Steve Scherrer mentioned that he prefered a boat that had a more neutral response to heel. Over the years I have talked to a lot of people about this and have found that most instructors and "experts" seem to prefer boats responsive to heel and most casual paddlers prefered a boat with less response. Flat water racing paddlers that I interviewed during my CCA project days all preferred minimal response. For just messing about the more responsive boat prfovides a lot of entertainment but for tripping Steve's approach makes more sense to me. . There has been a lot of discussion about how and why boats turn. The basic physics are simple - any unbalanced forces around the yaw axis of the boat will initiate a turn and the rate and direction of the turning will vary with the magnitude and directions of forces which will vary thorughout the turn. There are some coupled forces with heave and pitch but these can be ignored for simple discussions. How and why different hull shapes affect turning and course stability (resistance to turning) is much more complex. I developed a program for this that worked reasonably well in a comparative manner but did not allow automatic variation of the hull to attain a specific goal. I abandoned the project as it was taking too much time to develop and it seemed easy enough to achieve goals intuitively. The math just boggled my mind. I think that anyone with a keen interest in boat control using heel and trim changes would find a study of freestyle canoeing and paddlers useful. Mark Molina, Pat Moore, Charlie Wilson, Sue Plankis and others have probably forgotten more about this than most people will ever know or care to know. Pat has a video (not sure if he has a web site) and I think Mark may have a web site and video. Interestingly, most freestyle canoes have round bilges. Dave Yost, Pat Moore and Mike Galt, the designers with the most experience, all prefer round bilge designs. No doubt a host of reasons and maybe they all don't directly apply to kayaks but I have found that the same hydrodynamic principles that apply to canoes have almost always applied to kayaks without any modification. I paddled a hard chine version of one of my round bilge designs last summer and could hardly tell any difference so it seems that people should not get hung up over a specific hull shape. Cheers, John Winters *************************************************************************** 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/ ***************************************************************************
John and all, Interesting observations. BTW, I absolutely love paddling solo or tandem canoes and find it the most challenging of all paddlesports. Half the paddle= Twice the man! RRRRRR!!! <pirate canoeist joke> I want to set one thing straight. I like the boat to have an initial neutral heel response so the decision as to which way the boat is going to YAW is mine, not the friggin' boat's. Soon as 1º of YAW is established I REALLY want the boat to carve, and carve deep, if that's where I want to go with it. But if I begin a turn to the right and then, because I choose to lift the left knee, as in a peel out or (motorcycle style) inside edge turn, I don't want my hull to resist that turn and think that by lifting my left leg I'm asking it to turn to the left. I'm not stating that I like boats that don't edge well, and anyone who's seen me paddle would attest to !! I just want the initial YAW direction choice to be mine and I want my boat to freely carve, without resistance. Any hull claiming that it will turn with only an edge seems as tho would also produce that resistance. Does this make sense? Steve > Steve Scherrer mentioned that he prefered a boat that had a more neutral > response to heel. Over the years I have talked to a lot of people about this > and have found that most instructors and "experts" seem to prefer boats > responsive to heel and most casual paddlers prefered a boat with less > response. Flat water racing paddlers that I interviewed during my CCA > project days all preferred minimal response. > > For just messing about the more responsive boat prfovides a lot of > entertainment but for tripping Steve's approach makes more sense to me. . *************************************************************************** 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/ ***************************************************************************
From: "Steve Scherrer" <Flatpick_at_teleport.com> > as in a peel out or (motorcycle style) inside edge turn, > I don't want my hull to resist that turn and think that by lifting my left > leg I'm asking it to turn to the left. I'm not stating that I like boats > that don't edge well, and anyone who's seen me paddle would attest to !! I > just want the initial YAW direction choice to be mine and I want my boat to > freely carve, without resistance. Any hull claiming that it will turn with > only an edge seems as tho would also produce that resistance. > > Does this make sense? To me it does. However, I've found that even those kayaks that have a noticably crisp turn in a no-sweep lean (i.e. turn on momentum without a paddle stroke) only do so with modest force. An inside edge lean, useful when dealing with nasty wind, current or waves, can be initiated with ease. Turning from a standing start, I haven't noticed much resistance at all to such a maneouver. My impression of the Caribou was that it does what you like. It doesn't seem to initiate a turn without a sweep, but responds well to both outside and inside leans with a sweep. Maybe that's what appeals to Caribou lovers. It only does what it's told and doesn't have any significant idiosyncracies (sort of like every woman's ideal man :-). Mike *************************************************************************** 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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