Nick wrote: <I am also seeking a definition that does not depend on the paddler's skills. With practice, a skilled paddler can keep just about anything upright. A novice paddler may have trouble keeping a bath tub upright. Stability curves are determined assuming a rigid hunk of meat in the cockpit. This has the advantage of being skill independent, any idiot can by a rigid hunk of meat.> The problem with this is that no idiot WOULD be a rigid hunk of meat (not that the rigidity of meat is very high, unless badly overcooked). Unless completely oblivious to the angle of heel, the meathead will attempt to do SOMETHING. A novice will probably either jerk at the paddle and capsize or let go of the paddle, wave one or both arms in the air and then capsize (I've seen the latter repeatedly on the river). Whereas an expert would glide their paddle along the surface, drop their head toward the water (long live the neck-breaking thread!), lift their knee against the carefully fitteded kneebrace and hula their butt back under their weighty, bony skull, at least in a perfect world. Real-world behaviour is not all shown on the graphs, and is very dependent on the paddler's various actions. Why are you leaned over in the first place? As one of many possible examples, let me indict the seat back. A high seat back, especially if rather square, tends to transmit the rolling of the boat to the paddler's upper body, generating a potentially destabilizing weight shift. One of the (most easily correctable) reasons that I don't like the Necky Lookshas I've used is that they have such a seat. If you are leaned back against the seat in rough water, not good. Of course, a paddler of some skill will tend to poise their body foreward a bit, as a natural response to engaging their knees into the deck, and let the boat roll, but this can be fatiguing. Better to keep the seat, or preferably backband, down away from the ribs where it belongs, giving lumbar support. Factors like this have a real effect on seaworthiness, but can't be quantified easily with dead meat tests. I think most paddlers WOULD rate a Looksha with a low backband as "more stable" in, say, a reflected-wave zone, even if they didn't realize that it was because they were better isolated from the roll. The best exception to this that I can think of is if you were choosing a boat for someone handicapped by parapalegia. If you have to strap someone into the seat, (I don't know any disabled paddlers, so forgive me if I screw up the details of working around a specific disabiliy) they may have more trouble not being dumb ballast, and may live life more graphicly, if I may pun so horribly. Mike Wagenbach I'd rather be shooting shoppers at Nordstrom's. *************************************************************************** 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/ ***************************************************************************
Mike wrote: (SNIP) > > Real-world behaviour is not all shown on the graphs, and is very > dependent on the paddler's various actions. If by "real world behaviour" one means how paddlers act or react under the infinite range of conditions and circumstances then finding a formula or measurement that will apply in all cases should keep some one busy for a long, long time. On the other hand, if by "real world behaviour" one means the righting moment contribution of the boat then the stability curves can provide that. One must try to avoid letting the perfect become the enemy of the good. Yes, a "number" or description that reflected every possible permutation of paddler, boat, and environment would make a lot of people happy but I don't think we will achieve that any time soon. In the meantime we can take it one step at a time and get closer. John Winters Waveform Plastics Technologies Ltd. 15 Ena Ave. South River, Ontario P0A 1X0 *************************************************************************** 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/ ***************************************************************************
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