PeterO wrote: >>>>>>> The advertising blurb claims these boats can reach hull speed. This might indicate that the boat in the video has smaller flippers than the one Nick saw or that the boat in the tug of war had larger flippers than the video shows?<<<<<<< I'm sure the flippers were the same. What is most likely is that the wide short Hobie boat doesn't have a very high hull speed. Nick's boat design that had the flippers added has a much higher potential hull speed than the 12' 6" by 30 inch wide Hobie Mirage hull. Apparently something would need to be done with the flippers (longer maybe?) or the gearing (shorter pedal shaft length maybe?) to shift into (or have) a higher gear for faster speeds (with a longer hull). My guess is that there is something inherent in the system that won't allow it to be efficient at high speed or Hobie would have mounted a custom system on a narrow kayak (with outriggers maybe) and they would have challenged Greg to an all out race rather than just a tug-of-war. >>>>>>That leads me to yet another question - How do legs contribute when top kayakers (and even average kayakers like myself) pump them to go faster?<<<<< Pumping the legs allows ones butt to pivot some on the seat and transfer the power from the leg into the stroke. 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/ ***************************************************************************Received on Tue Sep 07 2004 - 23:30:48 PDT
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:31:17 PDT