Re: [Paddlewise] Night paddle, was Skeg Jammers

Night paddling in 30 knot winds? Isn't that kind of dangerous? :-)

Personally, I'd still love to have a kayak that performed well without a
rudder, but perhaps needed a skeg for tighter control as an option (but one
that was still good enough you could get by without the skeg). That raises
an interesting point. I think most good performance sea kayaks do well
without a skeg, then the manufacturer adds one for easier paddling in
contrary conditions (pure speculation on my part). I doubt there are a lot
of poor-performance kayaks out there that would fail abysmally if the skeg
failed to deploy when suddenly needed. I do think there are far more kayaks
that do poorly in quartering seas/wind, that have rudders added to
compensate. And of course, there are many of these paddlers who use a rudder
to compensate for lack of skill.

I'm still interested in the Foster "Legend" with skeg and have short-listed
a few other kayaks, but finances took a major dive with poor health, so it
will be a while before I'm in the market.

Not sure why your rudder fell off. Kinda sounds like a wee bit of a design
issue. Mine's fairy bombproof that way, though I did get out finally for my
first paddle this past Sunday, the first day of summer and the longest day
of the year. I paddled back from an island without the other 19 paddlers who
escorted me over earlier in the morning, as I needed to get back for
Father's Day commitments. The accompanied crossing over to the island gave
me the medical confidence to solo back. I used my rudder part way when a
wind/tide came up. Funnily enough, it calmed down real fast, but I couldn't
raise the rudder onto the deck when it wasn't needed any longer. I think the
pulley I use to aid mechanical leverage facilitation of the rudder-up
function caught on the end of my spare paddle shaft, as I placed the longer
half on the wrong side than usual. I still hate mechanical things that can
and do go wrong on a kayak.

At least my heart was mechanically sound during the 4.5 knot sprint back
(4nm), though I had a bad bought with a-fib in the middle of the night, so
was a bit depressed. May be a while before I hit the storms. Glad someone is
out having fun.

I did try Matt's idea of crossing the cables, for many months when I first
tried this, but just couldn't retrain myself, nor the muscle memory.

I did talk to a new paddler who was out in her Zodiac last Friday when that
squall hit (Hot Squall post). She had a 90 horsepower outboard on a 17-foot,
semi-rigid inflatable, but could not outrun the squall - a massive black
cloud moving fast out of the east. She said waves grew to 6-feet in no time
at all. Very scary, as she was with her teenagers.

Another paddler reported that he was out observing the squall with
binoculars Friday, when he saw two paddlers in single sea kayaks crossing
back to Victoria. He could see the squall coming and flagged down a police
officer (if I remember the details correctly). The coast guard was called.
The couple made it to a reef just in time, but got fairly bloodied trying to
hang on to their kayaks. The rescue went successfully, and the kayaks were
retrieved too. As usual, squalls are totally unfair: those who don't want to
be in them get caught. And those of us who do, are stuck in our desks.

In forty knot plus squalls, I'd probably be grateful for my deep-draft
rudder - as long as it was working. :-)

Doug Lloyd
Victoria BC

John said (snip):
> Just this moment back from a night blast in a good wind, 34 kts max, mean
> 27, in my Nordkapp sans-rudder, to find the arguments of skeg versus
rudder
> versus smooth hull are still raging.
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