On Tue, 21 Jun 2005 22:32:07 -0400, "Grip" wrote:

Never understood the "TRACKING"" thingy. If the paddler indeed knows how to
"paddle" any boat tracks well. White Water boats are made to spin on a dime,
but track as good as anything else if proper paddling strokes are used.


Yep. Loaned my buddy my recreational Old Town Otter one day while I
paddled my Perception Dancer. He was amazed at how I made it track
(and I'm not that good) compared to his friend who'd taken him out one
day to paddle ww kayaks on flat water. I explained that I rarely did
ww (none by choice any more) and had adapted to paddling flat. He
thought I had a different kayak bottom than his friend had. Nope. It
is harder to get used to paddling straight in a ww kayak, but not all
that bad. And it's great for current and eddy lines in flat rivers.
It's not quite as fast going downstream in one, but it's a bit faster
going upstream. For me. I'm slow either way. I like to dawdle along
slowly anyway.

The best part of a keel in flat rivers is that you can do a cross
current ferry with almost no paddling going downstream.

Cyli
r.bc: vixen. Minnow goddess. Speaker to squirrels.
Often taunted by trout. Almost entirely harmless.

http://www.visi.com/~cyli
email: lid (strip the .invalid to email)