I'm the happy owner of a Necky Looksha IV (yeah, it's the Tupperware version, but the price was right). The boat has a fair amount of rocker and with my fledgling skills and Texas winds, engaging the rudder is often necessary. The Necky rudder is a flat, blunt blade (probably about 1/8" thick) with no streamlining whatsoever. Obviously I will be working on my paddling technique to minimize use of the rudder; however, in the interim, what are the group's suggestions for modifying/replacing the rudder to increase hydrodynamic efficiency? *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ ***************************************************************************
Byron wrote; (SNIP) >Obviously I will be working on my >paddling technique to minimize use of the rudder; however, in the interim, >what are the group's suggestions for modifying/replacing the rudder to >increase hydrodynamic efficiency? This is from a previous post I made to this list. Nicely shaped commercially available rudders see to be the exception rather than the rule here here in North America. The "Classic" configuration for a rudder would be the NACA 0006 airfoil. Its characteristics would be a thickness of 6% of c (c = the airfoil chord), maximum thickness 30% of c from the leading edge and a leading edge radius of 0.04% of the c. Michael Neverdosky suggests gluing wood to both sides of the aluminium blade and then shaping the wood. This sounds like a good method to me as there is no need to alter the rudder head etc. You could also do it by making a template of the desired shape and dragging it down the blade covered with a mixture of epoxy and microballoons. This gives you a nice uniform shape but is a bit messier than the wood. One need not be to finicky about getting the exact shape but if you feel you must do it right let me know and I will send you the offsets. 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/ ***************************************************************************
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