Took my modified S14S to the lake . No rudder since I removed the foot brace controls. I was a bit nervous at first
but eventually relaxed.
I stayed close to shore and paddled into a roundish cove. There was a gentle breeze and I was fighting to keep the boat from turning.
So I quit and just sat. The boat commenced to slowly spin 360° in the same spot. Weird!
Also ,a sweep stroke wouldn’t turn it until I kept the stroke at the middle third of the boat.
I’ve got to get some help to engage the rudder from no further forward than under my legs.
Can you tell me what an S14S is?
That is a Stellar 14 Sit-On-Top
so ww boats are designed to turn. Something I always do in a “new to me” boat is to paddle it with a few hard forward strokes, suddenly stop paddling and let the boat spin out and count the revolutions, gives me an idea of how aggressive the design is
short playboats and creekers will often spin out 2x while my 12 foot ww kayak just gets one revolution in, so ww paddlers may think of ww as just learning to control spin, Some designs will hold a line while others will feel like a light two wheel drive pick up being driven on an icy road with the back end sliding all over the place. Great fun messing around in boats!
you can accelerate the turn by squaring up your shoulders with the direction you want to turn. this leads to catching eddies and controlling the turn with shoulder rotation rather than actual strokes in the water or strokeless eddy turns using the rocker and edges of the boat
It is a rec boat with surf ski genes or vice versa. I’ve never had a boat as responsive to body movements as this one.
The ski end vs the rec end.
- can you somehow rig the rudder control lines to be near your hands - maybe a cleat on each side of the kayak, you wouldn’t be able to control it like feet, but hopefully you wouldn’t have to change the setting too often
- try a skeg? (can you find something you could ‘strap on’ to test out)
- shift the paddle when needed (move hands to left or right on paddle), now this would get tiring on one side after a long paddle, but for shorter periods should be ok
I’m thinking along those lines but thinking more skeg. I have a couple of boats that I stear with a paddle but they are solid trackers.
I have steared this one with the paddle and it’s a workout. I’ve got a nephew who is an engineer and a sailor so I’ll see if he has any suggestions.
I ignored some outstanding advice when I bought this one. PADDLE BEFORE YOU BUY.
I would just tie off the rudder control lines to keep the rudder straight, and then look at ways to make the rudder depth adjustable instead of all in or flipped up.
That’s what I’m thinking. Doing that is a bit of a challenge.