(no subject)

Jochen wrote:
<Snip>>>>>>>>>>I heard from a german man, paddling a huge Lettmann Single
without bulkhead
in the front. For night or resting, he slips completely inside the
(laminate) kayak and lay down. Mh...... don´t know if this woul dbe ideal
when the wrong wave hits him. <Snip><<<<<<<<<<

I did this several times (in testing the possibilities) in our original
20.5" (52cm) wide Mariner back in 1981.  One time I spent several minutes
sideways to white-capping wind waves laying down in the kayak (with my head
on the seat). I think I could have gone asleep (much like a baby in a
rocker). While I'm very subject to motion sickness this did not seem to be
causing me any problem then. With the center of gravity so low like this it
was impossible for me to purposely rock that very narrow boat enough to
capsize it from this laying down position. In pool tests (with others
capsizing me) I was able to usually right the kayak just by rocking back and
forth. If that didn't work I also could slip my arm out the (twisted closed)
spraydeck waist hole and take just one hand stroke to right myself.
One problem with this would be having adequate flotation (or gear storage
room) and still being able to stretch out in a kayak. With this kayak I had
a rest position I could get into easily that had just my head sticking out
of the cockpit and resting against the back of the coaming without having to
even adjust the (relatively baggy nylon) spraydeck. I also played around
with making sp*ns*ns at this time to decrease the chance of capsize
(especially when moving between the sitting up and laying down positions in
such a narrow tippy kayak when I would have limited bracing ability and not
yet the full low center of gravity stability (but I don't recall ever
accidentally capsizing in practice). As you may have guessed this was not a
kayak with an "ocean" cockpit.

Matt Broze
www.marinerkayaks.com


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