Re: [Paddlewise] Planing (was: Hard chined hulls)

From: Michael Daly <michaeldaly_at_rogers.com>
Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 14:55:53 -0500
From: "Wayne Smith" <wsmith16_at_snet.net>

> > I'm curious how you determined that the kayak was starting to plane.
> > What indicator did you use?
> 
> Feel, and you also can see the bow start to ride up on it's own wake.
> Being also a sometimes whitewater paddler, I'm very acquainted with the
> feel of a boat planing. I have also deliberately made her plane off in
> tidal rapids, so I could surf the waves like I would in my ww boat.
> 
> The whole thing was totally subjective, but I did notice at about the same
> time that the boat was much harder to propel.

This may be incorrect use of the term planing.  Uncle Derek may be calling
the same thing planing without following a formal definition.

While many whitewater kayaks can plane, they probably surf most of the time.
They should be called surfing hulls, rather than planing hulls.  With 
enough horsepower, a kayak can fly - that doesn't make kayaks flying boats :-)

When (trying to) surf my Solstice GTHV on wind waves, I often note that it
"takes off" with a significant shift aftwards of the point where the bow 
meets the surface of the water.  If you paddle a big kayak like that, 
you know it isn't planing, but the behavior sounds similar to what you
describe.

I think much of this discussion centers around inconsistent use of the
word "plane".

Mike

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Received on Wed Jan 16 2002 - 11:54:33 PST

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