We had perfect conditions for testing the kayak catamaran yesterday. 65 degrees, overcast, with 15-20 mph winds. (There’s audio here by the way)
So how does it work? Surprisingly well actually. We tested two different forward catamaran board positions; one directly ahead of the cockpit, the other right behind the masts. A bit of movement on the first position but the one further forward was quite stiff while still allowing flex.
Even with my garbage flat cut sails and steering with canoe paddles it was quite quick and we were even able to sail a little bit into the wind.
The chop was about 2 to 3 feet and we had waves sweep the deck a couple times but at no point did it feel dangerous or difficult to control.
The 1 square meter sails push the F1s along at hull speed (about 5-6mph) and with 50% more power in these conditions I could continuously surf the chop.
I still have months of testing and refinement to do on the system but by the end of the week I will put instructions for building the Catamaran attachments in our kayak building course so anyone wanting to add this functionality to add this in the future can build the frames appropriately.
I’m certain that there are issues that will only be discovered with extensive testing but based on what I saw yesterday I wouldn’t hesitate to take this on a long trip in 25 mph winds, and the nice thing is that if the wind dies, it only takes about five minutes to switch this back to normal kayak mode. More tomorrow.
___
This post was originally featured on our Instagram feed.
See the original post and discussion here.
