Drag at what part…
It’s not just about the power to start a boat up, but how much effort it takes to keep it going once you are there. My Vela gets going very quickly, but starts to set up a bow wake somewhere over 4 knots. If I can get my other, too-big, boat up to there (Explorer LV), it hasn’t set up that bow wake yet. So while someone could measure things a likely prove I was expending a good bit of energy, it wouldn’t be in a direct relationship to the over 2 foot diff in length between the two boats.
Not a dissimilar diff between my husband’s Nordkapp LV and the Aquanaut. The Aquanaut gets easier to paddle (per Sea Kayaker tests as I recall) at some higher speeds where initially faster boats start to plow water and get more drag.
It’s all about the hull design, not just what you can tell with a measuring tape. People get hung up in the physical dimensions of a boat and don’t really see the designer’s tweaks.
If you were my daughter, I would advise
getting the longer kayak.
One of my many daughters who is smaller than you paddles an eighteen foot carbon kevlar kayak.
I am not advising that for you, but I think you would be happier with the longer boat.
Jack L
Jack L
Careful - careful - careful
Yes, long boats are faster, BUT, they have more skin friction and thus need more horsepower. I wouldn’t jump straight into a 16-foot boat UNTILL having the skills to get a nice skinny one, and the knowledge that you have the power to make it go.
This has been covered a billion times here, but even so I’ll post more in the main thread.
Observations on Length
I touched on the risk of going too long to start with in a side comment above. Statements that a 16-foot boat is faster than a 13-foot boat usually come from paddlers who have the skill and power to make a long boat cruise, but these same people have no idea what it's actually like to be a smaller, weaker person. I see it happen all the time.
I know one small woman who bought a 16- or 17-foot kayak (it's one of the Looksha models) on the advice of "experts" who told her it would be a whole lot faster than a typical rec boat. You see, being small, she was worried about being the slowest person in a group. Well, she simply lacks the power to make it move at anything close to a "normal" cruising speed. Later, she got a 10-foot boat for twisty rivers. The 10-footer is an ultra-cheap design, perhaps near the bottom of the quality scale in rec boats, but she's considerably faster in the little boat than in the Looksha, simply because of the lesser wetted surface area and lower skin friction. I suggest you take ALL recommendations about starting out in something of typical sea-kayak length with a grain of salt until you know more about what you can do, and probably until you are ready to buy a highly efficient design (which might be "tippy" for a beginner).
From my own experience with two rowboats of similar design, one being 12 feet and the other 15, the 15-footer is my favorite for long-distance cruising and attaining high speed, but it takes a noticeably greater effort to get it going and to keep it moving. Some might jump on the fact that a rowboat is not a kayak, but in spite of the extra overall width, the waterline width of each boat is no greater than that of a rec kayak (less than most of them) and similar to that of many touring kayaks. The 12-foot boat moves effortlessly in comparison to the 15-footer, and will even accelerate from a dead stop to 5 mph in a single stroke (that's possible even with enough gear on board to eliminate what's otherwise the advantage of weighing less).
I have a good friend who's about as small as you, and one of her boats is a 13-foot Necky Manitou. She's not unusually strong nor is her technique highly refined, but she can cruise in that thing like there's no tomorrow. A 10-footer would move with even less effort AT SLOW SPEEDS, but at fairly normal speeds, I think 12 or 13 feet is better. A ten-footer will hit its maximum speed at too slow a pace and at too low of an energy output by the paddler. On the other hand, something approaching 16 feet or more presents the risk of needing more power than you know with certainty you can expend, at least at this stage of the game. Overall, I think 13 feet is probably a good starting length, but talk to others before deciding. After a year of paddling you'll be in a much better position to decide what changes, if any, you want to make.
For what it's worth, there's no real learning curve when becoming "comfortable" in a little touring kayak like the Necky Manitou 13, so you're likely better off in ANY short touring kayak than in a rec boat of the same length, assuming you can find a touring boat on the used market.
There will be a few boats for sale in the parking lot at Canoecopia. Wander around and look for old boats for sale. There's no display area; the used boats will just be sitting on the roofs of the cars that brought them.
Check out Valley Avocet
Lots of smaller paddlers I know really enjoy this boat, you can get it in plastic and used near the top end of your budget.
Also Pikabike who posts here often may weigh in, I think she is about your size and does lots of lake paddling.
A longer sea kayak is fine if you are going to be on big water but if you do rivers and small lakes with winding feeder arms you might want a more maneuverable boat.
"Trying them on"
Yes, you can “try on” prospective boats at Canoecopia (though not in water).
Come prepare, gather info at Canoecopia
You can sit in the boats at Canoecopia and pepper knowledgeable people with questions. Be prepared for them to ask you questions, too, about how you want to use your kayak. As for test paddling, my understanding is that there’s a fairly liberal return/exchange policy if you buy a boat a Canoecopia, then don’t like it once you get a chance to paddle it. I also second the earlier comment about talking to Danny Mongno of Werner Paddles and/or going to his presentation. Too many people put a lot of money into a boat and cheap out on the paddle. You need a good, lightweight paddle, especially if you are paddling for hours.
Read my first point
If you review my first point you;ll see I recommend honestly assessing what you want to do.
Second, It’s not productive to tell someone that they have to start in a small boat then move onto a larger boat. With the shorter boat a paddler will expend more energy to maintain a pace that longer boats will be able to maintain with little energy. Additionally, new paddlers get frustrated with that small boat first nonsense. Figure out what you really intend to do and purchase a boat that suits those needs and you size/fit.
True
It’s true what you say about the crossover from friction to wave drag in the 3-4 mph speed range. At high speeds, a long boat is faster. However, it’s my experience that almost no one cruises above that range for any length of time, particularly a small beginner. Sure, an experienced open-water paddling group may do that on a run up the coast or to some offshore islands, but I don’t think that’s who we’re talking about here.
Guideboatguy’s post below and Brian’s article that I linked above explain this very well.
WS Piccolo in Oconomoc
If you are anywhere near this used kayak on Craiglist near Madison, it would be worthwhile seeing if you could test paddle it. It's an excellent quality small person boat if you can fit in it and they are including a paddle and PFD for $450 (though the paddle looks like a cheapy, but for the extra $150 in your budget you could buy a quality paddle and keep the cheapie as a backup spare):
http://madison.craigslist.org/boa/2824376081.html
Read the reviews by P.net users:
http://www.paddling.net/Reviews/showReviews.html?prod=361
These have been out of production for several years but have held their value because of their unique size and performance. You could easily resell it if you wanted something different. It would fit you nicely and is fairly light and quite fast.
More info
The Piccolo is a great idea - more info here:
http://www.wildernesssystems.com/content/wildernesssystems.com/assets/page/2001/piccolo.jpg
Also, there's another discontinued model that is ideal for the smaller paddler, the Tchaika:
http://www.wildernesssystems.com/content/wildernesssystems.com/assets/page/2001/taikia.jpg
One more important consideration
I'm back on my soap box against those who automatically preach about the value of a long boat. The original poster has not yet said what kind of waters she'll be paddling on. If she's going to be on some smaller rivers, all I can say is that some of the best kayak paddlers I know look very inept in such conditions in their long boats. A 13-footer will not become a bumbling barge a on a small river that has trees in the water. And of course, considering the earlier point, so well described in the article linked by Carldelo, it will paddle with greater ease when used within the range of speeds that most people actually travel. Some people probably SHOULD start out in a long boat, but to provide that as general advice to a beginner without knowing any important details is very likely to be wrong.
User says…
Profile says Wisconsin, profile says slow rivers and lakes, response from her above says: "Somewhat long distances as in being out on the water for 5 hours a day on a fairly calm water lake or slow river (not looking to kayak in rapids or the ocean or anything like that)... I'm nervous that a 10 ft kayak would just have too horrible of a tracking speed and wear me out after a couple of hours..."
She also mentioned being out of a paddle and someone smoking her bunch in a longer boat. I didn't pull the clip, but it didn't sound like she was averse to ultimately being able to keep up.
The 5 hour part got my attention. So maybe she finds that is too much, but she still wants to do a long day. And at that kind of time out, someone is likely to get further from shore, for example going for crossings, than the paddler who is ready to throw in the towel after an hour or so. Also more likely to get caught in unexpected weather. "No one expects the Spanish Inquisition... (thus dating myself)."
There are new paddlers who come in and sound hesitant from the start, who may never do more than paddle 10 feet from the shore every other weekend for an hour. The posts from Michelle thus far don't read quite like that.
I am not advocating a full out sea kayak myself here, but I also don't think it should be ruled out if that's the deal she finds at the event coming up. As to your small friend and the Looksha... suffice to say that if it was a really small woman I am still scratching my head about what model of the Looksha anyone could have recommended for them. I know and respect the Looksha line, but if there's an older model out there that is remotely well sized for a 5'1" woman I can't figure out what it is. Maybe the newer 12i, but that's just a 12 ft boat so I doubt it is what you were talking about.
But in all fairness to whoever sold her that boat, you have to be there to understand the full dynamics of why a new paddler walks off the lot with a particular boat. People new to sea kayaks - including some WW paddlers I've known - have a variety of reasons where they end up with a boat that is a good bit taller and bigger around them than they'll prefer after a year of paddling. It is possible that your friend was anxious about stability and could not be talked into leaving the outfitter with the more "tippy" feeling boat that they may have tried to get her into. Or - they took the short cut of just putting her into something comfortably huge because it'd be a fast sale.
Quick Reply
Regarding paddling in "slow rivers", I stand by what I already said. A great many of our slow rivers are sheer hell for someone in a sea kayak. On open rivers without the trees, a sea kayak isn't so bad, but to me they still look pretty awkward on the curves. And people in really skinny boats have a terrible time finding places on the river where they can even get in or out of the cockpit. They always need help from another boater when the banks are steep, which gets old. A fairly "basic" kayak is more river-friendly.
Regarding the OP being "smoked" by someone in a "much longer boat", she actually said nothing about the other boat's length. She only said she was passed by someone in a sink who was paddling with ease. She was on a tandem SOT and it's worth remembering that SOTs are notorious for being "lead sleds" (and yes I know there are fast SOTs, but here in Wisconsin I've yet to see any kind except the crappy barges). It might have even been a rental and they were given overly long paddles (which increase the effort needed for a given degree of propulsive power). There's not much we know about that situation.
Regarding her desire to paddle for 5 hours or so, I'd be repeating myself to explain why a long boat is not necessarily the best choice in that situation. The third paragraph of the article linked by Carldelo explains the logic of why a 13-foot boat makes better use of the paddler's energy when moving at an average person's normal cruising speed than anything I've written so far. And going "farther from shore" or doing "crossings" on such a long trip is just projecting a sea-kayaker's viewpoint on the situation and has nothing to do with the kinds of water mentioned so far.
Regarding my friend in the Looksha, you are right that it is simply the wrong boat for her. It's just too big. She bought it as a complete beginner as her first boat, and did so because she was told it would allow her to keep up with others. Clearly the advice she got was wrong, and clearly she should have done more research, but it's that old problem that when you "don't know what you don't know", you also don't know what questions to ask. But in all fairness, the experienced paddlers who told her she "needed" such a boat were giving advice that was based on half-logic, not well-reasoned logic. There is no getting around the fact that at speeds of 3 or 4 mph, nearly any 13-foot boat will move through the water with less effort than a 16-foot boat, and the article mentioned above explains why all the subtleties of hull design in the world can't change the reasons why that is so. One really needs to be going faster than that on a regular basis, and have the strength to do so (remember, 2x the additional energy is needed for each additional 1 mph of speed) to justify something longer. The longer boat might be better for the original poster, but there isn't any info so far that makes it clear that this is so. That's the only reason I'm suggesting that advice to "go long" be given with all due qualifiers rather than be provided as if it's necessarily the best choice.
For a first boat…
cheap is good. She will likely run into a scad of 12 to 14 ft boats used and cheap because that is so much of what gets sold to first time paddlers.
But width matters a huge amount too. I don't know how tall you are, but at 5'3.5" I can verify that the half inch of diff in my shorter boat makes a noticeable diff in how easy it is to get a good bite over the course of a paddle. And I know from bike measurements that my torso and arms run a little tall for that height for a female.
The OPer is over 2 inches shorter than me. She has to think harder about avoiding beat up knuckles than either you or I. And there is not much way of assuring that the narrower boats she finds at this event will be of a certain length.
I don't see anyone here advising that she HAS to go out and get a 16 plus ft boat. But if that's the one where she doesn't need kevlar knuckle protectors to paddle, there's no reason to run away from it either.
As to your friend and the Looksha, like I said it is hard to be sure what happened unless you were there when she bought. Even with the limited times I've done safety for demo days, I've seen more new paddlers walk away from the right boat despite good advice than pick it. I have no doubt that she got general advice that longer would track better or whatever, but I am hard pressed to believe that the full length Looksha you are likely talking about was the only boat that she could have tried out. It just may have been the only longer one that didn't make her nervous. A boat like the Avocet LV mentioned above for example would be an entirely different first experience, but not a comfortable one for most new paddlers.
Not my experince
Well I owned a Conduit 13 for about a week. Bought it at Dicks sporting goods. I took it back. It 27 inches wide and has a pretty large cockpit. From my paddling with it useing a nice easy paddle stroke it would go about 3 mph. If I paddled real hard I could get it up to 5.5 mph according to my GPS. But its cruise speed was right at 3mph any faster and effort had to go way up.
Now with that same easy paddle stroke my Eddyline Nighthawk 16 which is 16 feet long 22 inch wide cruises at 4.2 mph. Same amount of effort I used on the 13 foot Conduit. So from my limited experience the long sleeker kayak goes faster with same effort. Paddle real hard in Nighthawk I can get up in the 8 to 9mph range.
So if 3mph is ok then the Conduit 13 can do that. Its hatches stayed dry but again I didnt have the kayak long. I thought it was to slow.
Well
Post deleted, as I just remembered the OP was looking at the Conduit you mention in your post, so it is definitely on point. I guess I ruled out that boat as an option so quickly that I plumb forgot she mentioned it. But I definitely agree with you that the Conduit looks like a terrible choice. But I still think a well-designed 13' or 14' boat would be a good choice for the OP.
Even for her size, she really, if
possible needs to at least sit in a boat. Then try it on the water.
I have a Necky Chatham 16 and a friend that weighs less than me tried to sit in it. Unfortunately, she carried much of her weight in her hips.
As far as a long boat on some rivers, one really needs to have quick skills for turning. An eddie can catch one off guard, especially a newbie, very quickly. It only takes a slight bit of distraction to tip over.
Personally, if I had it to do over again, I would have started with at 12 or 13 foot boat instead of the 9’6" that I did. I tired of it within two years. Oh how we get old too soon, and smart too late.
Remember, no two bodies have the same dimensional lengths in the arms, legs, torso, etc.
Best of luck in your search.
PICCOLO PERFECT!
You guys…I think I found the PERFECT kayak for myself on Craigslist. I really wanted to wait until March to go to Madison to test some out, but this kayak has gotten praised reviews. Its 21.5 W, 13.6 L, 9" Depth. Its for a kid (or small adult…perfect for me since i’m only 5’1 and 105 lbs!). What do you guys think?!
THANK YOU!
Thank you so much for this informative post. It never even crossed my mind that it takes more effort to KEEP a long boat up to speed. I pretty much have my mind set on a 12-13 footer. While browsing on CL, i found a WS piccolo…I really hope the person stil has it and hasn’t sold it yet. Have read extremely good reviews on it.