American Boat and Yacht Council guidance H-29 (recently revised) states the the maximum capacity of a touring kayak is defined as the load that results in 2.5" freeboard, where freeboard is defined as the distance between the waterline in calm water and the lowest point of water ingress (which is at the back of the coaming in most designs). This already seems to be impacting boat design here in the U.S.: the August issue of Sea Kayaker reviews the Suka (a new Greenland-style kayak) by Current designs; the designer states: "...the Suka's design is compliant with the American Boat and Yacht Council guidance H-29...."; the reviewers commented "...the height of the back deck prevents full laybacks."; and the designer responded: "While the reviewers noted full laybacks were inhibited by the height of the back deck and cockpit coaming, this is an unfortunate result of designs that are compliant with the American Boat and Yacht Council's guidance H-29." So now we have a Greenland-style kayak that doesn't allow a full layback. Are U.S. (and manufacturers in other countries) required to follow H-29? Are there any kayak designers on the American Boat and Yacht Council's H-29 committee or were any involved in reviewing H-29? I suppose we have it better that the canoe folks who now, in addition to freeboard requirements, also have minimum width requirements (based on a proportion of length). Brian *************************************************************************** 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 Jun 24 2008 - 21:59:59 PDT
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