Re: [Paddlewise] surfing and hard chines

----- Original Message -----
From: "Gabriel L Romeu" <romeug_at_erols.com>
To: "Kevin Whilden" <kevin_at_yourplanetearth.org>
>
> How about when you mix them with a soft keel, like on a Silhouette or
> Rumour?
> \


Not having surfed one of those boats, I can't say for sure.  However my
guess is that performance would be controllable on the wave with edging, but
that the ability to correct a broach would not be as good.  Since this
motion really felt like a flat spin, I would suspect that a very flat bottom
is necessary.  The Pygmy Arctic Tern is very flat underneath the paddler.  I
do not know exactly how far aft the hard chines and flat bottom need to
continue in order for this performance to occur.  However my intuition says
that underneath and directly behind the cockpit is the critical area.  The
stern is less important, because it is probably sticking up in the air
anyway.

One thing that whitewater boat designers have learned is that the chine
needs to be really sharp for flat spinning.  Soft hard chines just don't
work, so boats like Mariners with their softly defined chine would likely
have some trouble in this maneuver.  Note, I am trying to make a distinction
between the rounded chines and less-sharp hard chines (e.g. soft).

A couple of people have asked me which specific boats I think surf the best.
My answer is that I have only surfed a handful of boats, and that I really
liked the performance of the Arctic Tern because of the very sharp chines
and flat bottom (for reasons that I described in my earlier post).  However
I cannot recommend anything else because I haven't paddled enough boats in
big wave conditions.

Incidently, my next kayak project will be a skin-on-frame boat designed
specifically for surfing wind waves on the Columbia River.  There is small
group of paddlers in the Portland area who like to do this. Apparently the
waves can get quite large, almost to the point where they are called swells.

Kevin Whilden

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