Here’s the video at the point where he talks about skegs,
but really, back up a few minutes and you’ll hear the discussion about more or less rocker and the affects on boat design, earlier he speaks of having 1/4" less stern rocker in his design. Yes, 1/4"
And here’s the shot from Harvey’s book.
and a tie on skeg
I have never been on big water for more than an hour without the conditions changing. Usually they deteriorate, because I try not to go out when it is already bad.
Because of that I want whatever is necessary for me to get back and not have PTSD from the experience.
I personally prefer rudders over skegs because a skeg, sometimes, doesn’t want you to go where you want to go.
Since I prefer rudders, I don’t understand some of the comments against them. They can only cause drag if you overuse them and turn them into a brake. The old sliding pedals were good at causing that because there was no nuance in using them.
I use a tiller and can set it to just take the edge off of a cross or quartering wind without causing extra drag. It is part of knowing how to paddle the boats I paddle.
My boat is faster without the rudder deployed. Rudders cause drag. A kayak rudder works by creating drag and affecting the water flow:
When it’s deployed straight, it makes your kayak’s stern move slower than the bow, keeping it on its course.
Although my wife would disagree with me, if the rudder is deployed straight, I don’t see how something 1/8" thick and about a foot long slicing through the water adds appreciably to a kayak’s overall drag. My GPS does not register any difference in speed although there may be some miniscule effect…
Craig, you’ve got this backwards. Deploying a skeg helps to lock the stern of the boat in the water, making it easier to turn downwind, since the wind will push the bow downwind. If you want to turn into the wind, you need to pull up the skeg so the wind can push the stern, turning you upwind.
I’ve owned and built boats without skegs and if they’re properly designed, they work great. You can often adjust the weatherhelm of the boat simply by leaning slightly forward or slightly backward, depending on whether you’re looking for a bit of weathercocking or lee cocking. That said, I like skegs because they provide options. A boat can be designed to weathercock slightly, yet still be capable of good downwind performance by dropping the skeg. Any additional drag is more than compensated for by the reduced effort required to keep the boat pointing downwind and the increased ability to surf the waves.
Some boats, like my Pintail, are really difficult to paddle in a straight line without the skeg deployed. Without it, the bow hunts around like a hound dog puppy. The running joke in our club was that those of us in Pintails paddled twice as far as the other people on group paddles. The skeg tames that pretty well, but provides the option to have a very loose, highly maneuverable boat when you want it.
There’s no right or wrong, good or bad, nor does the use of a skeg indicate a lack of paddling skills. In well-designed boats, it’s just part of what makes them work in a variety of conditions.
I assume everyone who is anti-rudder/skeg drives a car with a manual transmission? 
(I drive stick, but have a rudder. Yes, I can paddle my boat without one, but I find I can enjoy the paddling more with the rudder since I can enjoy the environment better. Maybe that opinion will change as I acquire more experience.)
A rudder or skeg could even improve straight speed if you only look at point A to point B (speed = straight line distance/time). Without the skeg/rudder you may have minuscule more instant speed, but you go a longer distance moving left and right with each stroke. zigg-zagging vs going straight.
It probably doesn’t make much of a difference either way. But if for some reason you don’t track well, or go in circles, a skeg or rudder could make you arrive at point B faster.
(this is just theory without having measured
With a low angle paddling style, more than high angle, the boat does tend to swing slightly left and right. A deployed skeg or rudder may reduce this.
Makes sense since high angle would bring the propulsion force closer to center line.
So you are saying that people who need a skeg should just learn to do high angle?
On the rudder, my first sea kayak had one. I just found it was rarely useful in my paddling. The Squall was a tracking beast compared to the boats l now favor. It however was a pita when l got to things like cowboy entries. I don’t do distance multi day loaded camping. I resolved that my next boat would be skegged.
I have no ptpblem w rudders. Thay just are not the best fit for my paddling.
I like having a skeg on a boat that tends to avoid neutral. Every time l am coming in tired from a trip in the Romany l resolve that l will fix my sticky rope skeg issue. One of these years l will actually do it…
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Same need for a skeg in my Anas Acuta. I pretty much automatically put the skeg halfway down and leave it there unless I want to turn quick.
I have an Anas Acuta as well. It tracks somewhat better than the Pintail due to its hard-chine hull, but yeah, the skeg is still pretty much a necessity, especially when heading downwind.
Just a thought, but the buyer was maybe not believing that the skeg wasn’t needed. Since he found out the boat was sometimes equipped with a skeg, he may have been suspicious that you were selling the boat because it didn’t have one. Being told that better paddling technique could make up for the lack might not have been reassuring, caveat emptor and all that…
I bet you are right. The potential buyer just thought they get short-changed even if they don’t know if they actually need it. I bet many people think the rudder is to make turns only.
OP could advertise the skeg-less boat as “improved ultra low maintenance light-weight option with improved water-tightness” option for extra $
Sorry to disagree, but this is not how a rudder works - the description more accurately describes a sea anchor.
A well-designed rudder has an ‘airfoil’ cross section (ok, hydrofoil). Deflection of the rudder gives it an angle of attack relative to the oncoming flow, creating ‘lift’ at a right angle to the flow, i.e., in the lateral direction. The lateral force pushes the stern to one side, pivoting the hull as it is moving forward. There is always induced drag when creating lift, but it is small for well-designed hydrofoil sections.
Even an inefficient flat rudder, which are fairly common, works by deflecting the flow, causing a lateral reaction on the rudder. There is more drag in this case, and flow separates easily on a flat foil at large angles, which will cause even more drag. But turning the boat is effected by the lateral force, it is not a drag-based phenomenon. This is comparable to using the paddle for bow and stern ruddering in canoeing and kayaking.
If you hold you hold your paddle on one side of the boat flat to the flow, that will give you a drag-based turn, and slow you down significantly into the bargain.
Lift and Drag of Kayak Rudders Masters Thesis
There is a general sentiment that rudders cause a great deal of drag which is likely not the case. I believe this traces back to some kayak testing done at UBC in the 80s or 90s.
There were some tow-tank tests being done on kayak hulls, pulling them through still water while measuring the drag to compare with computer models. Afterwards, they did some quick tests with a rudder deployed that showed large additional drag from the rudder.
However, in those tests the rudders were not controlled, i.e. they were loose and apparently were flapping during the tests. I believe the results made the rounds via word of mouth (and maybe in magazines), without that detail being included.
A well-designed rudder aligned with the flow contributes a small amount of wetted surface relative to the full hull. I would expect the drag increase to be approximately proportional to relative increase in wetted surface area.
Agree with Doggy_Paddler: When the waves are at my back, will lower the skeg as little as possible, to avoid corrective strokes. And I’m inclined to avoid using the skeg most of the time.
Think of the skeg as tool. Using it judiciously doesn’t make you a bad paddler. Saw a former instructor using it on trip, where I was avoiding using mine, so asked her: “What are you using your skeg? Your skill level is so far beyond mine.” She commented, why work harder than you have to?
This is great, thanks for sending this link! I’m starting to work on plans for experimentation going forward, this will be a valuable reference.
Reading the summary of how a rudder works in the thesis, you will see that it corresponds to my brief (and simplified) description above.
