On Mar 10, 2007, at 1:29 AM, Harvey Golden wrote: > --- Doug Lloyd <douglloyd_at_shaw.ca> wrote: >> I was >> wondering if anyone has >> experience with the differential between the >> reported fast speed of a >> planning baidarka hull and that of a more typical >> Greenland SOF. > > I haven't compared them beyond noting that there are > fast Aleut kayaks, and there are fast Greenland > kayaks; fwiw, I'm pretty slow anyways. Some of the > early reported speeds of baidarkas would be well > beyond most people's power out-put-- such speeds may > have been exaggerated. . . or not. I don't think we need to resort to "exaggeration" to explain the speed accounts. One of the best documented accounts talk about kayaks paddling against a strong current while the observer was sailing up a river. What this account says to me is this sounds like the ideal conditions for surfing. A ship sailing up a river probably has a tail wind as wind tend to go up and down rivers. The current was fairly obviously going down the river. So, wind going up the river, current going down, i.e. opposing wind and current -> great conditions for surfing. If the paddler knows what he is doing, kayaks can sustain speeds over 10 knots in the right following seas. In a race like the Molokai Challenge the record holder averaged 9.4 mph for 32 miles. Winning this race depends heavily on surfing ability. Even I am able to bring a relatively short (greenlandish) kayak up to a GPS measured 12 mph and sustain it for a quarter mile on relatively small non-breaking waves. I am sure baidarkas were designed in such a way that they were capable of surfing. I am sure the Aleuts were skilled enough and strong enough to catch fast moving waves. It sounds like some of the accounts included conditions ideal for surfing. My conclusion is, at least some of the accounts were of kayakers engaged in surfing. I don't see anything about Greenland style SOF kayaks that would make them less capable. In my understanding of "planing" some kayaks will plane when surfing some waves, but I haven't seen any plane solely under human power. Nick Nick Schade Guillemot Kayaks 824 Thompson St Glastonbury, CT 06033 USA Ph/Fx: (860) 659-8847 http://www.guillemot-kayaks.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 Sun Mar 11 2007 - 07:13:40 PDT
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:31:23 PDT