If the boat is not well balanced for wind when in motion, keeping it on course over several hours tends to get tiring even in very slight winds. I paddled my short kayak yesterday in very light wind (5 mph) and almost no ripples on the water and I had to use an asymetric grip on my paddle and a slight lean to keep it on track. 30 minutes of this and I began to get tired on one side ...
Techniques like leaning, sweep strokes, asymetric hand position on the paddle do work. Fine for playboating, waste of energy and time for tripping - they are only good for a short time and rob one from forward speed quite a bit. Unfortunately, one has to keep doing it if the boat does not have a skeg or a rudder.
not really a problem in a longer boat–I paddle a W/S Tempest 170 and it has a skeg which I use less and less these days–depending on the strength of the wind and my heading–I don’t use it at all heading into the wind, particularly in a strong breeze(for me that’s anything over 20 knots) A deployed skeg makes the boat more likely to leecock in those conditions—going downwind is another matter—but even without the skeg, unless the conditions are extreme–over 30 knots or so, I really enjoy the challenge and in most winds and seas its easy to hold a course with just paddle strokes and leaning. I used to own a perception vizcaya with a rudder—deployed the rudder only once—always felt more secure using the paddle to steer.
You have to face the fact that there are some kayaks that are just plain miserable in the wind. There's a lot of good advice on this thread. Two other things you can do is: You can offset your hand grip on the paddle so it's longer on one side to give you a constant offset propulsion. The other thing you can do is turn more severely into the wind and offset your direction a bit and then gently back to your course - a lot like a sail boat tacking in the wind with a bit of a zig zag course.
Every paddler goes through this and that's why 99% of sea kayaks have skegs or rudders. Longer boats also weather cock less than shorter ones. If many of the kayaks had a jammed rudder or skeg, they would act just like yours and the paddler would have the same miserable time staying on course.
Long boats can be a handful in wind too. Especially in strong gusts, my almost 19' Extreme really likes to have the rudder in the water or it weathercocks quite a bit. With the rudder though it is easy to handle cross winds. No rudder needed upwind and usually directly downwind, though it helps to have it downwind to keep it on track while surfing down the waves.
Even in the boat I complain about having strong weathercocking, it is not an issue whatsoever to go up wind or downwind regardless of wind strength. I've had it in consistent 20 mph wihds with gusts of up to 40 mph (wind channeled on the river, 2-3 feet very steep waves with many white caps).
For JackL, not in any negative way, I've only been out in such conditions a handful of times and with the sole purpose to experiment in these conditions close to shore). We don't get "fun" conditions where I live unless the wind really picks-up from the right direction. Otherwise it is either wind and no waves or no wind and no waves, so I am often tempted to go out when there is a small craft advisory in effect -;) But I did skip the last one and did not go out when the gusts were forecasted to be in the 60+ mph, I admit that much! However, you are totally right - in such conditions I personally would not want to be out for very long - takes a lot of energy and you can't go very far if you plan to come back the same way (though surfing downwind is so tempting that having a second car to pick-up downriver might not be a bad option at all!).
Actually, in these conditions it was not any more difficult to deal with the weathercocking than it was in 5 mile per hour wind an no waves! Dealing with the gusts of course kept me on edge, but the weathercocking is not any worse as the waves "hide" the boat from the winds in the dips b/w them and when on a crest it is actually easier to turn back on course than on flat water.
Back to topic though. Being a short boat allows easy corrections downwind. Upwind no correction is needed - it just sticks upwind due to its strong weathercocking tendency. This is just as true for the Tempest without a skeg.
Of course, if I go just slightly so off-wind upwind it is easier (going directly up-wind the boat tends to move a few degrees left or right and because it is almost half what the tempest weights it is a lot livelier). But going just off the axis locks it in.
The real problem is going sideways in winds. Just as you said, leaning and corrective strokes work but at a penalty. I was watching my GPS/Heart rate monitor last time I went out - I lost about 0.5 mile per hour (just over 20% of my speed in that boat at that effort) in terms of speed while my heart rate was up 10% compared to the sections where there was no side wind. If I had a skeg I estimate I would have hardly lost any effort ...
My point is that one pays a hefty price when compensating for the boat's imbalance during a long passage. Unless that's part of some training or due to a skeg malfunction, I think it is not really necessary to endure if the boat has a means to combat it for me -;)
Short boat, low performance If your boat is only 14 feet, you can’t expect good performance. A rec boat is only tolerable in rec conditions, not in wind. Serious kayaks work better in more serious conditions. At least 16 ft. I sure like my skeg in crosswinds.
Just over correct for the course you want to travel. Then relax and make standard forward strokes even while you're being blown back to the boats weathercocked posistion. Wait until your bow is blown back past where you want to go, then take a couple of big sweeps strokes to way over correct again. While you end up paddling a bit further and in an S path, this is a lot less tiring than always using a corrective stroke. If you're with a group, you'll get lots of face time with everyone since you'll be visiting with each of them on your wacky path to your destination :)
With the Caribou, I can usually get in 10-20 forward strokes before having to over correct with big sweeps. Much easier than wearing out/cramping muscles on one side from making every stroke a correction stroke.