I see Eddyline has all the capacities listed as including the weight of the kayak. Is that normal or misleading? Current Designs just states load capacity which means to me what I can carry excluding the weight of the kayak.
As long as you include your own clothed and equipped weight, it probably doesn’t matter that much. But who loads their boat to the max anyway?
Kayak capacities is unusable as a comparison tool between manufacturers. They have very different standards. How deep should a kayak go into the water when it is fully loaded? I have never seen a standard for that, so each manufacturer probably uses his own standard.
So it doesn’t really matter if one manufacturer includes the weight of the kayak.
It’s a general guide but have not seen capacity listed like that in other websites. So should Current Designs Libra XT I have increase their listing by 100 lb. ? I think it is miss leading to leave a small asterisk. Trailers and many other things are not labeled that way. Yes you have net and gross weights on trucks. They could at bear minimum label it like that.
@PaddleDog52 said:
I see Eddyline has all the capacities listed as including the weight of the kayak. Is that normal or misleading? Current Designs just states load capacity which means to me what I can carry excluding the weight of the kayak.
Maybe I read it differently, but the comparison charts at Eddyline show the volume of the bow, day, center and stern areas.
There’s a difference between volume and capacity so I’m unsure what’s misleading.
Only weight reference is capacity and actual weight of the kayak. The asterisk (at the bottom of the page) states that the capacity includes the weight of the kayak. Maybe it’s done to make it easier for those who forget to include the weight of the kayak when planning a camping trip. Add paddler weight to weight of supplies and subtract from capacity.
Volume is one thing capacity is another. Two different measurements one cubic one is pounds.
@magooch said:
As long as you include your own clothed and equipped weight, it probably doesn’t matter that much. But who loads their boat to the max anyway?
People on expeditions.
@PaddleDog52 said:
Volume is one thing capacity is another. Two different measurements one cubic one is pounds.
That’s what I pointed out.
Ok let me get back to my bong! LOL
I’ve paddled boats grossly overloaded (on epeditions) in places where you need to take water with you, and they’re just slow and heavy, but still beats being at work. I wouldn’t want to rush into big open water conditions with a boat like that, but in my experience it sometimes takes a few days to paddle “out” to more exposed conditions, and by then water and food have been consumed lightening the load. I have struggled with carrying more gear and food on weekend trips, and trying to keep pace with folks carrying less gear and who are lighter, so weight definitely affects pace.
I’m sure there is a correlation or formula between volume and carrying capacity, but I usually just ball park it from different manufacturers websites, so not an exact science on my part. I figure being a big dude (and getting bigger!) I need at least close to 200 liters in hatch volume, and if adding camping gear and food then maybe more. Brit style boats pretty much top out around the 220ish hatch volume mark, and those list (or used to list) their capacity at around 350lbs. But the closer you get to that max capacity listing the boggier the boat handles. So if I were shopping for a weekend boat to crank around with a group of strong paddlers I would be wary of pushing the weight limits, versus starting a multi week expedition stuffing food into every available space (try paddling with water and food in the cockpit,) knowing things will lighten up after a bit of chewing. If it was the first scenario I’d try a test paddle with the clothing and day gear typically carried.
Seems the Brits have discussed this as well and are closer to having an actual formula. https://www.ukriversguidebook.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=82614
Wonder when loading boats how much slower it gets from weight vs. sinking deeper and have more volume to push through below the water. I know as you add weight it sinks deeper but if it didn’t.
Haven’t done any major expeditioning but I have carried my tendency to overpack into the kayak as well for occassional camping. In the boats so far, intended to carry gear for bigger trips like an Explorer and my old Squall, it was very hard to weigh them down to where they were unstable. These were carry your own water trips, and gatorade and a couple of smaller bottles of Starbucks Cafe Mocha to make the morning more civilized than waiting to get the water boiling… and leave no trace so carry in and carry all of that out again albeit altered.
It was quite easy for me to get them filled up enough that between any waterline change and the weight they paddled like a Mac truck. Horrible idea to stop and look at the birdies because then I had to get them thru their sitting inertia and back up to speed. It was the weight plus whatever change in water against the bow.
That said, for once the bow of the Explorer LV was tamed enough that she actually sat in the water like she would for someone of the correct weight.
@Celia said:
intended to carry gear for bigger trips like an Explorer
A disadvantage to using skeg’d boats, like the Explorer, is that it limits how much gear to can put in the rear bulkhead.
An advantage to using skeg’d boats, like the Explorer, is that it limits (to a degree) how much you can stuff in the rear bulkhead.
(back when the Valley boats had only those small hatches (fore and aft), I used the same philosophy - it forced you pick your gear very carefully)
@raisins
The Explorer made the biggest diff from my first (ruddered) sea kayak, the Squall, in the size of my dry bags. It was because of the smaller hatches and, in my case, greatly lowered deck. Tent pole bag separate from the rest of the tent, lots more smaller bags and a big sack on top of it all the carry the smaller bags from boat to campsite.
Since I had to use smaller bags anyway with the hatches, I didn’t notice any issues with the skeg box. There were two bulkier items that I had been carrying in the Squall that shifted from my boat to my husband’s when we got our first composite sea kayaks. He had an Aquanaut with oval hatches and became the better boat to carry them.
@PaddleDog52 said:
I see Eddyline has all the capacities listed as including the weight of the kayak. Is that normal or misleading? Current Designs just states load capacity which means to me what I can carry excluding the weight of the kayak.
Not sure I’m qualified to comment on what is normal but for sure the Eddyline capacity is potentially misleading because apparently capacity ratings are not standardized across manufacturers.
The link below shows a Swift example. It includes an industry capacity rating which for canoes means the weight it can take with 6 inches of freeboard…not sure what it means for a kayak. In my experience the useful rating is the recommended efficient range and for me personally I find that loads near the high end of the recommended efficient range feel best to me in a canoe.
http://www.swiftcanoe.com/adirondack-12-lt
I also want to comment that a load may not necessarily make a boat slower. For sure weight directly affects acceleration but once up to cruising speed added weight means the boat also decelerates less between strokes (it adds momentum which improves glide). I much prefer my solo canoes with the extra weight of a dog…they already have more acceleration than they need but the additional glide is nice. Weight also helps you cruise through waves and wind gusts. For racing added weight is probably never a good idea but in the recreational paddling world I’m not sure it’s always negative. I like a slower/stronger cadence. In a big solo like a Swift Shearwater it feels like you burn way too much energy on skin friction when it has a light load…the boat feels much better with 300 pounds than 180.
@TomL said:
@PaddleDog52 said:
I see Eddyline has all the capacities listed as including the weight of the kayak. Is that normal or misleading? Current Designs just states load capacity which means to me what I can carry excluding the weight of the kayak.
Not sure I’m qualified to comment on what is normal but for sure the Eddyline capacity is potentially misleading because apparently capacity ratings are not standardized across manufacturers.The link below shows a Swift example. It includes an industry capacity rating which for canoes means the weight it can take with 6 inches of freeboard…not sure what it means for a kayak. In my experience the useful rating is the recommended efficient range and for me personally I find that loads near the high end of the recommended efficient range feel best to me in a canoe.
http://www.swiftcanoe.com/adirondack-12-lt
I also want to comment that a load may not necessarily make a boat slower. For sure weight directly affects acceleration but once up to cruising speed added weight means the boat also decelerates less between strokes (it adds momentum which improves glide). I much prefer my solo canoes with the extra weight of a dog…they already have more acceleration than they need but the additional glide is nice. Weight also helps you cruise through waves and wind gusts. For racing added weight is probably never a good idea but in the recreational paddling world I’m not sure it’s always negative. I like a slower/stronger cadence. In a big solo like a Swift Shearwater it feels like you burn way too much energy on skin friction when it has a light load…the boat feels much better with 300 pounds than 180.
I understand the “feel” that you describe here, and additional weight can help with boat control in some of the ways you mention, but bear in mind that some of what you say is sort of getting into the same realm as the logic behind a perpetual-motion machine (logic which always fails). Still, I think you recognize this on some level, based on what you say about extra weight and racing.
Skin friction is never less with a light load than a heavy load, and transporting a heavier load from Point A to Point B will always require you to expend more energy (this is true for land and air transportation too). There can be certain momentary situations where the greater load helps with boat-handling, but that still comes at the price of increased energy expenditure overall. In any case where this seems wrong, it will be because the increased energy expenditure overall is less noticeable to that particular paddler than the decreased effort required for boat control during key moments.
As one specific example, increased “glide” as a result of additional weight is not an indication of energy savings, but only of increased inertia. The two are not the same thing, and this is a case where you like the way the boat handles but are not conscious of burning more energy. If glide is improved by means of a reduction in resistance to forward motion (like switching to a sleeker boat), that will translate to a reduction in energy expenditure, but increasing glide by increasing a boat’s inertia does not negate the fact that both skin friction and water displacement (it takes energy to push water out of the way as the boat moves) have been increased in the process.
As long as the capacity is clearly labeled as to whether is includes the weight of the kayak or not, then I wouldn’t see it as misleading. I’d rather see it upfront, than try and guess whether a particular company includes the weight of the kayak or not. I do 5 day trips on muddy So. Utah rivers where we often carry all of our water. Since I’m a “full figured” gal, I start those trips on the heavy end of the weight capacity spectrum. I’m on a river with current, so it’s not terribly difficult, and the weight goes down as the water gets used.
Capacity depends on volume as a really old guy called Archimedes pointed out
We’ve loaded kayaks so much that the deck was almost even with the water
10 days of water=80 lbs will do that added to the normal food and camping gear
It’s like paddling a log and inertia rules
@PaddleDog52 said:
I see Eddyline has all the capacities listed as including the weight of the kayak.
Is that normal or misleading?
Not misleading, but it can be a bit confusing as technically
displacement figures indeed have to include the weight of the canoe,
but capacity figures do not have to include the weight of the canoe.
That does not mean you cannot take more or less aboard than that, but if you do, its performance will not be optimal for its intended use.
This seems to work for them, but not for the intended use of this touring canoe.
Dirk Barends