On 22-Jun-2005, "Fiona Stirling" wrote:

great site. some details i would like to talk to the author about but
it seems quite accurate.

He's designed quite a number of canoes and kayaks, including racing
designs.

kayaks do plane,
well partially anyway. have you ever surfed? how about 10 knots next to
a much shorter white water boat. i will grant you when i surf it is
normally not that far and fast but i did 18 km in my capella and kept
it up for a good distance.

I've talked to John about surfing and planing in kayaks. He is adamant
that typical kayaks do not plane under any conditions that a person can
reasonably produce. He also points out that the so-called "planing hull"
whitewater kayaks are not planing hulls.

There is a difference between planing and surfing. You can go very fast
and surf, but that's not the same as planing. The WW boats with flat
bottoms are surfing hulls, not planing hulls. However, the terminology
is in common use and no one will accept the correct term. It is possible
to get a surfing hull to plane, but that's not what's going on _most_ of
the time (a bicycle can get airborne some of the time, but that doesn't
make it an airplane).

If you designed a kayak to plane and could find a paddler that was
sufficiently strong to make it happen, then that would be another story.
No one has ever _measured_ a kayak planing.

Mike

PS - where in Canada do you live?