>> 1) To compensate for a design shortfall. >> 2) To compensate for lack of paddler skill. > I wonder, though, if what is considered a design shortfall by some may be > seen as an asset to someone else... i.e. Audrey Sutherland's inflatable. > Can you call her inflatable a design shortfall? There's no question > she has the skill. Seems she's found what she wants to paddle and in > some conditions, it requires a rudder. Let me stick my neck out even a bit further and say "ALL kayaks have design shortfalls". Every good design trades one favorable characteristic for another. Or at least, this is what several of the notable kayak designers have written. Just what characteristics we prefer to give up and which ones we prefer to keep is what makes it likely not everyone will like the same boats, even though we all want the same boat. The perfect design doesn't exist. Having built a wooden strip kayak I'm pretty sensitive to using "design shortfall" to describe one of it's characteristics. This same characteristic though also makes it *the* best boat I've ever been in for weaving back into tight marshes. As I spin my kayak around without even leaning, it is at that point those rudderless kayaks that track straight or that must be leaned to make them easier to turn display their "design shortfalls". For this line of thinking, in the few short hours since posting my original message on this subject, apparently a few folks have either publicly or privately taken it as a personal attack on their skill level or choice in kayak design or possibly something I don't yet understand. Relax. Don't take my words so seriously or as a personal attack. How I, as a devout rudder user, got all the other rudder users pissed off at me is freaking amazing. Maybe a couple of you rudderless folks could say something condescending towards me so I can feel better again 8^) I still stick by #1 or #2 or a combination of both are the only reasons to use a rudder. (I'm excluding special applications such as sailing or kite flying. Valid reasons but they only apply to a few of you) *I* too am included somewhere in #1 or #2 (or both)! Woody *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Wed Oct 06 1999 - 20:03:52 PDT
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