speed
A friend of mine who owns a Nordkapp LV, among other boats, is vaguely thinking of the Cetus LV precisely because he thinks it is faster. (Less rocker on the Cetus?) I have no opinion myself other than that any difference in speed is likely to be minimal and undetectable.
Stiff and twithcy
As Glenn has pointed out there comes a time when twitchy is no longer tolerable. The supple youngster compensates for twitchy with smooth quick body movements. The old guy can no longer move quickly or smoothly and will be, at best, uncomfortable with twithcy; at worst he’ll be wet. Finally, rigor mortis sets in, you lay him out in the bottom of the boat and twitchy does not matter.
Peter
not just speed
Twitchy, to me is just a pejorative way of saying “easy to edge”. Flat bottom boats like the Delphin or Cetus take more paddler input to put on edge. The Nordkapp is much easier to edge with your butt. I think “twitchier” boats allow a more intuitive body-boat connection, but every good thing has it’s extremes, and at some point that “easy to edge” feel may turn into “too hard to keep upright”.
good point
Twitchy is not a hull characterisitc…
– Last Updated: Nov-20-13 11:47 PM EST –
Speed (oops - hull resistence) to accelerate, cruising speed and degrees of heel are oft-measured hull characteristics. Twitchy is in the eye - and butt - of the paddler.
Seriously, twitchy only matters if it is so severe that the paddler can't get comfortable in the boat. But making it more important than the total package will stop you from experiencing a lot of very nice boats.
The sweetest ride in our basement is probably the twitchiest, which makes it a poor choice of boat on days when we are not on our game. But on days when everything is clicking, it is a fast, responsive wholly enjoyable boat to paddle.
I have to ask - why the focus on the Cetus? There are a lot of boats out there which are on the more comforting side. I respect the P&H boats, even have one for my main ride, but I have to wonder if this a troll for a kayak company?
Very true
at the local races, a guy who paddled an Olympic K1 tried out a friends V12 and sat on it like a rock. I could barely stay in the V12 when I demo’d it.
How many people do we see on here saying “I have a penobscot and think its unstable. recommend a stable canoe for me” I always laugh at those. But just to echo your point, stability is in the butt of the beholder. I know as I have gone towards lower stability boats they keep feeling more stable all the time. My next boat is going to be a V10, so Ill take another step down the stability ladder, until it feels stable…then who knows…
synonyms?
“Tender”?
“Lively”?
I agree, it’s a subjective quality and mays say as much or more about the paddler as it does the boat. As willi mentioned, load or freeboard can make a difference as well.
comments
Celia wrote: “Speed to accelerate, cruising speed and degrees of heel are oft-measured hull characteristics…”
Twitchiness is also a measureable hull characteristic. See the Sea Kayaker stability curves, for example.
Celia wrote: “Seriously, twitchy only matters if it is so severe that the paddler can’t get comfortable in the boat…”
This is not true. Even moderate twitchy can be moderately undesirable. Twitchiness may not be the most important aspect, but it might have moderate importance.
Celia wrote: " I have to ask - why the focus on the Cetus? …"
Sorry, I did not intend to focus on the Cetus, just an example. The Tiderace Xcape or Xcite are very similar examples, and relatively un-twitchy.
Yes, that’s it.
Those words mean the same thing, and they definitely ARE a characteristic of hull shape, and one that could be quantitatively measured if one wanted to. The point has already been made that a “twitchy” hull (or tender, tippy, whatever) has other characteristics that may be desirable for certain purposes.
The Phoenix hull has little flare
above the water line, especially with me in it. It always surprised me how stable it feels, more stable than my Hahn, which was roundish but with more rocker. The Phoenix did have that problem with roundness, because it didn’t ferry well and raising an edge to confront oncoming current didn’t work.
You’re right, flatness and edges are a good thing once one knows to edge the boat to help water pass under. After a while, it seems to happen most of the time without thinking about it.
it’s a subjective term
– Last Updated: Nov-20-13 3:32 PM EST –
Semantic point but I think you're talking about "stability". "Twitchy" and the sysnonyms I mentioned are all subjective REACTIONS to a boat's stability. I'm thinkinkg twitchiness depends on paddler experience, as well as size and weight distribution.
I'm sure one could quantify stability and the differences in stability between the same kayak loaded or unloaded.
Twitchyness?
First time I paddled my CLC many years ago it was twitchy, for 5 minutes. First time in my Artisan Millenium, it was twitchy, for 2 minutes. My surf ski embodies twitchyness, and becomes twitchy if I tense up. Which I rarely do! My Summersong was never twitchy!
tippy vs. twitchy
– Last Updated: Nov-21-13 8:23 AM EST –
When I think of a narrow boat or one with not much initial stability I think of it as tippy. I often find hard chine boats twitchy. For me it's when a kayak doesn't want to sit solidly on the water and wants to teeter from side to side. I usually experience it in hard chine boats because some are designed to carry a certain load and if it doesn't sink deep enough it seems to float too high and never sits solid on the water. I have been in narrow hard chine boats that are tippy and wider ones that are twitchy. I can usually adjust to tippy OK but dislike twitchy boats that teeter from side to side.
Silhouette?
I really liked demoing one but when stationary it sort of felt like that.
That’s what I meant
You can definitely measure the torque required to lean a boat “x” degrees and with “y” load on board (load distributed in some defined way of course). A boat that feels more “twitchy” to a particular person than some other boat WILL require less torque to make it lean by some amount. I was ignoring the fact that an the comfort level regarding this attribute will vary from one person to the next, but not ignoring the fact that any individual’s tolerance to “tippyness” will invariably be judged in the context of some other desirable attribute of the hull. Fair enough?
Feeling twitchy?
Paddle harder.
(A simple but effective solution. The leverage gained from a vigorous and balanced forward stroke can make up for a lack of initial stability.)
Sea Kayaker stability curves
– Last Updated: Nov-21-13 1:08 AM EST –
I can pull the last one - it is around here somewhere - but I believe the stability curve labels are more about resistance to heel. Not twitchiness. I have seen reviewers use that term, but I find it fairly meaningless compared to more specific parts of the review where they talk about how the boat behaved in specific maneuvers.
I did not say that what someone perceives as twitchiness is irrelevant, just that it is a matter of individual tolerance and comfort. If moderate twitchiness - whatever that is for someone - can overwhelm or ruin the rest of their paddling experience, it is a boat to be avoided. But there are many who are fine with that, as indicated by some of the replies above. In that case, other factors come to the fore.
I have experienced boats that I would call twitchy myself, and it has not always been about predictable behavior. It at times has been a matter of how the boat responds to waves from odd directions for example, where the same boat shows much smoother behavior to most dimensional water. This is not the kind of thing that I expect to see measured on a stability curve.
For that matter, neither is what jaybabina is calling twitchiness below. A stability curve for a hard chined boat may not capture that tendency of the hull to not sit quietly. The curves may only be reliable on how the resistance develops after the boat has hit its first chine.
Some Yes. Some No.
My cohorts and I are primarily road bike people who sometimes kayak. 95% of our kayaking is day trips laden with little more than lunch. We don’t use road bikes as vehicles for camping trips and seldom use kayaks that way. Boat makers need to keep us in mind.
lively, tender
Thank you. Twitchy strikes me as the term many paddlers use the first time they are in a boat with less primary (and possibly directional) stability than they are used to paddling.
I own 4 sea kayaks. The one (Nordkapp LV) with the lowest primary stability is also the liveliest, most responsive, and the fastest especially in dimensional seas.
The Nordlow, however, requires one is on top of one’s game. So, I often paddle my Romany or Aquanaut instead. I find the current fad of boats which are boxes at midships to feel rather dead in the water. I prefer boats that feel as if they are moving with the water.
Yes easier to edge
I’m a novice here, don’t have all the technical terms down. To me, the Nordlow is easy to edge. The easiest of any kayak I have owned or paddled.
I would see people edging their boats way over, and could never seem to do that comfortably with the Tempest 165 or 175’s I owned. I tried several boats, including an Avocet, Cetus, Aquanaut, and some of the Northshore boats, and they were about the same. Then I demo’d the Nordlow. And bought it.
I guess I thought the Nordlow had more secondary because it was so much easier for me to edge. Effortless. But I guess that’s not really secondary.
Edging my Tempests, I guess it was the secondary that was pushing back. The Nordlow does not do that. it will go where you put it, effortlessly. The flip side is that it will equally effortlessly go back the other way, even when you’re past the point where a boat like the Tempest would not recover.
I have always felt more comfortable in the Nordlow, more so than any other boat, EXCEPT when I let my self think this is SUPPOSED to be a twitchy boat, so there must be something I’m missing here which is going to get me in trouble.