I did several 1 nautical mile timed calm water speed trials with each of various boats. Here is the average of my best two speeds for each boat: Mariner Coaster: 4.55 knots Mariner Express: 4.70 knots Necky Tesla: 4.82 knots Seda Glider: 4.99 knots Seda Impulse: 5.05 knots CD Solstice GTS: 5.16 knots As you can see, I have only mediocre strength. I know that the faster boats can be driven by a racer considerably faster than 5 knots over longer than my 1 nm. I would be interested if any stronger paddler has made similar timed comparisons. I found that my sense of which boat was fastest had no relation to the actual timed data. I will never use a demo day trial to conclude that a boat is fast. I believe that at 4 knots and below there is not a dime's worth of difference in the efficiency of these boats, but I don't know how to test this. Jerry *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ ***************************************************************************
I thought that it would be interesting to compare the speed trials posted by Jerry to some speed trials posted by Dave Meyers several years ago (to rec.boats.paddle). The trials were over the same distance. For the three boats common to the two trials, the results are reasonably consistent in terms of relative speed (although Jerry's times are, as he openly acknowledges, a bit on the slow side--no doubt because he uses that low-angle stroke :-) Dave Meyers' trials were at what he characterizes as "100% effort" and also at "90% effort". BOAT JERRY DM(100%) DM(90%) Coaster 4.55 5.19 4.87 Impulse 5.05 6.03 5.32 Glider 4.99 6.03 5.36 At high rates of effort, the Coaster is significantly slower than the longer boats, although the difference is smaller than some might expect. And of course as John Winters (and others) have pointed out, one should expect very little difference at speeds between 3 and 4 knots. It is interesting to note that Dave Meyers also tested some whitewater kayaks. Boats that are short or that have a lot of rocker are better at playing. So why not combine the two--as is done with whitewater boats--and have a sea kayak that is super-maneuverable (note the correct American spelling--no "o"). The problem, of course, is that you end up with too much of a "good thing", and speed suffers. The extent to which this is true can be overstated, however, particularly if you have sound technique and are using a whitwater boat that is not too extreme in its design. In his tests, Dave Meyers' average speed at 90% effort for a Perception Dancer (a relatively long whitwater boat) was 4.29 knots! This is only a bit slower than for the Chinook (the slowest sea kayak that he tested), for which the average speed was 4.69 knots. Again, these speeds are at high levels of effort. There would be a smaller difference at more modest levels of effort. I think that the next time I go out sea kayaking I am going to bring my downriver boat (a Dagger Animas) which has good forward speed for a whitewater kayak, and is more playful than any sea kayak. :-) (Hey guys! Wait up!! ....) Dan Hagen *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ ***************************************************************************
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:32:52 PDT