Easy fix, just refill the containers with river water to maintain your perfect trim. Or add Genuine Florida Ballast Rocks, which tend to be a little lighter than the Canadian variety. Steve Carey Parks wrote: > Hi Mike, > > In case you (or perhaps some lurkers) are not familiar with the effect of CG > placement on your paddling experience, here's what happened to me last year. > We were on a three-day camping excursion down the Peace River here in > Florida, and we carried our water as well as the normal camping gear. My 14 > ft Wilderness Systems Cape Horn was loaded to the gills and then some. But > since it was a flatwater trip I didn't mind. > > Day 1 was great, my packing strategy worked. No issues. > > Day 2, I drank a couple gallons of water by then, and packed everything > where it was the day before. The empty water containers were ahead of my > foot pegs in the cockpit where they had been before, but full of water. This > day I couldn't get the boat to go straight. Anytime I put any speen on, I > mean like three mpg or so, the bow would fall off to one side or the other. > Quite frustrating. I was glad when we stopped for the day. > > Day 3, suspecting that I was loaded too heavy aft, and having consumed more > water, I put what water I had left forward, determined to prevent the > problem I had the day before. And that I did. I couldn't get the boat to > turn without a LOT of effort on my part. It was obvious I had too much > weight forward this time. > > I still couldn't tell you by looking when I have the boat loaded properly. > But I can tell you by paddling it when I've got it wrong! > > Hope this helps. > > Carey -- Steve Cramer Athens, GA http://www.savvypaddler.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 Nov 06 2007 - 10:51:49 PST
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