I wrote: > That all said, unless you are pushing at top speed my sprint numbers don't > mean much. Of course, if your kayak's top speed is less than the average > touring speed of your paddling partners you won't keep up with them no > matter how strong you are. Ralph responded: >>>>>The Puffin is not a boat to paddle in mixed company with people in much sleeker boats. Same with Folbot Aleut. Other boats however will do nicely. For example, while you have the K-Light at 44 sprint and the average sprint of a range of hardshells at 38, I have found that the K-Light could more than keep up in mixed company unless it were really fast mixed company. It seems to cruise well, and not just for me, but for others as well. Around here in mixed groups, the K-Lights seem to do just fine.<<<<< I couldn't agree more with Ralph, one of the reasons I added the above addendum to my list of sprint times was so someone wouldn't misinterpret the sprint times as a way of rating anything meaningful about a kayak other than its potential top speed for a strong paddler putting all he can into it for less than a minute. In the real world the K-Light's shorter waterline length helps it paddle easier at normal cruising speeds. This is because there is less wetted surface (and therefore less friction) with a shorter kayak like the K-Light (other things being equal). The K-Light is plenty long for a smaller or weaker paddler and its less wetted surface can be a big plus in keeping up with paddlers cruising in bigger kayaks. For those interested, there is a more detailed discussion of this point in the FAQ's of www.marinerkayaks.com. The K-Light will travel rather easily at up to 4 knots and that is faster than most folks travel when cruising. I thought the K-Light was a wonderful little kayak and was quite concerned when I heard it was going to be discontinued with the introduction of the longer Kahuna. Now that I've paddled the Kahuna I can see why Feathercraft made this decision. It would just confuse folks and complicate the marketplace to have both. They are very similar and there will be very few paddlers for whom the K-Light would be the better kayak. I suspect the Kahuna will make an even bigger dent into Feathercraft's K-1 sales than the K-Light did though. Ralph added: >>>>>As for the other Feathercrafts (you have them at Khats 37 seconds; K-1 38 sec.; Kahuna 40; K-Light at 44 sec), I felt that the K-1 was only a smidgen slower than the Khats and it seems to hold true in your sprint test. <<<<<<SNIP> Again, our top speed observations might be confusing to someone who thinks they relate directly to paddling ease. I think the Khats slips through the water with considerable more ease than the K-1 due to among other things its narrowness and lower wetted surface. However, its finer ends combined with a similar waterline length to the K-1 mean that in a sprint the Khats effective waterline length is less and therefore its top speed isn't as much faster as it could have been (with some sacrifice to its cruising ease) if it were longer or had fuller ends. The Khats is one of the few folding kayaks I have found that has the same great glide between strokes as a good hard-shell kayak. Matt Broze http://www.marinerkayaks.com *************************************************************************** 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 Thu Mar 01 2001 - 23:25:55 PST
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