Curious what you folks consider a good balance in winds? Some weathercocking I gather is desirable from a safety point of view, but one should also be able to balance the boat so there is no need for excessive use of correction strokes or edging to maintain your direction.
So, if you have a skegged kayak, would you rather have the kayak weathercock noticeably with no skeg and become balanced by deploying about half-skeg?
Or would you rather have the kayak start close to neutral without any skeg and be able to induce leecocking with just a little skeg?
Do we get a choice?
– Last Updated: Oct-18-10 1:11 PM EST –
Kinda serious question. Once I like a hull for speed or turniness or just plain comfort, I have to take the skeg effect that comes with the boat. So my quicker, more turny boat starts out with very pronounced weathercocking that even full skeg can't always get on top of, and my longer boat hardly ever has the skeg down. Buuut - I didn't choose either of these boats for the skeg effect, instead for the overall hull performance.
If I will be much bugged by weathercocking, like for a longer paddle, the one with the more neutral hull comes out. For shorter trips or places where I want maneuverability, the featuers that make the shorter one weathercock much more also make it more apt for that paddle.
The skeg balance is a part of that, but it wouldn't occur to me to opt out of a boat based on that if I liked the rest of its behavior for my intended use.
why do you ask?
I’d rather have some weathercocking with a skeg that works. There are some kayaks that weathercock and the skegs don’t correct adequately. I’d rather have a kayak that doesn’t become dificult to paddle if its skeg is broken.
Clarification on my question
– Last Updated: Oct-18-10 1:29 PM EST –
I am just curious what others consider a desirable behaviour and why. My question is related to my new to me Zephyr 15.5 (check the other thread) but not necessarily specific to it. Checking to see if there is something I have not thought about that relates to what makes a "good" balance. It seems the kayak can only be "balanced" in one specific direction at a given speed, so if I change my direction relative to the wind/waves, then the balance changes too and I have to trim the skeg up/down to make the boat neutral again.
Obviously, if the boat starts-out almost balanced, it is not skeg dependent. But the flip side of this is that, if the boat is very maneuverable, it does not necessarily track well, so some skeg may be desirable to deploy for longer periods of stright line paddling. But on that boat this would induce leecocking and because of the skeg make it even harder to correct the direction...
My thinking right now is that in a maneuverable boat I would want weathercocking so that I can balance it with the skeg if I want to trade maneuverability for tracking. If I start balanced with no need for skeg, I can't do that (unless I'm going strictly down or upwind, or if I can change the trim of the boat weight on the fly via a sliding seat for instance)...
If every boat had adjustable seats one
could have it any way they like.
boats I like
The boats I prefer don’t seriously weathercock regardless of skeg or wind-direction. I like them to barely weather cock in moderate winds, but be easily corrected with an edge or with a little skeg.
In between your two options
"So, if you have a skegged kayak, would you rather have the kayak weathercock noticeably with no skeg and become balanced by deploying about half-skeg?
Or would you rather have the kayak start close to neutral without any skeg and be able to induce leecocking with just a little skeg?"
I’d rather have one that weathercocks very little in light wind (easy to correct with strokes only), and weathercocks more noticeably in moderate wind but can be balanced by putting down less than half-skeg (and more than half-skeg to make run downwind).
Nate
What would be good examples (make/model) of kayaks with the charateristics you describe. I’m in the market for another boat.
Thanks…Mike
So what does 1/2 skeg do -;)?
"…weathercocks more noticeably in moderate wind but can be balanced by putting down less than half-skeg (and more than half-skeg to make run downwind)"
Just kidding… I think that’s close to what I think it should be. Of course, Patric has a very good point about the sliding seats that would help a lot in balancing. I may still want to have my weight forward for surfing while having some skeg deployed… I guess can’t have it all at the same time in most kayaks -;(
It probably depends . . .
I’m guessing that those boats are different for different people. Especially for different sized people.
However, I’ll tell you what some of those boats are for me.
NDK Explorer, Impex Force 4, Valley Aquanaut, and Valley Pintail.
All of those boat barely weather cock, and nearly never need a skeg for wind-trim in my experience. (The sort-of outlier there is the the Pintail, which doesn’t weather cock much, but sometimes needs 1/2 skeg when you get sick of consciously paddling it straight).
I think what probably unites these 4 boats is that they’re low-decked boats. The back decks of all are quite low, and the fore-decks are just tall enough to accommodate someone my size.