A skeg is a tool. It allows a boat to have a sticky rear wjith a cross wind or paddling upwind. Rather have a skeg than a rudder.
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Isnât a rudder just a skeg if it is straight? Iâd think a rudder can do what a skeg does, plus some more.
A skeg is usually smaller and about where the rear hatch is on most boats. Before the ârockerâ goes up⌠A rudder is hung at the tail end of the stern and larger. It kicks up and gets in the way during âcowboy entrysâ.
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Rudders can be put in the water for cowboy entries well out of the way. As far as size the rudder on my 18 foot kayak is 11 inches. I donât think thatâs overly large. Granted some older factory rudders were oversized.
There are two types of rudders. One is the over the hull kind, of which, not all can be raised out of the way. None of my boats has a rudder that can be pulled out of the water. I can raise them to clean the salad from them, but they are bunjeed to stay down.
The under the hull rudder is a moveable skeg. These are on all surfskis, Olympic boats, and some other racing craft.
Again, the problem with many rudder users is that they over use them and turn them into a brake. I, generally use a rudder to pull the bow back across the current, I am not afraid of leaning a boat to make it turn, many are,
@bnystrom : What I understand about that first gen Elahu is that it was one of the first CAD designed boats. The Necky guys thought it looked sweet, so it went into production before anyone took one out on the water. It was atrocious, but they still make a version of it.
The first skeg they crammed on it was an over the edge skeg, you had to use a cleat to hold it up, so it did stick straight out. It also tended to float up if there was a lot of energy in the water, but that was their only fix for it. They would not give any money back.
Iâll offer the ww perspective. Several ww kayak manufacturers offer crossover boats with spring-loaded skegs. I own the LL xp10 and have boated a couple other crossovers with skegs. For me personally, I donât notice much difference with the skeg down. In fact I rarely use it at all.
I got not problem with someone using the skeg to help them go straight on the flats (these boats are designed to turn). As folks learn to paddle they may find the skeg obsolete. The primary purpose of a skeg on a ww boat is to help a novice paddler go straight on flat water. I think it accomplishes that. If the skeg helps use it.
No,thing stuck straight up on the first year Elaho.
As I said above your post, I know that boat very well. It was simply an extraordinarily maneuverable design, think Pintail but shorter and more so.
I can take a photo of mine in the basement if it would help this discussion⌠it appears to be needed.
The skeg is metal, and yes it can float around a bit deployed. But it also tends to hold under pressure, because it is metal not the plastic that skegs have been since. Which is a good thing. The boat is so maneuverable that more skeg is rarely an issue.
Not straight up, but straight out the back. It was obviously a tacked-on âsolutionâ that made the boat a pain to carry and it was constantly getting bent. I donât remember much else about the boat, which is probably just as well.
The skeg needs to be adjustable/retractable, otherwise the paddler will have trouble going to weather in strong wind.
The concept that paddling without a skeg or rudder is âpaddling properlyâ is purely snobbish. I go for efficiency and the best utilization of my strong shoulders and arms. I have paddled many miles without a skeg or rudder and the constant corrections are detrimental to my primary goal; hold a steady course at speed. I paddle with a rudder deployed to execute those goals, maintaining a balaned, aggressive cadence. To each their own. You can paddle with Greenland or soup spoons, if thatâs your thing. But, nobody is going to tell me I donât paddle âproperly.â 
Above all else, find your particular style and embrace it.
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Of all those conditions, only wind is relevant to the need for a skeg (or a rudder). The windier it is, the harder it will be to keep your âbareâ (no skeg, no rudder) kayak going straight when trying to quarter downwind.
Yes, if you are strong enough you can do things like paddle only on one side, but I would guess that for every paddler there is a wind strong enough to make it a very difficult thing, requiring both strong forward strokes on one side and periodic reverse sweep strokes on the other side (to get back on track).
All of the above is true no matter the kayak. Iâm sure some kayaks are better than others, but in the end SOMETHING has to be adjustable to enable reasonable straight-line progress both in the quartering-downwind and the quartering-upwind directions on a really windy day.
FYI, I too paddle a CD Caribou, but with a skeg. I briefly owned a âbareâ Arctic Hawk because the price was right and the reviews said it didnât need a skeg, but IMHO those reviewers were either built like Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime or never paddled in a downwind quartering direction in very much wind.
I came across this article that attempts to explain the physics:
Maybe itâs wrong, but it makes sense to me.
Hello. My name is Oldboo and I use a skeg.
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You should be focusing on torso rotation, not your shoulders and arms. Perhaps youâre not paddling properly after all (rudder or not). 
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Thereâs that snobbish attitude I mentiond
Its actually better biomechanics⌠Use it or not as you see fit. Its your trip.
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It could sound like.
But the concern is solid for those like me who missed the satire. Oops.
I have a friend who had to have both of her shoulders done, knocked out her paddling for three years, mostly due to overuse injury from paddling. She insisted on using a blade size that was overkill for her joints. Same damage as paddling without torso support.
Sevenlakes, is that what you call satire.