"Seakayaker" ) writes:


That 5% figure sounds awfully high to me. I bet you would see more of a
performance hit in speed from wind, current, and waves.

Its 5% per season, cummulative. That's why annual maintenance of a canoe
or kayak hull matters. Muscles are such a small source of power. You can't
buy a hull that will reduce wind and waves. Hull design computer programs
will calculate hull resistance. The kayaks I tried all performed well as
far as wave making resistence is concerned, as near as I could tell. But
reaching under the hulls and feeling with my hands I found a lot of
scrtaches. You can try that on your own boat.


Although I usually paddle a glass boat, I have paddled friends plastic boats
and also own a plastic SOT for banging around rocks and caves and I have
never noticed any difference in speed.

BTW, what plastic boat have you found that costs thousands of dollars? I'd
sure like to see it and try it.

Fibreglass also scratches but can be reparied with readily available
resins. Prices of the boats I tried in the demos ranged up to $3500
Canadian. The higher prices were for larger "sea" kayaks, or "multi-day"
trip kayaks. When boat building in any given material cost varies with
hull weight.

(After trying 20 different models I concluded a boat about 14-15 ft with
no skeg or rudder and a round bottom midships cross section would be my
preference for day trips on rivers hearabouts. I liked a big cockpit, one
exmaple being the Old Town Loon, because I could leave the seat and rise
up on my knees to get a better angle on what's in the water ahead. I might
even be able to stand for a better view into the water. I also found that
I could slide forward to the front of a large cockpit depressing the bow
and gaining a lot more manoeverability which could be usefull navigating a
rocky stretch. The large cockpit as close as the mass produced kayaks I
tried cams to the versaitlity of an open boat. However when exploring
small rivers I'd still have to carry a single blade paddle for squeezing
though narrow channels. I like a solo boat, and the mass produced kayaks
are lighter and easier to cartop than the mass produced canoes. However
I'm sticking with the small open plywood boats I custom made for myself.)

My point was the salesperson was not concerend about performace
degredation from hull scratches, while selling special paddles at high
prices to shave a bit off the paddling effort, and extolling the
performance of the high priced boats. Filling the scratches in the hull
would save the same effort as the pricey paddle and preserve the
performance paid for in the high priced hull, for a lot less money. During
the demos I got in and out of the boats in the water and picked then up
instead of dragging them. No matter what boat you paddle I'd recommend
doing the same. I even lift my cheap plywood boats, not because they are
expensive boats, but to preserve hull performance.

How many people wax their boat bottoms to reduce hull resistance? If you
are spending money on special paddles and high priced boats to improve
performance I would think you should. If you are trading the comfort of a
roomy more stable kayak for the speed of a less comfortable model then you
should be concerned about scratches and maybe even waxing below the waterline.



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