>I am considering buying a smaller 2nd kayak for day trips and light surfing >that has no bulkheads and no hatches. A potential problem. > I worry that in a capsize the voids would fill up with water and > consequently there would not be enough floatation for a self rescue. Correct. >Am I being paranoid about this? No. >Is there some way to be pretty sure that I'll have enough floatation from the >dry bags without the air bags Take it the answer as no. >Will partially inflating an air bag really fill in the smaller spaces between >bags? No. >For those of you who have kayaks with no bulkheads, did you find any >unexpected problems or benefits from not having the bulkheads. A few years ago we had a trip where one of the paddlers had a full kayak but no bulkheads. In the sea conditions experienced, when he capsized, they were unable to pump the hull and abandoned it, taking the paddler to shore on the back of one of the other kayaks. So, from bitter experience, our Network does not allow non-bulkhead kayaks on its trips. A suitably strong sea-sock might have been the answer however we simply ban kayaks without two bulkheads from our organised trips. It is unfortunate that so many plastic kayaks have such excessively large cockpits (aft bulkhead so far aft) but we tend to get stuck with poor design. At least when building a wooden boat you have control over bulkhead placement. Now if you talk folding boats...... Alex . . Alex (Sandy) Ferguson Chemistry Department University of Canterbury New Zealand *************************************************************************** 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 Mon Jan 15 2001 - 16:29:59 PST
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