>From the responses it seems everyone is assuming the tow option has the paddlers in the boat. I guess I misunderstood - I thought the paddlers would be in the tow boat and empty kayaks towed behind (rather than stowed across the transom due to space concerns). If towing empty kayaks, I can offer a little experience. When tromping around the areas north of Queen Charlotte Strait (a beautiful area) in my father in-law's trawler we usually towed two kayaks between anchorages (it was a huge pain to haul them aboard, tie them down, motor for 5 or 6 hours, and redeploy once we reached the next anchorage). Keep in mind this boat cruises at a whopping 7 kts. Our little towing flotilla consisted of a 13' FG kayak (a Tyee 2, I believe), a plastic gypsy, and a 12' RIB. The RIB was centerline on a long leash. The kayaks were towed from either stern "corner" on shorter leashes (to not interfere with the RIB). As long as everything stayed "straight back" they all towed happily. However, the kayaks had a tendency to wander - when they would reach the wake they balanced precariously, threatening to broach at any moment. Through playing with the various lengths of towlines we could get them to mostly behave (well enough for short distances), but had to keep a close watch. So, observations from that experience: - with no keel to speak of (although the Tyee does have a permanent skeg) the kayaks tended to be "squirrely" and could have easily turned into a big sea drogue if they swamped. - the drag of the kayaks was greater than expected (observed by pulling on the tow rope while underway) - We did not try towing them inline (one behind the other); this seems like an approach with merit. - Our towboat was not a planing boat, and I would be VERY leery of trying to tow ANYTHING at planing speeds. To avoid the "catch a wave and swamp" issue, the idea of turning the two kayaks into a simple catamaran seems to have some merit as well. However, the stresses involved in the cross members can be huge in all but the calmest of conditions, so I don't know if you could do this w/o some sort of permanent mounting hardware (likely not desirable). At the very least I would think one would create a cross-braced frame that was rigid on its own, then attach the kayaks to it. --Jason Pringle Vashon, WA _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx *************************************************************************** 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/ ***************************************************************************Received on Thu Jul 18 2002 - 12:04:27 PDT
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