Yesterday we were finally able to do the first test of the kayak catamaran system on the raised front deck version of our F1 kayak design, this time with a pair of 1 square meter Falcon Sails (no relation to us).
For anyone who is new here I designed this catamaran system for our pack canoes four years ago, and then last year, I figured out how to apply it to a flat front deck version of our kayaks. It works surprisingly well but I really hate the flat front deck kayaks because they steal so much cargo space and also weathercock a little bit.
So this year we are testing our normal raised front deck kayaks with a version of the system that uses two boards in the front instead of just one. Based on this test, it’s pretty much what I expected, not quite as solid as the flat deck catamaran, but it still sails well in moderate conditions.
It does well downwind and across the wind, although the racking forces are a bit problematic in a quartering wave pattern and would probably tear the system apart in 3 foot wind quartering wind chop. Part of the issue is that I spread the boats 4 inches wider than previous tests on the flat deck version, which extends the effective lever arm, making the racking a little more violent. This also makes it more difficult to simply reach over and grab the other boat with one hand to stabilize the racking. I’d like to keep this spacing if I can because there’s less drag from the interference wave coming off each bow, and honestly, I’d like to go even wider, but then there’s no chance of one paddler reaching over to stabilize the boat or assist the other paddler if they have some sort of technical problem with the sail.
So next step is a lot more testing. Designing something like this takes dozens of test runs, including destructive testing in extreme conditions (scroll back in the feed to see this being used in 40 mph winds, and 5 foot waves last summer) but hopefully by the end of the summer, I will be able to release the sailing portion officially. The catamaran instructions are already in our kayak building course.
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