On YouTube: Retrofitting a secondary stringer into a finished Greenland kayak to improve the stability

Here is an experiment I did to see if I could retrofit a secondary stringer into a finished Greenland kayak to improve the stability.

Most historic Greenland kayaks had just a single hard chine, but occasionally you see a small secondary stringer above the main one. This adds a bit of extra volume to the cross-section which translates into extra stability.

When I was doing Saran Wrap tests on the West Greenland redesign I experimented extensively with secondary stringers of different heights and locations. They definitely made the kayak more stable but they also knocked enough glide off the boat that I wasn’t willing to make it an official part of the design.

It did get me wondering however if you might be able to force these into a finished kayak to boost the stability. Let’s say someone built a Greenland kayak and could never quite get comfortable in it? In that case maybe the speed/stability trade-off would be worth it?

The good news is that it works pretty well. Doing this gave a noticeable chunk of extra stability and a little more “pop” on the roll. The sort of thing I think people want out of a Greenland kayak but never actually existed in real life. The bad news is that it was really hard to get that sucker in there! I made several of these over three days and the first ones were easier to install but didn’t give me enough stability to make it worth the trouble, but the last one was tall enough that I had to steam the stringer, lubricate it, and at one point I actually had a small prybar inside the kayak trying to force the stringer up into place. It’s a little disappointing because I don’t actually want these in my own kayak but I doubt I can get it out now!

So definitely an option, but everything costs something, in this case an extra pound of weight, a slower kayak, and the possibility of getting it stuck on the installation but also not being able to get it back out.