Nordkapps are quite stable…IF…
…you lower the seat. The high seat is designed to make it easier to edge the boat when it’s fully loaded with gear. When paddling it empty, the high position just makes the boat less stable. When you lower the seat, the difference is night and day.
Stability is also HIGHLY dependent on one’s skill level and the boats that one has paddled. After paddling my first SOF boat for six weeks straight, my old HM (with the lowered seat) felt as stable as a couch. It was definitely more stable than my Pintail, which is my boat of choice for rough conditions.
What I’m getting at here is that when you paddle very stable boats, you learn to make rather large weight shifts to lean and edge them and you’re not overly careful about your technique, since the strong righting moment of such boats keeps you out of trouble. When you move to a less stable boat, those same large shifts and sloppy technique are way to much and the boat feels unstable. As you adapt to them and begin to use more subtle weight shifts, they feel more stable and you become comfortable. You will also be able to take advantage of the less stable hull’s advantages in rough water. If you go back to a really stable boat, it will clumsy and barge-like.
Nordlow benefits are…
"...benefits are that it is faster and responds quicker"
"Paddler input is instantly rewarded with a crisp response."
I hope by this articulation that gjf12 understands what is meant by "more responsive." I further hope that gjf12 gets that it is part of the payoff for the boat being the less forgiving.
Good write up. Thanks.
An “expert kayak” is the one with
an expert kayaker paddling it… Some boats are more tender, thus requiring and expert paddler, BUT, that doesn’t necessarily imply greater seaworthiness, or capability overall. It may just imply greater forward efficiency in certain conditions. Bowler is hitting on this and I agree. Many many world class expert paddlers in Explorers etc.
Many many world class expert paddlers
in whatever decent boat they are given 
Not quite
I still don’t quite get it. I don’t at all question that the NLV responds quickly. I only question that this is due to its low stability. If one were to take, for example, the Tiderace (which I have not paddled) and give it the same rocker profile and rising bow and stern, it would likely turn just as quickly. I only question whether the positive aspects of the Nordkapp LV can be attributed to its low stability.
jbernard says: " However I agree with a previous post which said that the lack of initial stability translates into much finer control in conditions" This attribution does not make sense to me.
jbernard also says: “As far as I can tell, there basically is no secondary stability” Whatever positives the NLV has, and these are many, since so many are so enthusiastic, the lack of secondary seems to me a disadvantage in rough water.
no expert here
I'm certainly not a boat designer or nautical engineer but this is how I've seen it explained and it makes sense to me. A boat that sits flat on the surface can't turn, it has to be on edge to turn. A boat with high stability wants to sit flat. It take a certain amount of paddler input to put the boat on edge, the more stable a boat is, the more energy needed to edge it. A "stable" boat that is on edge wants to get back to flat so it is resisting the paddler's attempt to put it on edge. Conversely a boat with less "stability" doesn't care what kind of angle it is leaned; it'll go over and not fight the paddler. The Nordkapp LV is the latter. That's my take on it anyway.
edit:
I don't know if that answers the question. You seem to imply that a "stable" boat is better in conditions. I don't think that is necessarily true. I don't think it follows that a boat with "less" stability is at the whims and mercy of the water. I think the stability thing relates more to paddler input than effects from waves.
does it really matter now?
Do you think some of these fine paddlers who love the NLV are just doing it to show off when they’d just be happier in a Pungo?
pungo?
It really makes no sense to mention a Pungo in the current context. No one is talking about a highly stable, difficult to lean boat that requires high paddler input to get it on its side. That is why I offered the Tiderace as an example. The same beam as the NLV it is intended as a direct competitor, especially for rough water play. I see no disadvantages to that extra bit of stability in rough water, but have no argument against any one who prefers one boat or the other.
now that’s what i call a segue…
http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/5723525/
come on gifford, you can't really call yourself an 'advanced' paddler, look at that list of boats! have you ever paddled a Nordkapp? a real boat for real men.
are you ready for left overs??
Stability can be seen as force needed
to heel (or the degree of resistance to capsize). The greater force it takes to capsize the boat the higher its stability. This means a boat with higher stability will take more effort to edge. It will more resist the force of the water and paddler input. It will be less responsive.
A boat like the Nordkapp LV is designed to be very responsive to paddler input. This means that a skilled confident paddler can easily control the boat. It also means that a less skilled or uncertain paddler will more likely capsize the boat.
Aled Williams designs boats (Romany, TideRace, Rockpool) with generous headroom: "...it’s all about having a reserve, a performance margin and a comfort zone." He believes the forgiving quality of his designs allows a greater range of paddlers to use his boats in a greater range of conditions. I recall reading Nigel Dennis noting of the Explorer that it is a boat designed so an average/intermediate paddler can paddle it in advanced conditions. This is a wonderful trait and a key to its popularity. However, the trade-off is that such boats are not as fast and require more paddler effort to maneuver.
There is no free lunch. Every positive design attribute is a trade-off.
You Forgot
to mention…one of the advantages to the hull shape in ALL the Nordkapp series, is that there is no flat side. The Nordkapps shed water from the sides…waves, comming from the side seem to just pass over and under the hull with very little effect.
this hull design also makes the Nordkapps difficult to balance brace.
but it’s an advantage anyway for going where You want without being impeded or pummeled.
Best Wishes
Roy
Yes,
it is very transparent in both wind and water. I notice this every time I go out with an effortless forward stroke, and can be kept on edge in any conditions. It is incredibly efficient and is designed to handle wind and waves from any direction.
When I was going out the other day through the surf I didn’t think it would be able to maintain it’s position in the heavy surf while I was waiting for an opening.
It can balance brace or scull for support, but a Tempest 170 is much easier with the extra free board.
"…aspects attributed to low stability"
Roy said it so well I wanted to quote him to reiterate:
“…one of the advantages to the hull shape in ALL the Nordkapp series, is that there is no flat side. The Nordkapps shed water from the sides…waves, comming from the side seem to just pass over and under the hull with very little effect.”
“…it’s an advantage…for going where You want without being impeded or pummeled.”
nice review
I have surfed mine a good bit and the only time it pearled was on some 4 footers on Lake Michigan. It was still fun and just leaned into a high brace and the waves were big enough to angle off to the side with a stern rudder.
No pearling on 4-5’ waves here, but at one place the waves are steeper and long surf boards can’t surf them, so I’m sure any long kayak would probably pearl as well.
The Nordlow’s ability to handle wind in open water is completely underrated. 15 knots and above there is no other kayak I’m aware of that can compare it to. It uses no skeg with head winds, and over 20 knots and all these other sluggish kayaks mentioned so far lee cock and are generally being blown backwards. The NordLV is very comfortable in 30 knots from any direction.
nailed it
that is difference between the NLV and Xcite and even the Explorer has a harder chine.
BTW, the NLV doesn't take an expert paddler. I'm definitely an intermediate paddler with all around decent skills, and I like to stay out for 4-5 hours when I can without causing unnecessary stress or strain, so NLV works out well for an all around good coastal kayak.
I'm tall and not as hip snappy as some of my other friends, so you won't see me hand rolling this one anytime soon on Youtube, but the important thing is to be happy with what you can do and with what you have, Pugo, Tiderace, NLV, Explorer or whatever. In fact I often enjoy paddling with our flat water group on the beginner trips with rec kayaks, because the bottom line is to get out there and enjoy kayaking.
PS.. we also have some girls in our group that paddle 14' kayaks 24'' wide that I'm sure many of you experts couldn't keep up with.
Advantages ?
If those attributes of the Nordkapp are its' advantages then your argument would suggest that the Anas Acuta's attributes would be disadvantages since its' design represents the other end of the design spectrum. Hard chine and flat sides.
one
of the reasons that the original Pintail was designed.
the newer version added a flat side and is not quite as good with side waves, but is easier to Balance Brace.
The older flat decked Pintail had vertually no flat on the side and recieved waves from the side very well.
But as the market demands kayaks to have a noticiable stopping point or user friendly edge spot that can be felt…the Pintail was changed
Thank Goodness that it hasn’t happened to the Nordkapps.
Best Wishes
Roy
Not an agrument
I did own and paddled a Q boat which is now called the Anas Acuta HV. The two designs take a completely different approach and handle much differently. It's really a matter of preference and what you are trying to accomplish. (I'm still not sure which one I liked more than the other, but that's a situation where you can't have the best of both worlds, yet both the Q boat and NLV were very good all around kayaks.) I think those of us who own or have owned a NLV have been very clear about the advantages and disadvantages and anyone reading this would have clear understanding of the kayak.
If you are interested in the NLV I posted a link to a very good review.
Pintail hull
Anyone know when they changed the Pintail hull? I have a '95, and it’s definitely the old style with flat rear deck.
Different Strokes
for different folks. SK magazine makes it clear that raising the seat by as little as 1/2 to 1" or lowering it the same strongly affects the boat's stability curves. Imagine how much more significant this becomes when you place wildly different body types in the same boat and then record their experiences. If a Nordkapp lv takes but 8 ft lbs of pressure to reach a heel of 25 degrees and an Explorer requires 12ft lbs. the Explorer on paper would feel less responsive than the lv. But paddler's aren't 150lbs of ballast sitting in a water tank; some are over 6' tall mesomorphs with a disproportion of their weight in the upper torso, and some are 5' tall endomorphic women with the opposite weight distribution. While these represent extremes, it seems clear to me that different paddlers will report different feeling of stability paddling the same boat. Finally what really matters is not so much the feeling of responsivemness or sluggishness in putting a boat on edge but what it does when you get it there. If the lv turns a quicker tighter circle on edge than an Explorer than it's more maneuverable which is the only thing that should matter. Feel is a subjective matter anyway and a highly responsive boat can be a joy to some while threatening to others. I was disconcerted with my experiences with the lv to learn that I loved it equally in flat and seriously rough water, but soon tired of it in the normal 1 to 2 foot chop and confused seas that others yawn at but I found too enervating. The rounded bottom hull had more to do with that than any real lack of stability; I had the same feeling in an Ellesmere which has a similar hull but with hard chines and loads of secondary stability. I now paddle a Impex Force 4 which has moderate primary and secondary stability. It's quite responsive and manueverable for it's length but more significantly for me has a reassuring gentle V shaped hull which stays flat on the water when you want it to and only moves on edge when the paddler wants to, something I could not say equally about the lv.