I need to prep for Operation Deep Blue Expedition 2024
I can press a Stellar S18EXP into use. I’ll also be using a SeaDog Sail so if there’s wind I’ll stand out.
Looking for color selection input on either Grey/Teal or Red/Grey.
Full sets of pics at;
Red sail color is?
Cannot answer this question without you first answering mine: is this for visibility or for coolness?
Red is not a high visibility color. I’ve read that aqua is good for off shore.
Being that the Expedition has motorized safety boat shadowing us all the time, I’ll opt for cool!
What colors are most visible at sea?
A study entitled On-Water Visibility, conducted by Mustang Survival, and sponsored in part by WorkSafeBC’s Research Secretariat program, found that florescent green immersion suits routinely beat standard oranges, reds, and yellows in terms of visual detection in water – particularly in low-light conditions.Oct 1, 2019
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https://mustangsurvival.com › blogs
I like the blue and gray for cool factor, and the blue looks like it would be very visible too. Plus, on the website, that one has a composite weave hull (no gel coat/clear gel coat?) that adds to the cool factor. If you were after visibility, the white hull on the red/white one might be more visible edge on when you can’t see much of the deck from a distance.
What a dilemma, having to choose between two really nice kayaks!
The blue & grey then!
Grey/Teal
Operation Deep Blue = the blue one!
Blue / grey
Red blue yellow flag.
One issue with red being a “visibility” color is that one in 8 men (and 1 in 200 women) has some degree of red-green color blindness, meaning that red shades appear greyed or brownish, not a very good contrast with seawater.
I learned the reality of this in some literally shocking and/or explosive incidents in during my career as an industrial construction electrician when crew members who had not been screened for color vision (deficiencies in this can disqualify individuals from some armed services and from entering the IBEW union electrical trade) were assigned to hook up cables and could not distinguish red 120/240 volt wire or brown or orange 277/480 volt wire from grey or green grounded conductors. Many fireworks and even one fire…
Wevery red thing I’ve had in the sun faded. Including a Valley Kayak.
Yellow shows up best at sea.
Grey, blue and green tend to disappear especially in flat light.
Red and especially orange would be second best after yellow.
I have had large canoes painted bright white that showed up well on the water, but canoes have much more boat showing above the waterline.
Red colorants are notoriously susceptible to UV degradations, at least the non-toxic ones (cadmium red used to be one of the most stable and I am old enough to recall when I was in art school and it was still available in oil paint or acrylic paint suspensions before industries ramped back using the pigment because of the toxicity to workers who produced the stuff and the potential of it poisoning consumers. I remember an ex boyfriend’s ancient Perception Dancer, originally cherry red, fading to a rather obscene fleshy pink due to decades of being stored outside year round.
In another encounter with unstable reds, I was one of the subcontractor project managers on a parking garage project where we all were at risk of being behind schedule because the dim-bulb lead architect (an Argentinian woman who came to the weekly jobsite meetings dressed like a fashion plate) would not approve the samples that the decorative metal work vendor provided for the deep red and grey color choices she had spec’d for the job because they were not “exactly” shades that she liked. After several weeks of delay to this critical decision that was holding back production I finally spoke up (as the only other female in the room I was probably the only participant who could get away with challenging her). First off I explained that I had experience with metal finishes, having managed and assisted at my ex’s custom auto and motorcycle refinishing shop for several years and pointed out that red pigments ALWAYS fade and color shift after a few years of UV exposure so her “ideal” color match was not going to endure anyway, also that unless she blessed the latest samples from the vendor that week we would begin filing a claim for constructive delays that could push the project past the mandated completion milestone. And I added that as a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh, for whose sports stadium this parking garage was being built to serve, I had to express my disapproval that she had chosen to decorate the facility not with my alma mater’s colors (blue and gold), but with the colors of our nearest rival, Carnegie Mellon (maroon and grey). I didn’t get those colors changed but at least my fellow PM’s at the meeting and the school’s representative piled on with me to pressure her to stop being picky and just OK the damned red.
Excellent choice! (my favorite color and the same current shade as both my hair and my toenails – only one teal boat in the fleet, unfortunately, a somewhat faded Feathercraft Java tandem SOT.)
May it prove to be a “blue streak.”
Grey Teal
That was the winner! If you want it, it will be on sale as of September 14 when we land. Pictures of it and the rest of the expedition at the following;
ODB media links
