Karen2, I have been playing with the Chatham and it’s skeg and I am fining out it’s pretty much exactly as you say.
I’m confused as to why you’d need the skeg when traveling downwind.
I can’t claim to truly know the physics of it, I only know that’s what happens when I paddle my Caribou S with skeg.
But here’s an article that makes some sense to me:
Here’s another good article on the topic. Robert Finlay has completed 11 WaterTribe Everglades challenges.
I had a “Bou” for many years. It is a fairly strong tracker by itself. The skeg will kind of lock it in. I’ve had it in nasty wind where once you get it pointed where you want you can deploy the skeg and it will want to hold that course…
BTW: NEVER sell your Bou… 
Thanks Karen and Rookie, I never knew about that use of it when paddling downwind; I only ever used it when there was a crosswind.
Yes thank you both. That’s good information.
You need to time the waves as they pass under you’re hull to not grab air.
How do you paddle evenly on both sides and turn?
Not to worry! 
PaddleDog52, you can of course turn a skeg-equipped kayak in all the same ways you can turn another kayak.
Setting the skeg as I described is so you can go in a straight line in your chosen direction using only your normal forward stroke (no corrective strokes needed) in windy conditions.
“In windy conditions, you set the skeg position based on your desired direction of travel and then you can paddle evenly and make progress in the desired direction”.
The only direction evenly will get you is straight, no?
Ah, but in strong wind my kayak does NOT go straight for me when I paddle evenly unless the skeg is set correctly.
I learned this the first time I ventured out into the open lake when it was really windy. I’d been paddling in a protected slough (connected to the lake), where it was great fun to be able to glide smoothly and quietly without veering, and go right by the ducklings without alarming them or their parents. So I had my skeg down when I went out into the lake. I’d forgotten it was even down, I was so used to the slough.
I found I could not make progress upwind to save my life, unless I went exactly upwind and paid very close attention to keeping my bow pointed exactly into the wind. If I wanted to go sort-of upwind, I’d be paddling frantically on the downwind side and not even bothering to get the other paddle in the water, but inexorably I would still turn away from the wind.
A stronger paddler might have done better, but it would still be unpleasant.
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My recollection is you paddle mostly Solstice family boats, yes? I had a Squall, have paddled many of the others in the family, and they are trackers and a half. Plus predominantly ruddered. Maybe the gts is turnier if l have the right model, there was one that was a step to the side.
This is an area where a skeg in a newer boat will behave somewhat differently than what you are used to.
If you pull up the skeg completely in wind, for a boat that like most weather cocks, the wind will blow the stern upwind because it now fairly loosely anchored (if at all) in the water. Thus pointing the bow into the wind.
You can do this in some boats like the NDK Romany and Explorer, and my P&H Vela, and the stern will swing over pretty damned quickly in higher wind. You can get the same effect in many other skegged boats, albeit maybe not so fast you need to effectively grab the horn of the saddle. Once the wind is turning the boat upwind, if you wish you could just paddle evenly and ultimately get turned the right way.
Jim and I were out in ridiculous winds one time with a friend of ours in her Explorer. Our assessment of the weather that day was a fail, we crept back up to the launch point hiding from 32 mph winds (never did get the knot details) paddling all of 8 inches from the shore. Our friend was struggling to turn upwind. Turns out she had the skeg down. I told her to pull it up, at which point the boat swung into the wind so fast she barely missed hitting a couple of rocms.
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I have one skeg boat here Eddyline Journey it’s actually my partners. I have played in it a bit. I get want you’re saying better now.
I was out last night in my Extreme paddling with a Werner Corryvreckan. I was doing wide low angle sweep type strokes. I was playing around to see the effects. I really think the bow was moving about 1/2" off center line on each side. I did have the rudder down.
Seems easier to do low angle paddling with a high angle paddle than vise versa. Fun to play and experiment at times. It turns decent on edge even with rudder down better with it up.
In the move to skegged Brit style boats, many have lost track of some of the finesse points of how a well set up ruddered boat worked. And IMO Current Designs had the rudder integration down extremely well. It is easy for me to see how the Solstice family did so well for so long. Within their design ethic they were damned solid boats, got a lot of paddlers like me on the water and home again admirably well.
I never did research the details, but the boats were designed so that the rudder in an undeployed position was part of the balance of how the hull handles wind. That was why my loyal Squall went to a new home when l wanted one that was friendlier to wet work. I increasingly found that the rudder simply got in my way, and that l never used it anyway. And removing it was not a plan.
The Squall was also very protective of me, those boats would hang on their sides for a smaller paddler like me to stop me from going over. Unfortunately l had to get past the same spot rolling up again. My ratio went from one out of three to three out of three the first week with the Explorer.
Hi Celia,
That episode was over 10 years ago, when I was still a new paddler. Not to worry, I quickly figured out my skeg after that initially perplexing event!
I also knew on that day that I was never in any real danger, all I had to do was stop trying to go upwind and the wind would have quickly blown me back to the slough, or if capsized (never came close), to the lake shore nearby.
Can I ask a favor? Can you tone down your scolding on this forum, it’s kind of unpleasant, especially when your scolding seems to result from not having read all of a person’s posts.
Ok, l was off base with you. That said, l just reread your post and didn’t see anything that told me the experience was so old.
But apologies, you did say your first time.
Thanks. Good story about the friend in the Explorer!
Followup on that. Friend in the Explorer ended up spending the night, she was in the midst of a few weeks of basically living out of her car with all of her toys and dropping in on friends. She had a cooler of food, which we started calling the magic box because every possible food we suggested for dinner was apparently in that cooler.
But we were so exhausted after fighting that wind, we never made it past the cheese, crackers, a few other cool spreads; and the wine. Copious amounts because Jim and I had a decent amount in addition to the wine that was - yes- also in the magic box.
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