On Wed, 2 Dec 1998, Alex Ferguson wrote: > > Caution note: in very heavy or sustained rains, you can pick up enough > > rainwater in a cockpit to collapse your rack > > I've heard that fallacy too. Over enough days maybe but > taking 6" of rain over night on a single, that's about 2" of > water in the cockpit. Remember the opening is a lot smaller > than the floor area of a standard (not folding) kayak. In browsing through the Canadian Transportation Board's marine accident reports, you frequently come across laments that the (often deceased) fishers and sailors failed to appreciate just how destabilizing the "free surface effect" of water can be. (I'm no techie, but as far as I can tell "free surface effect" is tech-talk for "sloshing".) I do remember that water weighs about 64 lbs. per cubic foot, depending on whether it's fresh or salt. Here on the Wet Coast, it's not uncommon to have to pump out your boat in the morning if you've left it out on the beach without the cockpit cover. I'm quite prepared to believe the weight and momentum of a few inches of water in the boat could damage the boat, cause it to shear through roof rack lines, and/or tip the car itself under the wrong acceleration/de acelleration/turning circumstances. And I suspect that if it did so, you could be charged with carrying an "unsafe load" in the same way truckers are liable if stuff blows or shears off their trucks. Most of us have a cockpit cover anyway and it doesn't seem like a great burden to use it when you consider the potential damage to the boat, ourselves and others. Cheers Philip T. "The opinions expressed in this posting are not necessarily those of my employer, or indeed, of any sentient being." **************************************** Mountain Equipment Co-op 1655 West 3rd Avenue, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6J 1K1 Tel: 640-732-1989 Fax: 604-731-6483 email: pid_at_mec.ca Visit our website at: http://www.mec.ca ***************************************** *************************************************************************** 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 Dec 01 1998 - 14:27:05 PST
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:30:01 PDT