"Have you thought of any good ways to submerge the kayak? There's a lot of volume in a sea kayak. Perhaps a couple of hippos from the local zoo could be trained to do it in a standardized way. Or lots of lead... :)" I think hippos might be the best choice, strap the boat to a hippos back and jab with a cattle prod... Actually, I was thinking of partial submersion, one end at a time, and/or inverting the boat and holding it over for a while. Totally submerging the boat would be a tougher test, given more water pressure, and perhaps too rigorous for comparison with real life conditions. But, boat ends are submerged in surf and rough conditions, so the bulkheaded compartments should withstand it. "Here's a question. Would the buoyant forces of submerged bulkheads produce enough bending torque to break the kayak? Assuming of course that the kayak is being submerged by a weight in the cockpit." This raises the question of adequate strength of boats, again. I would like to know that a boat I am paddling could be fully loaded, then paddled in wave conditions in which the boat rises over a steep wave and crashes down, without any risk of boat damage. This seems to me to be a potential weakness of doubles, with a longer lever arm to swing and break the boat. Objective tests could be devised for stiffness by supporting the boat near the ends, loading a defined mass in the cockpit, and measuring distortion. I notice paddle shaft stiffness is defined by one manufacturer by supporting the shaft at points one metre apart, placing a load between, and measuring shaft deflection. see www.braca-sport.com/paddle Wouldn't it be interesting to devise a series of standard tests, and write to Sea Kayaker and ask how tested boats measure up? Regards, Peter Treby 37* 42' S 145* 08' E *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced/forwarded outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Mon Aug 14 2000 - 01:10:02 PDT
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