Re: [Paddlewise] Perfect Boat is Plastic! Now Flex

On Fri, 3 Dec 1999 Strosaker_at_aol.com wrote:

> It is funny how in the world of skin boats (baidarkas and greenlanders), flex 
> is praised for increasing speed and seaworthiness, but when it comes to flex 
> in a plastic boat, the shatterglassers complain about it reducing 
> performance.  I've built a greenlander skin boat, and the amount of flex (bow 
> to stern) is about the same in it as with my plastic kayaks.  What do the 
> shatterglassers have to say about that?

hmm, time to figure out how to trade hats.  My paddling choices include
a skin/frame baidarka, and carbon fiber race surf ski.

Skin/frame boats flex very differently than plastic boats.  With a 
plastic boat the end to end hull shape stays roughly the same and the 
sides, and bottom, of the boat just flex inward as waves are encountered.

With a skin/frame boat the boat will bend as it goes over waves.  To me
this was the most dramatic the day I paddled with a friend, he was paddling
my VCP Pintail ('glass british heavy).  We were paddling into a headwind with
1 foot chop.  The PinTail was riding up over each wave and crashing off the
top of each wave.  My baidarka was cruising straight forward with the
waves traveling along the gunwales.  With the boat flexing as it adjusted to
each oncoming wave.  The baidarka was much faster than the pintail headed
into the waves.

My current take on this is a rigid boat is going to be the fastest on a
flat water course - no flexing induced by the non-existant waves.  In 
waves I think a skin/frame boat will be faster because it adjusts to each 
wave and less forward momentum is lost to the boat coming off of one wave 
and pounding down off of the back of the wave.

The only use I have for a plastic boat is bouncing off rocks.  I see no
reason to abuse a boat by running it up on shore (except in surf landings).

kirk



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