Mel wrote; > >I talked to her about the weathercocking last night again. This last time out we deliberately loaded the stern of her boat while leaving the bow light. She said that this made a positive difference (I think we may have inadvertently been putting too many water bottles into her bow since it has that convenient hatch that is easy to open on the water by another kayaker). This would be similar to leaning back, basically shifting weight to the back of the boat. > >I probably need to find some Canadian Ballast Rocks (TM) for her stern. Since a lot of the hills in north east Kansas were formed by glaciers during the last ice age some of the rocks around here are probably original CBR's. Would there be a problem using the original CBR's or have there been significant improvements in the last 10,000+ years? :) Trimming down at the stern shifts the Longitudinal center of area aft. A better method than adding weight would be to attach a small fixed skeg aft. I have found that something a foot long and tapering to about 2" deep works wonders. Such a skeg doesn't add a lot of resistance and can serve to protect the bottom from abrasion. If you mount the skeg just aft of amidships (about 10% of the waterline length) it can reduce weathercocking without hindering maneuverability much. I do not recommend using Genuine Canadian Ballast Rocks (TM) for trimming the boat. They should only be used as directed in our very complete users manual. > 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 Wed Oct 21 1998 - 07:34:31 PDT
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