Re: [Paddlewise] She needed a rudder

Aha!
A resurrection of the rudder/no rudder debate... one of my favorite topics.

Pro-rudder heretics, know ye fear, since we shall soon smite you into utter
oblivion....

ooops, sorry. I guess all the jingoism has me acting out of character. ;-)

But for those who must ardently hold on to their belief that non-ruddered,
non-skegged boats are superior, I would recommend countering Dave's anecdote
with the following logical belief systems:

#1, the "Rudderer vs Paddler" philosophy:
A better paddler, with more control of their boat would have no problem in
those conditions, as Dave has explicitly stated how he would have fared. I
have also experienced very similar conditions to those experienced by Dave's
companion, although they were slightly more extreme, 20+ knots, 4 foot
swells, beam seas (just slightly head on).  As I rose over each wave, I
could feel the energy stored in the crest grabbing the bow of my kayak and
knocking it downwind. I had no problem negotiating this because I used a
perfectly timed mini-sweep stroke on my down-wave side to exactly counter
the turning moment of the wave crest. A slight hip edge lifting my wave-side
edge further reduce the purchase of the wave on my kayak and enhanced the
turning moment of my sweep stroke. As my boat passed over the crest, I
immediately let up on the sweep stroke and took a normal stroke on the
opposite side. This prevented me from over-correcting and pointing upwind. I
also assesed the size and and force of each wave moments before impact and
adjusted the strength of stroke accordingly.

The above description of the techinique may be a little obtuse in the
written form, but it can be learned easily enough if you spend a reasonable
amount of time paddling whitewater rivers. This technique becomes completely
second nature after a short while because you must quickly learn how to
counter all the swirling and buffeting forces on the river.  Heck, if you
even learn how to paddle a whitewater boat in a straight line on a lake, you

will learn some skill at Effective Boat Control (as I call it). This is one
the first major skill sets that whitewater paddlers must learn, and it
applies directly to boat control on the sea.

My girlfriend, who had only one previous day of sea kayaking experiencing
also had no trouble controlling her rudderless, skegless kayak in those same
conditions because of her prior experiencing controlling her sea-kayak-like
RPM on class III rivers. At least that's my theory :) As an aside, she says
that after reading my previous story, over half of her girl-friends at work
would have dumped me.  Guess I'm just lucky.

But of course, the Devil's Advocate would say that it is fine to not have a
rudder IF you have the skill, but that a rudder will effectively increase
your skill when you need it. In other words, you'll be able to handle
rougher conditions with a rudder's potential aid. In fact, lots of people
paddle with their rudders retracted, only deploying them when the conditions
warrant. There is plenty of merit to this, especially for people who don't
have the time/ambition to become expert paddlers.

Which leads us to the second major tenet of our anti-rudder belief system:

#2, "rudders work fine... until they break. And they always break, sooner or
later." Saltwater, and moving metal parts just don't get along very well.
Also, skegs can jam with little small rocks (it always happens to me at
least once per trip when I paddle a skegged boat). Even worse, the
capricious Gods of the Sea usually ensure that breakage occurs at the least
opportune time.

But the Devil's advocate would then necessarily reply that well designed and
maintained rudder systems very rarely break. At which point the vehement
anti-rudder crusader must instantly riposte with...

#3  "rudder systems inherently are flawed because they reduce the ability to
paddle and brace"
This is true for the sliding foot-pedal systems, which can make kayaks
significantly harder to roll and brace. They rob energy from every paddle
stroke, and make the boat harder to edge in rough conditions where this
ability is needed most. These systems also jam, are hard to adjust, and I
have even seen rudder pedals slide completely out of their tracks during
rescues. They simply add too much complication.

However, this is not necessarily true, since newer rudder systems have
solved all those problems with the gas-pedal style of footbrace. If a rudder
is desired, I would highly recommend seeking out this style of rudder.

So where does this leave us in our rudder/no rudder holy war? Hrmm, well it
appears that nothing is as black and white as the major media would have us
think.

SYOTW,
Kevin


----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave Kruger" <dkruger_at_pacifier.com>
To: "Paddlewise" <paddlewise_at_paddlewise.net>
Sent: Saturday, September 22, 2001 11:17 PM
Subject: [Paddlewise] She Needed a Rudder


> Just returned from an abbreviated trip to Barkley Sound with four others,
all
> reasonably fit folks, four with ruddered sea kayaks, and one without.
>
> The paddler without a rudder was unable to maintain a course across a
> well-developed sea generated by 10-12 knots of steady wind.  The
combination of
> wind and seas persistently threw her on a course some 20 - 30 degrees
> downwind.  Although she had enough strength to correct that deviation the
first
> half of the crossing, she eventually wore out.  In order to get her to a
safe
> harbour some one and a half sea miles away, we resorted to a light tow in
which
> a strong paddler applied only enough towing force to keep her bow headed
in the
> correct direction.  With that assistance, she made it to camp handily,
under
> her own steam.



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