George wrote; (SNIP on stability) > > Necky has an article in its sales brochure that explains all this. >In sum: Initial stability keeps the boat parallel with the water. . . >Secondary stability keeps the boat from tipping over (capsize) in heavy seas >. . . The boat becomes more stable as it is leaned on it's side. > > These stability characteristics are essential to understanding boat >design. And the reason the "tippy" boat may be the best choice for the nasty >waters. > > Somebody help me out here. . . John Winters understands this stuff! I think you guys are just trying to change the subject because you are sick of me harping on the risk thing. :-) Fair enough, I get the message. Stability is an extraordinarily complicated topic. There are books written about it. It is, as Dan mentioned, possible to have a boat that is too stable and one that is too tender. I like Nick's comment (I think it was Nick) that every use has an ideal stability profile. Problems usually arise when we make absolute statements like wide boats are better than narrow boats or whatever. There are plenty of examples of people making hairy passages in Nordkapps to support the positive comments about them as good sea boats. There are also plenty of horror stories too. Keep in mind that, by naval architecture standards, sea kayaks are not seaworthy craft in that they are not self righting. This means that the sea worthiness of the boat is inextricably linked to the sea worthiness of the paddler. Skilled paddlers have navigated open ocean in open canoes while less skilled paddlers have drowned in kayaks bedecked with safety gear on inland waters. One should not draw any conclusions from this other than the band width involved. The ideal kayak (from a stability standpoint) is the one with the greatest area under the righting moment curve, the greatest range of stability, yet still having a low metacentric height. Sounds impressive don't it. The fact of the matter is that many kayaks are pretty good in this respect but no matter how good they still need a paddler that matches the boat (or vice versa). The casual paddler who only paddles in protected waters is happier and probably better off in a wide flattish boat. The experienced paddler who takes on gnarly conditions will probably be happier in a much more tippy boat. The long distance open water traveller will be best off in a boat with lots of secondary stability, a slow roll, and plenty of displacement (see ideal boat above). And so on. Cheers, John Winters Redwing Designs Specialists in Human Powered Watercraft http://home.ican.net/~735769/ *************************************************************************** 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 Tue May 19 1998 - 06:18:15 PDT
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