a few more impressions ...

Tonight I paddled a 19 ft kayak but it did not have any cargo so
it sat high and was light and unstable. The sales rep said the
only way to try one of these multi-day trip kayaks is to rent one,
load it up, and paddle it around for a day or two. He gave me a
sales booklet of specs for the kayaks his store sells. Only some
of them listed load capacity. Others just stated the internal
volume. None showed the design draft or the immersion per unit
load above that. These are numbers hull design programs spit out.
They should be in the specifications for purchasers on load
carrying boats.

On the way to the beach today I visited two of the sporting goods
stores who are participating in the evening demonstrations. The
stores had a bunch of kayaks up on racks where I was able to look
over the hulls, especailly the bottoms. I was surprized to see one
of the chined boats had a convexity in a flat panel. This was in a
new boat that had never been used. I was also suprized to see a
hull distorted by a bulkhead. I didn't even need to my hand over
the hull to feel for it it. It stood out visibly like the
proverbial sore thunmb. I know enough about boatbuilding to
realize the repetitive strain boats take as waves pass under the
hull disorting the weak ones and breaking down the material they
are made of, saying nothing of loss of performance. On some
sailboats bulkheads do not come in direct contact with the hull
but are cushioned by a foam insert to prevent hard spots. After
seeing these kayaks in the stores I'd choose a round bottom hull
because it would be less likely to have weak spots.

The next thing I'd like to try is climbing back into (or onto) different
kayaks to see which ones are easiest to re-enter.

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
William R Watt National Capital FreeNet Ottawa's free community network
homepage: www.ncf.ca/~ag384/top.htm
warning: non-freenet email must have "notspam" in subject or it's returned