You paddle rudderless boats, Blue and Red, on a flat water demo day. Blue is easily turned, while you have to lean and sweep hard to get Red to turn. You conclude Red tracks better than Blue. You paddle both again in an enclosed bay, with the wind howling at 20 to 30 knots, but only 1 foot wind chop because of the protection. Now you have to work like hell to keep Red from weathercocking (or lee cocking). Blue is easy to hold on any heading with a few easy leans and sweeps. You conclude Blue tracks better than Red. You paddle both again in 10 knots of wind but in confused following seas due to tidal current and a moderate rip. Every shift in wave direction rotates Blue back and forth through 45 deg. You have to be instantaneously on top of your leans and sweeps to keep on top of direction holding. But it is fairly easy to quickly get back on course. Red requires much less attention but when it does get knocked off course it is much harder to get it corrected. You don't know what the heck to conclude about tracking. 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/ ***************************************************************************Received on Sat Jan 16 1999 - 20:53:28 PST
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:30:03 PDT