Rudder For Coastal Tripping Canoe

Cool ballast idea.
Thanks.

another Rudder link
http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/grantglazer/Kayak/Hints.htm

just get a rob roy
and put a slider bucket seat in it. you’ll never fear 20-knot days again. :wink: seriously, i’d much rather have a shearwater with a cover than a kayak. that’s a personal preference thing, though. beachcomber told me once that the shearwater was designed for Everglades coastal tripping. a cover and a little flotation and ballast would go a long way toward heavy-weather comfort and safety. just mho.

Actually the solo canoes
proven in the Everglades is Dave Curtis’s Hemlock Peregrine, Kestrel and I believe the SRT. He said he never uses a spray cover on his trips. I was real close to getting one and will one day when I finish paying off the new kayak.



The skeg I was envisioning is attached like a rudder on a kayak but does not pivot just drops down straight.

thanks for the clarification
:slight_smile:

Hey Osprey found a link

– Last Updated: Jun-03-05 10:25 AM EST –

to a site that may be of interest to you in your quest for coastal canoe cruising in Texas. I may be wrong but think that your area may be very similar in conditions to what we canoe/kayak along the Everglades coastal area of the Gulf of Mexico.

Keith who put up this site paddles a Mohawk Odyssey 15 and recently added a cover to it. He has paddled some very rough open water in his canoe in our area of Florida Bay. He said he would not do it without the cover. I personally would hesitate to do it in a kayak! But it all goes to skill level in the end.

His canoe with cover is shown although real small on the link to a campsite called East Clubhouse Beach for Fl Bay sites. The paddling in his diary of Cape Sable Loop exemplifies our winter conditions.

Here are the diaries of his trips:

http://evergladesdiary.com/

Humbled Again, Thanks!
Thanks for all the great input folks. More than I bargained for as usual. More is always welcome.



Beachcamper, that web site looks awesome with great specific information, and so well presented. That will sure get a further looking over when time allows. I bet you are right about the conditions being very similar.




I really like the rudder on my Summerson

– Last Updated: Jun-03-05 1:22 PM EST –

g. I've only owned the boat since Monday, but it makes single blade paddling a real pleasure and staying straight in windy conditions much less effort, especially for us less accomplished single blade paddlers. I prefer the rudder up when using the kayak paddle. My understanding is that the original owners of this boat and it's twin, used them for tripping in the boundry waters. There even some odd brackets mounted on the gunwales & thwarts that make me wonder if they also used it for sailing. I bought it from the second owner. I'm also considering a deck cover for this boat.

My rudder is an old Feathercraft aluminum blade that is only about 3" to 3.5" wide. How large of a rudder are you talking about when you say "oversized" Kruger rudder?

a couple of thoughts
Hope you don’t mind if I skip the philosophical arguments and just provide input on the question.



It’s your boat, so you don’t need anyone else’s permission or blessing to make whatever modifications see appropriate to you. A rudder can be helpful in wind and waves. Whether it is worth having one depends on how you feel about your boat’s performance in the conditions you paddle in. A rudder will definitely not give you 50% more mileage (30 instead of 20) in a day. It will just make it so you don’t have to expend as much effort correcting the boat’s course.



Although it can be fun to build your own gear, it is sometimes easier to buy and install a complete rudder system from an established company.



Something to bear in mind is that you will have to readjust the footbraces/rudder controls each time you move the seat. Well, not each time, but if you move it more than a couple of inches, especially if you move it to the rear.



You might want to get the spray cover on the boat first and experiment with that and using the seat to adjust the boat’s handling before you make a definite decision on installing a rudder. Making those precise trim adjustments is what makes having a sliding seat worthwhile, although that doesn’t mean that a rudder would not be a useful addition under certain conditions.

Thanks
c2g,



Thanks for your thoughts.



Yes, I plan to make a number of weekend trips on the coast over the next couple of years and get a good feel for how much the spray cover helps in the wind and just how comfortable I get controling the boat in the coastal conditions. I may play with a rudder some just to get a feel for that. A home made one tried out on the weekend trips might be a way to see if one would be worth having on the longer trip I’m thinking of. At that point maybe a nicer rudder set up would be worth it.

PVC sleeve / tee with dowel to skeg
combination ??? I would think that one could fabricate a sleeve rotating on the carry handle that could rotate up/over and down to drag a 1/4 inch thick plywood skeg (sanded to a foil shape) attached after the 90 degree joint. The carry handle is the axis providing the straight ahead orientation of the flip over skeg. If you had a horn up above the joint to the skeg, you could pull it back over (out of the water) with a cord.



Can you picture it? The fittings at the skeg end could be threaded for disassemby during transport. A flip over skeg like this could be made for a few bucks during an afternoon. Heavy-duty PVC fittings should be plenty strong enough to handle the skeg drag and torque … and if you fit the handle snugly with the correct diameter sleeve/tee, it shouldn’t twist or flex much. And you could employ bushing material to achieve such a fit to the “axis” if need be. Just a thought !


Sailing canoe
Why not go all the way? I am in the process of fitting a canoe for sailing; getting too old to paddle the Everglades. The ACA is holding an Open House at Sebago Lake, NY on the 11th, and then there are ACA Class races at Union Lake, NJ on the 12th. Should be able to get some valuable information at either of these events. Meantime, take a look at one already outfitted at

http://www.chicagolandcanoebase.com/catalog_detail_v2.cfm?cat=3&sub=54&layout=1

This is the second Mad River Exploler that I have seen rigged for sailing, and I know they made a model equiped with a (built-in)retractable skeg.

Pretty cool sail rig


Agree with c2g get the spray cover and try out a few trips. That is what I finally had to do with my canoe/kayak decision. In a solo canoe I would also bring along a double blade which in a constant headwind would really help out.



If it weren’t that I paddle mostly with kayakers I would have opted for the canoe. But I was mismatched with them. You just have to have alternative wind routes planned out to protect you or stay put when conditions get really bad which is really when the fronts come in. Lot’s of people that I admire as wonderful outdoorsmen use canoes for coastal cruising and prefer them to kayaks here in the Everglades.



Can’t wait for winter so we can go touring again! Summer is horrid…

book on canoe sailing
There is a book called “Canoe Rig” that looks like it does a pretty good job of talking about setting a canoe up for sailing, including installing leeboards, a rudder, etc.

Yes, Interesting
Yes, I can see something like that Stap. I may tinker around with that idea. I’m going to check in with Mick by phone also and see what he has in mind for a removable rudder set up.



I’m taking a break from packing up my hand tools in the garage for a move in about 10 days, and imagine that my next chance for serious tinkering is a month or so away. Many honey dos lay ahead for a while.


Grumman uses a single
clevis pin to attach their rudder system. I recently bought a 17’ Grumman with a Gunter sail, and another P-Netter was kind enough to send me this website;

http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/view?p=999&gid=7408852&uid=2854310



I have since been able to obtain a copy of the original rigging manual.

Canoe Sailing
Thanks for the sailing refrences. That would be a lot of fun it looks like. My tandem would work well for that … someday.

Horrrid Summers
Mosquitos?



At least portions of our coast are fine in the summer. The heat humidity and mosquitos can be tough. But the near constant wind can blessing under those circumstance. My plan for he big trip is to go sometime between October and March. Nice to avoid the worst of the heat, bugs and hurricane season.


among other things…
mosquitos, no see ums, severe thunder storms, unbearable heat. Not at all pleasant and NOT enough breeze to make it bearable. And… those pesky hurricanes :frowning:



Season: Nov - early April

Is Pnet getting kinder?
I think the lst or 2nd question I posed here a few years ago was about adding a skeg to a Pack canoe. The result was a world-class scolding from Real Paddlers, who implied that anyone who didn’t enjoy the sport the way they did it should get off the water. Any interest in skegs and rudders, they felt,

was a sign of poor paddling skills. They were quite full of themselves, and I’m glad they’ve disappeared.