Hey which do you think is fastest? Looksha Elite 17’, Arluk II 18’ ,or Seaward Chilco (18’ 5" kevlar)
All fairly thin. Fastest will be what your most comfortable in. If one is even .75 mph faster does it matter? Get what is most comfortable and stable. What size are you? Can you paddle a longer slightly heavier boat as fast as slightly shorter lighter boat?
I have a CD Nomad and Solstice 18-10" x 21.25" and Solstice 17-7" x 24.5" probably close to .75-.90 mph in speed difference in sprint paddling. Same weight may be 1- 2 lb. difference.
If one of them is red; it will be the faster of the two.
Seriously,
BOB
@thebob.com said:
If one of them is red; it will be the faster of the two.Seriously,
BOB
And the cops will pull you over and give you a ticket even though the silver kayak just blew by you and them.
Back in 2003 there were figures put together for a good number of kayaks. The Chilco ranked pretty high in those figures. Looks pretty good in the rankings all the way up to the 6 knot range too, if you’re racing and trying to push that kind of speed.
http://files.meetup.com/1756644/kayakvelocity.html
It appears to be some modification of the Broze/Taylor figures posted in Sea Kayaker magazine, which some figures follow that are directly from Sea Kayaker magazines:
2 knots 3 knots 4 knots 4.5 knots 5 knots 6 knots
Looksha Elite -----------------------------------------.95-----------2.00----------3.66-------------4.88-----------6.99---------12.96
Cetus LV ------------------------------------------------.93----------1.98-----------3.63-------------4.86-----------7.32---------13.37
Nordkapp LV ------------------------------------------.88-----------1.88----------3.52-------------5.14------------8.00--------14.56
Sterling Illusion----------------------------------------.82----------1.81-----------3.35-------------5.46-----------8.69---------14.98
Tiderace Xtra-------------------------------------------.91-----------1.90-----------3.66------------5.60------------8.66--------15.05
CD Extreme---------------------------------------------.93-----------1.93-----------3.51------------4.62------------6.46--------11.72
QCC Q700X----------------------------------------------.98-----------2.01----------3.69-------------4.72------------6.38--------11.12
Rockpool Taran-----------------------------------------.92-----------1.93----------3.54-------------4.55------------6.23--------11.11
Tiderace Pace 18---------------------------------------.95-----------2.04-----------3.77-------------4.89-----------6.74--------11.93
In any case, looking over these 2 charts should give you some idea where the Chilco comes in, according to these calculations anyway. 5 knots is very doable in a lot of race situations, and certainly in sprint situations. You can kind of see how the wall forms sooner in play kayak figures at 5 knots.
1 Like
Thanks for all the great info! I will look over the charts. I will hopefully be trying them all out eventually. And the Elite IS red.
I see chart says kayaks fully loaded so does that mean Extreme is loaded to 425 lb. Limit and others would be less? Or the test use to be just the paddlers weight correct?
All say “Hydrostatics calculated with a 250-pound load.” It’s also clarified that it’s kayak weight + 250-lb payload. All the way back to June 1995, Sea Kayaker specifically states “Kayak weight + 250-lb. load”. Right through to the end of Sea Kayaker they used a consistent 250-lb payload. So the only weight variation would be in the weight of the kayak itself for their testing purposes. Also, “These figures are derived from mathematical models based on a limited number of towing tests on flat water.” So things like fit, ergonomics, effects of textured water, and other personal bias (stability requirements and such and on…) are removed in that sense.
Ok thanks. My two Extremes are fast which I knew.
Mostly depends on the integrated navigation/propulsion “system” 
and that “system” seems to have wild performance swings in my experience.