At John Harris' request --- man, he really had to twist my arm, too --- I picked up the prototype of Chesapeake Light Craft's new Patuxent 20, a 20' racer with a 19" beam, at the CLC shop yesterday afternoon for a short paddle at Sandy Point on the Chesapeake Bay in Annapolis. This is one interesting boat! Extremely long water line with an unusual bow design, vaguely reminiscent of an aircraft carrier on which I once lived, but maybe closer to a hammerhead shark. --- Yeah! That's the image! What a name --- the CLC Hammerhead! CLC is getting into higher volume bows these days, and this particular design was fine for shooting through an occasional set of two foot seas and powerboat wakes. To do this, CLC is widening the bow and carrying a lot of "V" further forward than in the past. An interesting idea. Unlike the North Bay, which will dive into and under larger waves regularly, this boat will go through the wave if not over it. This prototyle is beautifully finished, a jet black hull with black paint carrying up and enclosing the coaming, the deck in customary bright finish. A relatively low afterdeck makes rolling and sculling easy, but the most significant aspect of the boat is its speed. I'd thought the North Bay was fast! On the downside, and not surprisingly, the beast has to be leaned hard to turn it, and, with a 19" beam and some lumpy water, there were a few quick low braces to be made in the hour I had with it on the water. The only other concern I had with the boat was that, in surfing down a following sea, the bow seemed to really bite in, but the stern wanted to --- and regularly did --- skid out a lot. It seems to want some sort of "trim tab" rudder to help line up the stern. With the fulcrum a small rudder would have, it wouldn't take much surface area to realign a good track. The rocker in this design is very limited, with a straight "V" amidships --- essentially between the bulkheads --- and some rise forward of the forward bulkhead, and a longer length of limited rise aft of the after bulkhead. No hatches, no lines --- just a very sleek looking boat! Subjectively, the "20" felt a little more stable than my North Bay --- with an inch less beam, but at least two feet more waterline than the 'Bay. Apparently, it's the extended waterline that makes the difference in stability. It also felt as if it would be faster, which, considering the design intent, is not surprising either. This is a boat for the experienced weekend racer, 20 feet of bulkheaded boat coming in at 37 pounds! The micro-pram bow distracts from the boat's aesthetics a little, I guess, but it got a lot of looks --- and a couple of funny doubletakes --- and generated several discussions with fellow kayaker/motorists stuck in Friday afternoon Annapolis traffic on the return trip. An arrow --- a spear. A very nice looking, very fast boat. Standard blurb --- no affiliation with CLC; just a happy customer. Jack Martin *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Sat Jul 01 2000 - 22:30:33 PDT
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