One of the problems with talking about stability, I think, when it comes to kayaks or canoes, is that they are in fact unstable, except when sufficiently ballasted, sponsoond or unpractical 'wide'. Something that the 'layman' will know/recognize very well, but the expert paddlers as we are :-) can easily oversee and forget? So the phrase high secondary stability (in my country we tend to call it 'end stability'...) can give a false sort of information, because it can (may) be higher then the initial stability, but still is probably too little to prevent capsizing, which is much more, if not all, up to the paddler? Something that will not show up in measurements done from the boat alone? And if the secondary stability is high(er), it does not say a thing about how a boat behaves in waves, or heavily leaned for that matter. And although I have heard about kayaks with low initial stability that became more stable when in waves, I cannot say that I had that experience (with the unstable canoes I know) so I have my doubts about that... Dirk Barends *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Sat Nov 18 2000 - 01:38:08 PST
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