Fastest Kayak?

That’s fast.

All depends on your total equation for use.

You apparently completely missed the point of that post. At no point was it said that the equipment doesn’t matter.

Boats aren’t fast because they don’t move on their own. A good paddler can make a crappy boat “fast” and a bad paddler can make a great boat “slow”.

The equipment helps. The person does the work

Either way, this is a hell of a revival. 9 years just to argue a point?

as said before, it depends on what you’re using it for.
K1 is faster for shorter distances.
Surfski is usually faster in rougher water.

Narrower hull is generally what allows for more speed, but you will be a hell of a lot slower if you haven’t developed the stability needed to manage a tippy boat.

Lighter and stiffer is also better–so composites are a better choice

So here’s a short list:

If you have no experience and want an all water condition boat:
Epic V8 Pro, Think Zen, Stellar S18s, Fenn Bluefin

If you have some experience or really want to move up to a higher a category:
Think Evo, Stellar SR or SEL, Epic V10 Sport, Fenn Swordfish, Nelo 550

If you want the fastest and can handle the stability profile:
Think Uno Max, Epic V14, Fenn Elite, McGregor Classic, Nelo 560

If you want to sprint:
Plastex and Nelo make great boats. Just align up the right stability.

Strange thing is my CD Solstice GT maximum with me is 6.5-6.75 mph best I can tell with many runs on it. My CD Extremes are 7.25 mph. My new to me CD Expedition is 7.5 mph so far. Hoping for another .25 mph.

Strange thing to me is how the little speed difference is so noticable in them all. You feel the drag difference even from the initial start. I like to try a ski maybe 19"+ wide I’m sure it would be night and day if I could stay upright. I’m 6’ 235 and 68 I’m running out of time to try. Don’t want to buy one and not like it or find it useful. Partner thinks I’m nuts already if I tell her I can feel the difference between the kayaks.

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I don’t know what you meant to write, I do know what you wrote. You wrote that boats are not fast, paddlers are. That statement is absolutely false . Any given boat will be faster or slower depending on the power and technical skills of the paddler, this is obvious. But every boat has a hull speed which depends primarily on the hull design, and no matter who is paddling it, it begins to lose efficiency as it approaches the hull speed. Therefore, one boat can be said to be faster or slower than another boat based on the objectively provable hull speed. If boats were not faster or slower and it was all up to the paddler, then it would not matter what boat you’re in, you could paddle it the same speed as any other boat. Clearly this is not true so you are flat out wrong.

:+1: ok

At some point the hull speed becomes a meaningless statistic for kayaking. A 30’ skinny kayak will have a faster hull speed than a 20’ kayak, but the added length adds increased friction requiring more power from the motor to achieve that hull speed. The fastest kayak will be the hull that the motor can maintain at the motor’s best performance level. The fastest kayak is the one that optimizes for the motor driving it not just on theoretical hull speed. I would think that is self evident.

So hull speed alone is only a part of the equation. The skill, endurance, balance, and power of the motor are every bit as important. The hull that is most efficient isn’t based on hull speed alone. The hull that maximizes the abilities of the motor will be the fastest kayak.

The other factor is the environment for which the hull is designed to be paddled.

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The fastest I’ve been in a kayak, it was an RPM by West Side Boat Shop. A 14 ibs beauty. I was able at times when racing to hit 8mph average speed up to 12 mile distance. An interesting fact when they changed the specs on boats to ICF K1, I actually had slower average speeds.

I was a nine time kayak marathon champ in Fla. One thing I found is that you can go faster in a boat you are comfortable in.

If you can not get you paddle cadence and follow through working, you will go nowhere fast. Some folk never get past that point. I can’t paddle an ICF boat at all, but my Westside Wave Exceed works like a dream for me. I won a bronze medal at a Florida Sunshine Games event in 200 meter sprint with it. I was beat by two Cuban Olympians, but beat four other Olympic hopefuls.

One thing about surfskis; to make them fast in flatwater, they have to have a flat keel. My Fenn Mako 6 is very fast in big water, but a dog in flatwater because of how much rocker it has.

The Epic 18 can be very fast and is stable enough to sleep in, it could be your best bet.

Here is a very recent video of a very knowledgeable, well accomplish , competitive kayak racer discussing “fast boats” for your viewing and learning pleasure.

15.5 mph, amazing

This is not really correct. “Hull speed” is a theoretical value based on the length of the hull at the waterline (LWL). Specifically, it is the speed of the boat that yields a Froude number of 0.4. Froude number is a dimensionless speed: it’s the speed of the boat divided by the speed of a gravity wave in water with depth equal to LWL. As it turns out, the wavelength of the bow wave created by a displacement hull at Fr = 0.4 is approximately equal to LWL.

The Wikipedia entry on this is actually pretty good, esp. the section on ‘hull design implications’:

The threshold value 0.4 is arbitrary, and represents a midpoint during the gradual transition to a flow regime where wave drag exceeds friction drag by a ‘significant amount.’ Since Fr is based only on waterline length, gravity, and speed of travel, it does not take into account any other hull features, including those that can make a boat faster such as a Swede-form hull, very pointy bow, etc. The transition will vary greatly based on hull details, so hull speed is not particularly meaningful except as a ballpark estimate - I’m afraid there is no ‘provable hull speed.’

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Yeah sure, and it is only a theory that atoms exist. Quantum physics is only theory. No one has ever proven that light is both a wave and a particle. The fact is, and can be PROVEN, that hull shape has a direct affect on the speed at which a boat can move through the water. So while hull speed is only theory, it is no less indisputable than quantum physics.

Then there is the Flayk, hydrofoil kayak.

There’s no need to be gratuitously insulting, is there? I don’t dispute that hull shape has an effect on speed - clearly it does.

I was discussing the specific concept of hull speed. Hull speed is not a theory by the way, it’s a single computed value of a physical parameter used in hydrodynamics. Hull speed as a concept is no longer used in modern naval architecture, while Froude number is an important dimensionless parameter in multiple hydrodynamic applications.

The quantity called hull speed does not capture the effect of hull shape on drag. Hull shape can be quantified, but it takes a set of additional dimensionless parameters which complicates things significantly.

I apologize if I came off gratuitous or insulting. Not my intention but it was out of frustration. If you were following the original post, the individual made the claim that "there is no such thing as a faster kayak, just faster paddlers. This is clearly incorrect and I was pointing that out, as plainly and clearly as I could in layman’s terms. But you want to nit pick the terms I use to explain why this is not the case and that there are indeed kayaks that are inherently faster. That’s why I got frustrated. You completely ignored the whole point of my reply and instead delve into theoretical speak that no one really cares about simply to argue with me or prove me wrong. But I am not wrong. Kayak hull design does have real and dramatic affects on the speed at which a given paddler can propel the vessel. This is a FACT that is undeniable and I stand by my post

I understood your post and agree with you that kayak shape is important. I was pointing out the limitations of the technical term hull speed. The fact that hull speed does not capture the impact of hull shape on drag is why it isn’t used anymore.

I understand you think I’m nitpicking, but it’s important that technical terms are used correctly. Hull speed in particular is widely misused on this board. By the way, I think the original post (Alan’s) was meant in a more philosophical way than you read it, but that’s probably a different discussion.

In layman’s terms, a kayak will be faster if : It is long, it is narrow, it has a rounded hull, it is rigid yet light, and it has little rocker (related to waterline length.) Yes there are limits and trade-offs to all of this and yes, a paddler’s skill level enters the equation, but in most cases you can look at two different commercially-made boats and the one that is narrower, longer and lighter will be inherently faster. Give me two of the exact same boat, one in plastic and the other in Kevlar or Kevlar/carbon weave and the latter will be faster because it will float just a bit higher and have less water drag on it, so materials come into play, too. The theoretical fastest kayak would be so narrow a paddler would either not be able to fit in it or would not have the skills to keep it upright, so there is that, too, going for the theoretical, mythical kayak. But we all live and paddle in the real world. Let’s face it, the original post was a silly question. It cannot be answered without knowing more about the paddler’s skill, intended conditions, type of paddling, etc. In my experience, many “middle of the skills curve” paddlers say they want a really fast boat until you put them in one and they realize how tippy they are. By their audible invocations I estimate most of them find God and religion just at that exact same moment. Coincidence? Not bloody likely. :wink: