocks, you really need a boat that has some flex. The real advantage to plastic boats is their durability and ability to take extreme abuse without breaking.



Most WW folks are only mildly interested in hull speed – maneuverability and durability are the performance characteristics they need most. Go to the Green Race and you can count the number of composite boats that go by. I bet it’ll be close to zero – real close!

For myself
I prefer my boats not to flex. I had a Ranger Otter that I felt had too much flex/oil canning. I fixed it by adding 2 more thwarts, one behind the bow seat and one forward of the stern seat. That stiffened the hull considerably. Note - it comes w/only a single thwart in the middle of the boat.

Ancient Technology
Flexible hulls for speed in heavy seas …



http://www.guillemot-kayaks.com/Building/FlexibleBaidarka/



Several years ago at Stanford I saw a computer animation of flexible Inuit kayaks frames moving through wave trains and confused haystacks. The modeling suggested that the flex added shock absorption but also allowed for increased speed in rough seas. I do not recall the justification, but it sure looked cool.

You aren’t from these parts, are you?

– Last Updated: Jun-11-13 5:37 PM EST –

Slalom paddlers go through entire seasons with only small repairs, BECAUSE THEY AREN'T INCOMPETENT.

I guess you had a good time as a spectator on the Green Race. Sure, those boats are plastic. So what? I've paddled ww since 1973 on boats made from all materials. I care about performance, even when I'm not racing, and you are paddling to an inferior standard.

Why did you bother posting? Your post has no relevance to mine.

We have a Pakboat and the same
ride as the Ally… Flexes dramatically which in cold water may be most desirable. Speed on Arctic rivers probably does not matter as much. I have only done the Snake and the Yukon. We didn’t have our Pakboat then. We might have stayed drier if we had…Sometimes the wave trains up there just don’t end.

I’ve “imagined” a similar scenario
I understand what people say about flex being less efficient, the part about it taking energy to cause the flexing to occur, and no useful work is done on the rebound. I think that applies really well to any kind of flex that occurs as a result of propulsive and reactive forces. On the other hand, in choppy waves, I am quite sure that I can feel the impact with the waves slow me down. It seems that IF flexing reduced the suddenness with which the boat is lifted over a small wave, the end result COULD reduce overall energy wastage. I’m not sure if it’s actually possible, and it might only happen during perfect wave conditions, but it SEEMS possible. Of course, a better plan might be to use a boat that slices straight through the wave instead getting knocked skyward. Oh well.

Also from Scientific American
Unfortunately the whole article is pay for view …



The Aleutian Kayak; April 2000; Scientific American Magazine; by Dyson, sidebar by Schlenoff; 8 Page(s)



When Russians first reached the Aleutian Islands and the coast of Alaska in the 1700s, the waters were thick with small, swift, split-prowed boats to which the explorers gave the name “baidarka.” Made of driftwood, lashed with baleen fiber and covered with translucent sea-mammal skin, these craft were entirely creatures of the sea. The Aleuts paddled the lightweight, flexible kayaks at great speeds in the treacherous waters of the area, hunting whale, otter, sea lions, seals and other marine creatures with hand-launched darts, spears and harpoons.



Over time, however, the design of the baidarka was altered to suit the newcomers’ needs. Certain forms of the craft-including a narrow, open-jawed, high-speed version-ceased to exist. Because the tradition of building these kayaks was largely unrecorded, a host of unanswered questions have arisen for contemporary scholars, kayakers and Aleuts. Just how fast were early baidarkas? Why the forked bow and the oddly truncated stern? Did Aleutian hunters have an intuitive understanding of design principles that continue to elude engineers and mathematicians to this day?

Of Course They Should Just Like a Fish
Paddlers spend a ton of money for super stiff boats every day. But heck! Fishes come with flexible skins and of course they can firm em up as needed too. But out in the ocean, my old used and cheap oil caning spec. surfskis perform just as well as the new fangle high tech craft. The old spec. style surfskis were also designed to be puffed up like a balloon too. No breather tubes needed, for depending on trim preference, a couple of puffs or more (usually 6) of air was all that was needed to be blown into the hull. If too stiff, you let out some air. In fact, the Spectrum surfski I use, still has small decals on it to remind the paddler to “Always Inflate.”



Now in case anyone wants to read what George Dyson has to say about flexible skins, then go to SEA KAYAKER, Issue 14, Fall 1987, page 64.

fish dont float.
Ryan L.

I’ll second the choice for plastic
on the creeks. I definitely don’t paddle creeks as hard as the Green but still do my share of boat abuse. I got tired of patchin’ glass boats 30 years ago, so I’ve been paddlin’ plastic ever since. I’ll gladly be on that list of “incompetent boaters” who believe plastic is better suited for creeks than glass. It beats bein’ at the top of the list for bein’ an “elitist a******”

Only When Dead - They Surf Though
And that’s what matters.

Okay
Yes, slalom boaters like the light weight and efficiency of composite boats, but the racers are almost the only guys in composites these days (okay, squirt boaters too) and somewhere in the Class III / Class IV range the racers go to plastic. But “performance” means different things to different groups of paddlers and yeah, composites are better for some things while plastic is better for others.



Don’t know why that is getting you stirred up.

Because you posted only to sound like
you had something to say, and what you did say was totally irrelevant to the discussion.



Who doesn’t already know that most ww paddlers just mosey on down the middle of a run and surf an occasional hole? Who doesn’t know already that poly boats are used by nearly everyone for the same reason that poly trash cans are used by nearly everyone?



The original poster is mainly a sea/touring type and wanted to know whether a rigid boat is best, or whether some flexibility is needed. It appears to me, and should to you also, that he is talking mainly about composite boats, and those who replied are talking about composite boats. I posted a fairly well reasoned discussion of rigidity and flexibility in whitewater boats.



You came in and said that most ww paddlers aren’t that concerned about performance, and that they use poly boats which are flexible and damage resistant.



So, how is that relevant to the original subject, or to what I said?



Whitewater boats are made like trash cans because most people aren’t up to occasional repairs, and aren’t able to read water well enough to avoid rocks. I have a 40+ year paddling career, nothing to brag about, but using composite, Royalex, and polyethylene boats. Neither I nor any other person good enough to keep a composite ww boat together for many years needs to hear anything from the unwashed masses.

Boats are not fish
Fish propel themselves by flexing their bodies. Flexing is active and is the source of the propulsion. There is some modification of the boundary layer by the compliant skin of the fish, the mechanism is not well understood.



Boats are propelled externally by a paddle. Here flexing of the hull is passive. It is a (small) energy sink - only important to people trying to go as fast as possible. Flex in the hull may be beneficial in multiple scenario, and Clyde appears to enjoy those benefits on the open ocean.



But a boat is not a fish.

Sea Mammal Maybe?
Especially kayaks covered with the flexible skins from them?

there is a difference
Between a frame that flexes and a skin that flexes. I know its not completely applicable, but an airplane wing is made to flex, but not supposed to dent.



A boat that flexed over waves and gave with wave action could be great, but the skin would still be better off rigid.



Ryan L.

But this thread isn’t about that.
Of course plastic boats are popular in ww. I have some myself.



But the discussion concerns flexibility versus rigidity and the effect on hull performance. Used for normal sized canoes or for sea kayaks, polyethylene is so flexible as to degrade hull performance, so those who can’t or won’t do repairs will have to put up with flexy hulls. And heavy hulls.



I’ve had ww poly boats that were too floppy to perform well, though not recently. The shorter and small a hull, the easier it is to make it rigid with poly. But they’re still all heavy, and heavy degrades performance.


Sounds like sea kayaks, especially,
might gain from having function-designed flexibility created by some genius.



In the past, though, if a kayak came out flexy, it usually meant somewhat degraded performance. The safest course is to design a fairly rigid hull, but who knows if that is best, and in what circumstances?



For paddles, a simpler universe, some flex seems to store and return energy at and following the catch. I don’t know if that has been proved scientifically, though. But most paddlers are convinced that a bit of flexibility feels good, and feeling good translates to an impression of going faster.

The Genius were the Aleuts

– Last Updated: Jun-14-13 11:29 PM EST –

That 26 year old "Forked Bows and Flexible Skin" article in SEA KAYAKER Magazine discusses a lot of the technical aspects regarding flexible skins.

Some Thought the Aleuts Had an Advantage
With their sea-mammal skin covered kayaks (SEA KAYAKER Magazine Fall 1987).