John asked about extra drag from having the kayak leaned to turn it or correct a course. Sure, there is a little extra drag then and paddlers should avoid rocking their kayak back and forth with each stroke to be more efficient as well. I'd love to know how much. Does anyone know of any studies? As John surely knows, Olympic paddlers strive to keep their kayaks level side to side while stroking for this very reason. With a kayak without a strong weather helm the kayak only needs to be leaned occasionally for one or two strokes to make a course correction. This corresponds to a rudder kayak without a weather helm having to angle the rudder (adding much more drag) occasionally to make the same correction. If the boats both have an equal weather helm then both will suffer greater drag in order to correct it (whenever actively making the correction). The difference either way is that the rudder is dragging in the water straight back all the rest of the time even when it is not actively needed. Oh, I guess that is just poor design again so we shouldn't consider it a problem with rudders in general. After all, a rudder could be made that both deployed into the water and turned just when you needed it and then automatically retracted into the hull leaving no hard protrusions exposed to lacerate yourself (or others) on 9or snag tow/fishing lines)when it was not activated. Build that rudder with solid foot pedals and maybe control it with a little body English and I'd definitely take an interest in it, at least if the cost was reasonable. 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/ ***************************************************************************
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