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...... donīt 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 *************************************************************************** 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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