Thanks all for the comments on the sailing thread. I have been toying with the idea all winter, and now the clocks have moved forward, and the weather is improving I'm hopefully going to spend more time finding out about the practicalities of sailing kayaks. I have been playing with kites for kayak traction for the last six months. What kites are people using? Last weekend I was flying a stack of two flexifoils, a 6ft, and an 8ft in 20knot plus winds. If you keep these kites turning in the middle of the window in this wind, they will pull you in a kayak down the *beach*. Flying them is definitely a two handed job though, and while they are a lot of fun, I don't think that flexis are that practical for kayak traction, certainly not in my boat. What kites have others tried ? are the 'parafoil' flyers using single line jalbert style kites ? The wipika looks like *THE* kite for traction on water. Is Jean-Philippe Soulé on this list ? He used to post to wave~length and is active on the kite sailing list, and plans to use the wipika wing during an epic paddling expedition in the autumn. For those interested you can check out some pictures of Jean-Philippe & wipika wing on his web sight at: http://www.voicenet.co.jp/~jeanphi/caske_kite.htm I'm in the process of building a sail rig for my boat, much more practical methinks than kites for everyday use. Anyone out there have any ideas about how to put a step into a plastic boat ? I'm planning on machining a thread onto a piece of brass tube and making two brass washers to screw together either side of the deck, with a rubber gasket between them, and adding a plywood brace between the foot peg rails, but I'm a bit concerned that the deck by itself may not take the load. Anyone out there sailing plastic kayaks ? What rigs are people using? Sprit sail rig as used by maatsuyker members looks like a good practical sail, and this will be where I start, but I reckon that a junk rig on a bamboo mast would look very fine on a kayak. I certainly appreciate sail design advice on this list, wherever it comes from. Cheers Colin ______________________________________________________ Dr Colin Calder Centre for CBL in Land Use and Environmental Sciences (CLUES) MacRobert Building, Aberdeen University, Aberdeen, AB24 5UA, UK c.j.calder_at_abdn.ac.uk Tel: (+44) 01224 273768 Fax: (+44) 01224 273752 CLUES WWW: http://www.clues.abdn.ac.uk:8080/ ______________________________________________________ *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ ***************************************************************************Received on Fri Apr 03 1998 - 01:09:15 PST
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