OPINION: Rudders beat skegs for efficiently paddling long distances

Advice
#46

Craig, I follow your stats and agree with your assessment of how conditions affect the 175 Tsunami, I independently confirmed similar fondings, down to the tenth of a mph through my obsessive compulsive note keeping. What does surprise me is the comparisons between the two boats, the Tsunami 175 and 180 Pro Tempest (actually you’ve furnished equally detailed comparative performance data on the 170 Tempest, by direct message and person email and in person and real time in the actual kayaks). You dashed ever preconceived notion I had about each of those boats, especially performance in adverse conditions. You save me a lot of personal testing.

By the way, your last data dump convince me to buy another length Kalliste. If it works for me, it could possibly offer you an edge. At least you can try it out, and I’m curious how you feel or your son compare different length Kallistes. I also have a Camano you can try.

I believe @PaddleLite just lost access to a race venue.
If you’re serious about understanding your boat, paddle and technique, you should study actual performance data. What source you rely on is up to you. Be careful about opinions that start with “speed isn’t everything,” or “I found a paddle in the dumpster, and I use it for high and low angle and can’t tell the difference, and it shovels snow like a champ.” You can assess whether the above advice adds .1 mph to the overall speed. Although lengthy details run the risk of turning members away, you have the right to ask. I now go direct message or personal email to reduce strife. Few kayakers actually have a need, the desire or time to evaluate such information. If you feel uneasy about me addressing you on open forum, just ignore my post, or say “don’t do that.”

I also urge members who felt their contributions were slighted, there is a following here, even if it is largely going underground.

#47

Yesterday after paddling for 3 miles in the Tsunami 175, to try and make a decision for race day of which boat to bring, in fairly bad conditions. I switched my paddling style for the next 5 miles to something similar to what you do.

Though it’s a hybrid of your style and mine, the overall speed was .1 mph slower than how I normally do things, but, and this was the eye opener that felt like I could easily go for another 10 miles. where the previous high-angle, went anaerobic after 2 3/4 miles, the hybrid of your style and mine ran Aerobic for all 5 miles.

I was still using a 60 deg feather, I can’t seem to get away from that and I suspect a longer stick 230 or thereabouts would have made up the 0.1 mph difference so much so I was going damn I wish Jyak was here that I could try this out with his Kalliste.

I was absolutely overpowering the Whiskey in both my High-angle, and a Hybrid of your style and mine. I’m still not right on the deck, but maybe a hand width or hand and a half above it but close enough for government work as they say. but I was able to get full Torso rotation into play as well as the Push/pull on the paddle.

Going this way the catch was about mid-shin as opposed to my foot with he paddle I use high angle. hence the thought ab out a longer stick. I may not use this for short sprint races 1-3 miles, but for 10 and 15 where endurance is more of a factor than raw top speed, it could prove quite useful.

Just thought I’d throw this out there as I found your musings useful, for developing a long-haul style as opposed to a race style. It’s also somewhat similar to what I slip into after mile 15 when I’m tired after how I normally paddle, it’s a variation of my lazy style combined with some of the elements you use.

We’ll see after the race this weekend upcoming 9/21 - anyone wanting to come out can to the day of the race.

when I have a chance to play around with longer lengths, and fine tune some stuff.

#48

Not sure if it would help you. You’re dialed in. The key was the drop in your heart rate rather than translating to speed. Maybe I help you get .2 mph improvement. Beat the gucci boats.

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#49

I already do that, they laugh at my Janky roto boat and I laugh at them from the podium, granted it’s only the 3rd place podium, but it’s still higher than what they are standing on.

It’s the two old guys in their even Jankier boats, who have 10 and 20 years on me that are coming in 1st and second. those guys are my hero’s because I want to know how they do what they do. And being in a race is no chance to analyze their form.

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#50

Thecreal race guys hold their tongue, lest they reveal secrets. Brian wrote a book on Greenland paddles and shared every detail. I never once heard him mention his book or tell anyone to look for the info in his book.

Be careful modeling your technique after my recommendation. I might be able to pace with you over 10 miles, but have no illusion of tracking you in a 3 mile sprint. My technique is festured in my new book under paddling for the physically impaired.

I need to find a 260 cm but they aren’t stocked. You won’t know until you’ve tried. If it doesn’t work for me, I’ll let you try it. If you dont like it, I’ll let Steve play with it to see what he can get out of it. If he throws his hands up, he can thrownit in Thor’s cage and see if he can handle it. Thor is 6’4". He needs help catching Steve.

#51

Wow, you guys are getting detailed! LOL It’s all good. As others have said, SO much depends on paddler fitness, technique, flat boat versus edged boat, wind speed and direction, water conditions (flat v. waves), etc.

I still believe it’s damn near impossible to eliminate the “human adaptability” element as well when doing tests. To get REALLY accurate comparisons, you’d need a robot to paddle the boat, LOL. Just as our sense of smell quickly adapts to strange smells to the point where we very quickly no longer notice them…our brains and bodies do the same: we quickly adapt to small inefficiencies or challenges and don’t notice them anymore.

With technique, because I paddled the hardest boat on earth to steer (a slalom C-1), for me it’s effortless to do things like incorporate a micro-draw at the beginning of a forward stroke (I just open my wrist a few degrees for a split-second, then close it again) to pull the bow a bit toward the side of that stroke.

I also will often just slip one hand or the other up the shaft for a few strokes so I can extend the blade farther away from the boat and incorporate a small sweep at the beginning of a stroke…all without missing a beat in my cadence.

Heck, I can even do a J-stroke at the end of my forward stroke…which definitely causes drag…but it’s effective in pulling the bow back to the stroke side.

Sometimes I do all of the above (well maybe not the J-stroke, LOL) without even thinking about it. It’s just automatic.

It’s fun to watch an experienced slalom C-1er paddle one of those boats on flatwater in a perfectly straight line. Then you watch a rookie in the same boat, and they literally spin 360 circles and are completely unable to paddle the boat in a straight line. That’s the power of human adaptability! :slight_smile:

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#52

There are many ways to analyze data. This isn’t the right post thread for the topic. I’ve left enough smail tracks across every thread that shows I believe it is not too difficult to validate results if you have a GPS track and a speed graph or heart rate monitor. You have to scrutinize the details and the segments that look different.

Your posts were very detsiled, and I have no doubt you are capable of analysing your performance. E.T just posted updates. We discussed a lot of performance details about his P&H Virgo and Tempest 170, as well as comparison to his 140 Tsunami. He posted most of the details on public forum as well.

#53

Your observations are interesting. I assume your observations consist of multiple trials, preferably with the method being tested being randomized, in terms of your shceduling of such tests. Back in my graduate school days when learning the basics of statistical analysis (this was a VERY difficult subject for me, for which I do not remember the finer details now but the concepts behind experimental design stayed with me), I found it amazing to learn of endless examples showing that human beings are very poor when it comes to making reliable observations about themselves, or when performing tasks under their own real-time decisions instead of via a pre-determined plan of action. But I can imagine that when making a conscious effort to not let your own notions affect your performance, and especially if using multiple trials and randomizing your scheduling, your results can be meaningful. Note that randomization is one of those things that few people comprehend the need for unless they have worked in the methodology of experiments and observational studies, but it matters a lot.

Anyway, I will make a guess that on the boat with the rudder, deploying the rudder puts a lot more blade in the water than what’s actually necessary to get the job done, and as you mentioned, that rudder blade might leave room for improvement in terms of being designed to keep drag to a minimum. The fact that you only deploy your skeg halfway in most cases supports this idea, as does my own limited observation that rudders seem to be significantly larger than skegs in the first place. I find myself wondering also, if deploying the rudder within the turbulent water behind the stern might create more drag than if you could deploy it within the less-disturbed slipstream alongside the hull itself, as is the case with your skeg. If you get the chance to look closely at the trail of disturbed water left behind a kayak, you will see lots of small “swirlies” everywhere, which are quite persistent. Dragging a rudder blade down the middle of a narrow swath of water that is packed full of swirling pockets with velocity in every direction imaginable, doesn’t seem like it would be good for minimizing drag. It would be neat if you could position the rudder off to one side, in “clean” water, and see how that compares.

#54

It’s not easy but if you gather enough data and are very very aware of what you body is doing you can get close.

When I test, not only do I gather GPS data, course track, speed and distance, I also track my heart rate and blood O2 levels.

I overlay the data based on time over my speed chart, and that gives me a good idea if I’m “working” harder, or goofing off. So my paddling consistency is absolutely a variable, but it’s close enough with enough runs to get a fairly good idea of what is going on.

As they say it gets me “close enough for government work.”

the biggest indicator is once I’ve developed a baseline in a particular boat, in near ideal conditions, I will then begin to push the envelope as it were looking for incremental speed increases, while watching how long I can go before the body depletes free blood glucose and starts working on muscle Glycoline and then when this depletion moves me from aerobic work to anaerobic work.

The goal is to maximize performance for racing, and extend the time I’m Aerobic before switching to anaerobic.

when I started for this years Race season (back in January.) that was 5 minutes, and in 10 I was spent. I really did blob about in the off season.

Now I’m at 29 minutes before the switch, but can still run Anaerobic for close to another 20 minutes. Since a 3 miler is over in less than 30 minutes, we still have gas in the tank for a sprint push at the end if needed to overtake someone and place.

I running some of the more scienc-y stuff, I found if I go off my metaformin and let my blood glucose get higher than it should be I can add an extra 10 minutes to my aerobic levels as I have excess of blood sugar, and if I preload a few nights before with Magnesium and Potassium I have enough saturated electrolytes to stave off the issues of Lactic Acid build up from the ATP cycle.

Of course this freaks my doctor out. But hey I might as well use a natural problem to my advantage.

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#55

@Guideboatguy_II I actually hadn’t thought of that the rudder is putting too much rudder in the water to get the job done. Thanks for the observation it’s something I’ll have to check out. actually how much of the rudder is in the water.

what I did hit on as a potential for why, is that the rudder is pretty much a straight line or edge on it’s leading edge if you will, that is in the water more or less perpendicular to the water’s surface. where as the skeg when fully deployed is well somewhat shorter in lenght but i’ts leading edge is at 45 degrees to the direction of travel kind of like how a delta wing aircraft can achieve higher speed as compared to a straight wing. It’s leading edge just presents less resistance.

what I had hit on which my or may not be the case is the

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#56

If you know how to use a skeg, you don’t need a rudder.

#57

You do if you boat doesn’t come with a Skeg, and only has a rudder.

the only ones I’m aware of that come with both are Riot I believe.

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#58

Rudders look big when not deployed

#59

Rudders look big when deployed

#60

Show me

#61

Can’t. It’s under water.

#62

The deployment angle of most rudders can be adjusted, so you can run it shallow if you want.

I think we’ve already covered what makes a rudder more useful than a skeg, it’s that you can hold a heading in a quartering wind without uneven paddling or corrective strokes, which helps hold off the fatigue on a long windy day. A skeg helps resist the wind turning the boat, but you still have to provide a countering yaw force with the paddle.

I think under most conditions in a solo kayak, a skeg is enough for me. If I owned a 14’ sea kayak, I’d have a skeg. But on a long touring boat with low rocker, and especially a tandem, I want a rudder for the the long days on windy lakes. When I’m only making 2 MPH into a quartering headwind and trying not to get blown all over the lake, I’m not thinking much about rudder drag.

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#63

On any of the kayaks I’ve owned (quite a few, and most all skeg boats), I’ve never encountered this.
Most evident from a few trips I took up the Australia east coast in the late summer/early fall, ie SE trade winds - typical 25knott quartering winds at my back, I set the skeg on my NDK explorer appropriately and no problems keeping course (typical 10 hour days).

#64

I say this, I assume I’m doing this, however using a feathered paddle I’m not doing with a stroke per-se. but with the facing of the blade on the control side.

normally the control blade wold be at 90 deg to the stroke direction, however if the boat was yawing a bit left, that blade facing would be slightly canted towards the boat while making the stroke in the direction of travel. And of course the converse is true, if the nose is yawing to the right the blade facing would be slightly left. This is for Left hand control. right hand the blade facing would be reversed.

So I’m technically not doing a corrective stroke eg: A J-Stroke or a Sweep stroke.I’m just changing how the water slips off the blade to make the correction. Similarly you can paddle a canoe straight while paddling on only one side using this same technique.

I do this on all my boats without skeg or rudder deployed up to 20 mph winds.

After 20 Mph I need both the skeg or the rudder. with the rudder I’ll mostly keep the rudder straight and edge slightly while using this control stroke, same for using a skeg.

After 30 Mph I’ll need the control using the rudder and nothing stroke wise. For my Skeged boats, I’ll use edging full skeg, and feather adjustment and a corrective stroke if needed.

Above 40 I need do nothing, as I’m probably staying in as inland where I am it’s a good indication of a storm coming.

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#65

My 175 Tsunami acts like the 145 did when I moved the seat to the rear by 42 mm. When it has a following wave that pushes it over 6 mph, it goes wonky. I didn’t notice contol issues until I dropped 20 lbs body weight. Despite the symmetrically hull form, I’m curious if it skewed the balance. Seat will go forward to see if it helps with trim. I hate rudders and skegs for trouble shooting issues (bending, sand, corrosion . . . )