Weight in the aft compartment does help, and when I'm loading the boat I put the heaviest stuff there. It does not entirely eliminate the difficulty, and it does not address the question of using the boat unloaded--the most common situation, or the question of when the boat is as fully loaded as possible--the 2nd most common situation. As regards the make and model of kayak I'm going to keep it confidential. The manufacturer has treated me well, and I don't want to give him any negative publicity. In current production the boat has been blunted along the keel both fore and aft, and has been equipped with an adjustable skeg. On the same occasion that I referred to, one of the newer boats was present with skeg down, and didn't have the problem. My thought is that I'd rather mimic the bow and leave the stern alone initially, presuming that the unmodified stern might act similar to the modified stern with skeg deployed, and, if it didn't, work on the stern could be tried. I think this is a problem that affects most boats that are made from molds in one way or another. The cost and trouble of producing a mold is substantial, and a boat that is pretty successful is going to have to be produced even if some criticism of it is possible. When new tooling gets made the maker can incorporate improvements that the testing of the original, and comments from users, suggest. Due to the cost of the molds, the learning curve is slower than anyone would prefer, the maker, most of all! thanks for your comments, Ken Rasmussen *************************************************************************** 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/ ***************************************************************************
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:33:31 PDT