Milo wrote; >Anyone have thoughts on just lowering a rudder straight down (without >"steering" it)? Would that change his (peter's) opinion on the relative >worth of skeg and rudder? A rudder that does not move becomes a skeg (until you move it). I believe Peter's point about the rudder pertains to its use as a rudder. Another approach to the problem can be found in Matt Brose's boats and mine where achieving directional stability comes from hull shape and no skeg or rudder. One can easily imagine situations where skegs, rudders or no rudder or skeg might work well. Keep in mind that canoes rarely have skegs or rudders and manage fine. By the same token, sprint kayaks really do need rudders since one wants to maximise the forward propulsive effort and the slight drag of the rudder can be easily offset by the more efficient power application. Commonly skegs get mounted well aft in an effort to achieve directional stability. another approach mounts the skeg close to the center of gravity. This serves to reduce leeway and consequently, weather helm but still allows control. I know of a number of attempts to use double skegs based upon their use on surf boards but have not heard of an arrangement that worked better than the normal skeg. This may be due to the nature of the flow around a wide flattish surf board as opposed to the flow around a narrow rounded sea kayak. I experimented with two angled skegs mounted forward on a freestyle canoe. It worked but not as well as a well placed paddle blade. Of course, some one might discover the proper combination so one should not dismiss it out of hand. Anyone experimenting with double skegs might want to first study how boats turn and then get up to speed on water particle motion in waves. One can save a lot of trial and error that way. 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 Thu Dec 24 1998 - 13:43:39 PST
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