Re: [Paddlewise] Derek bash ?

At 07:49 PM 1/16/02 -0500, Michael Daly wrote:
>From: "John Fereira" <jaf30_at_cornell.edu>
>
> > How many of his other designs have you paddled.  Have you paddle an Ice
> > Floe, Reiver, Naiad, or Baidarka explorer?
>
>No, but I have tried the Sirius and Orion.  I found them all to have
>a similar feel that I didn't like, one that the Gulfstream didn't
>share.

I know I missed the Orion but I wasn't positive that Derek designed the 
Sirius.  I haven't spent that much time in a Sirius.  The first time I 
tried one I had only been paddling about a year so it felt like too much 
boat for my skill level (coincidentally, that was before I took a class 
with Derek which resulted in a significant improvement in my bracing skills 
(I previous had none)).  I paddled the low volume and standard versions a 
year later and liked them a lot and didn't find them to be especially 
tippy.  I also paddled an Ellsemere the same day, and while I liked it, I 
came away thinking that if I were to replace my then current boat the 
Sirius was at or near the top of the list (the Ellesmere wasn't far behind).

>I'm willing to compromise on the design of kayaks, trading off
>one feature to gain another.  Hutchinson's designs that I've
>tried (Gulfstream excepted) gave up on stability without
>adding anything.  Other kayaks offer the same or better
>handling with better, usable (i.e. not excessive) stability.
>If anything, the Gulfstream has a tad too much stability,
>making it just a wee bit hard to bring up on edge and requires
>balance on edge - more like some other CD kayaks (e.g. my Solstice).
>One reason I preferred the Ellesmere was lower initial and solid,
>easy-to-lean-on secondary stability.


You make some good points.  I'm usually able to get used to the initial 
stability of most kayaks after a very brief period, but like you, think 
that in some cases, a particular model is unnecessarily tippy.  Actually, I 
felt that way about the Slipstream.  I've also experience boats that I 
thought were too initially table.  Surprisingly, one of them was a 
Guillemot that someone local here built.  I paddled it before he had 
finished the seat when he just had a piece of 1/2" foam on the bottom.  I 
tried edging it and it just didn't want to keel over.  I really had to lean 
out with my shoulders to get it over on it's side (once I did, it had very 
good secondary).  I'm sure that replacing the seat with something that 
didn't have me sitting so deep in the cockpit would have been better.  The 
problem, as I see it, with a boat that has too much initial stability is 
that it resists the subtle edging efforts that an experience paddler is 
capable of, and instead requires exerting a lot of effort to get the boat 
on it's side.  If I've got to lean over with my shoulders to edge the boat 
to the left, I have to throw all that weight to the other side if I want to 
edge the boat to the right.  A boat that is too stable initially is, to me, 
unresponsive.

One of the first touring kayaks I ever paddled was a P&H Iona, a design 
I've rarely read about or seen.  I didn't know if Derek had designed the 
Iona as well, but it also had pretty low initial stability.


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