So before I talk about the skeg on this Greenland kayak I just want be clear that I’m not a big fan of skegs in the first place. In some kayaks a skeg can help with tracking in certain conditions, but they also add significant weight, drag, build time, and cost, not to mention ruining your rear cargo area. My modern kayak designs don’t need them, (The F1 doesn’t weathercock at all in a 40 mph crosswind) and for the Greenland kayaks, I just try to find historic examples that are likely to have less weathercocking and then live with what’s left over.
So why tackle this project? Well mostly just because I like to double-check my own thinking anytime I have strong opinions on something. How much time, money, weight, and drag would this really add and are the performance benefits worth it?
My ulterior motive, however, has to do with kayak sailing. As I ramp up to start work again on my sail system I’m taking a hard look at rudders and skegs because they add a LOT of safety by letting you turn the kayak down wind and take your hand off the paddle to deal with an out-of-control sailing situation.
The installation here is pretty obvious and straightforward, although just like everything I do for the first time it took quite a bit of head scratching to get all the details right. This added 10 hours to this build but the next one will only add about 3 extra hours. I’ll probably put together a mini plan set at some point and sell it for a few bucks on my website just so anyone who wants to do this can skip figuring all that out for themselves. Let me know if something like that would interest you so I can decide if it’s worth putting together instructions?
Something to keep in mind is that unlike everything else I do here, this was a precision installation and that’s 100% necessary because if something like this fails when you’re out paddling far away from shore in cold rough water it could put you in a life-threatening situation.
That’s it for now, I’ll let you know how it performs.
___
This post was originally featured on our Instagram feed.
See the original post and discussion here.
