If you read Part one, you'll know I'm looking for opinions about trimming the stern skeg on a Nordkapp HM.
René Van Der Zwan returned his opinions and included pictures. See one above.
It looks like about the same amount I was thinking about. He feels it is a good compromise.
Any more opinions before I start hacking?
4 comments:
You may be right. Let's try it. There is one thing I do on Norkapp Jublee. I bring skeg half say, a compromise when the boat is swaying (leecocking). So that makes sense. Plus Rene seems to be saying the same thing. Worst is to rebuid the skeg which is not too bad.
I will never purchase a kayak without a retractable, and thus variable, skeg anymore.
In a good quartering wind it takes the fun and energy out of any paddle.
A retractable skeg not only offers just a skeg, but it enables the kayaker to fine tune the skeg position to a point where he/she goes perfectly straight in any degree or velocity of wind.
If I would not have the skeg in Ireland, I would be still today somewhere on the West Coast doing stern rudders and sweep strokes ... and here an then an occasional forward stroke.
Marcus
Hi Marcus
Your right about the benefit of the retractible skeg, but I can't afford to loose the space.
I have had very good luck with strap on skegs and I never paddle alone so I always have someone to attach it.
I also carry at least two litres of water in my cockpit. These can be moved to the bow or stern hatch to compensate for lee or weathercocking.
One thing about the HM is that it does weathercock and leecock depending on conditions. The skeg hull on the HM aggrivates it as it makes it much harder to correct. The stern just wants to lock into the water instead of sliding when you do correction strokes.
Any correction done near the stern is useless, only the forward part of the sweep or a bow rudder can correct for it. So a stern rudder or stern sweep is almost useless, unless you can time it for when the skeg is all the way out on a wave.
Having to do a bow rudder in extreme cases is a problem as you can't brace while performing it. This has caused me to have to do a semi-roll in confused seas as I couldn't get into a brace position fast enough. Also, you are more prone to shoulder injuries in these situations. I don't ever want to have to resort to a bow rudder in rough water again.
I have also pulled some tendons from my foot stomping on the foot peg while trying to correct. I'd never had this issue in the Jubilee as the Jubilee and I suspect the HS are very maneuvarble boats for their size.
So my reasoning is to improve the maneuveability of the boat so compensation can be easier.
Hi Stevie,
Answering your post about the skeg I didn't realise completely why you were interested in my modified skeg: except than that you wanted prevent leecocking.
Reading this post all this information sounds very familiar to me.
Once I bought my Nordkapp secondhand as a study opject for proving my theory that every kayak's behaviour can be improved by a perfect customisation of the sitting position and contact for knees, feet and hips.
I choose the Nordkapp as this kayak was widely known those days for being difficult under heavy weather conditions.
Before I bought it, I hired another Nordkapp and made a daytrip: Of course I could not customize the kayak and I must say I did not feel at home in it. Better said: I felt very uncertain and it was not a nice trip at all.
Since I own it, I worked on improving the contact between me and the kayak:
1)
I customised the width of the seat, by adding hard foam to its sides, in a way that my hips fits perfect in it. Not too tight but without space. This makes it possible to bring every movement of the hips directly and without any delay to the kayak. Shortening her response time to steering strokes. An fact I can paddle now, in normal weather, without using my knees and just steering with my hips.
2)
In the Nordkapp HM, at least in mine, there were 2 small blocks of foam added at the underside of the deck as a knee-brace. To my opinion (but may be because of my body-dimensions) the knes are too close together and to high to give perfect control over the kayak. So I took out the foam blocks and glued them again to the deck but now more widely positioning the knees more apart. At the place were my knees/thights are in contact to the deck I applied 3cm of foam to bring my legs to a lower position giving more control while bracing/rolling etc.
3)
The foot position was in my Nordkapp easy to adjust as there was made use of an aluminium bar over the width of the kayak. I only had to look for the optimal distance: making the legs not too tight nor too loose fitting while seated.
As the footkegs, as you describe in this post, are (to my experience) not ideal for optimal contact in heavy weather I describe here part of another customizing project on a difficult kayak: the P&H-Baidarka, which is even more demanding under certain conditions.
The pegs are not ideal because your feet can drop off under tension while bracing or cause cramp in feet or calves. And they also make it impossible to change sitting position as your feet only fir in one position/angle.
In the baidarka I leet the pegs inm place but just slid a wide tube (approx12cm diameter) over the pegs. The result was asthonishing and supported the improved knee- hipcontact much better than contact without the tube.
For pictures see link on my blog:
http://www.zeekajaks.info/blog/r_weblog.php?misc=search&subaction=showfull&id=1133129462
(That post was written before I switched to write in English; but I expect the pictures to be instructional enough)
The result: With these 3 improvements on contact in the kayak I feel very much at home. It makes edging much easier and while performing sweepstrokes I see the bow changing direction in much faster rate than without the boatcontact. The kayak improved very much on responsiveness.
When you might improve the contact between you and your kayak I have complete confidence that the problems in controlling the kayak, as you describe above, are gone for ever. Except for little leecocking under certain conditions; but because of your improved control over the kayak you will be the leader and not your kayak.
Having worked on improving both Nordkapp and Baidarka I feel confident my experiments were very successfull, resulting in an enormous improvement on boat-control and I would like to encourage everybody to experiment in your own kayaks.
Happy paddling
René
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