I’m not sure how much this actually interests anyone but I took the new Greenland design out in wind and waves with the tie on skeg (see post from a couple days ago for details) set in three different positions along the keel, and also just an oversized tall rub strip for comparison.
Testing:
Even with the skeg tied in the farthest back position, maneuverability wasn’t horrible and edge turning didn’t suffer as badly as I would expect. It was calm across the wind, and easily edged onto a quartering wave course but got stuck at about 45° downwind requiring a rudder stroke to turn straight down wind. Once on a downwind course it was a little easier to keep on line but the skeg was still not a miracle cure for hunting. (Veering off when surfing)
The next position forward was similar although I could get a little further around the compass before I had to rudder to turn straight down wind.
The farthest forward position was a really nice sweet spot. Just as calm across the wind but more responsive to edge turns and I was able to edge it all the way around to straight down wind. Downwave performance didn’t seem to suffer or improve compared to farther back positions. Interestingly this was much better than my drop skeg on the last kayak, which was positioned even further forward.
Impressions:.
Skegs of all types and even oversized rub strips add noticeable, but not horrible, drag. I was fanatical about minimizing wetted surface when I redesigned to this kayak and the result is delightful glide. The skeg steals a little bit of that. I designed this kayak not to need a skeg, and I stand by that, but I do think it’s a useful tool in certain circumstances.
What these tests clearly show is that taking the time to identify the exact right location is critical to getting the best results. This is another advantage of the tie on skeg, because you can drill a bunch of holes and then just identify the perfect position empirically.
More prototyping and testing to come…
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See the original post and discussion here.
