West Greenland Kayak Build, on the water tests 5 and 6.
For my next experiment I copied a detail seen on a few historic Greenland kayaks which is to add an extra stringer below the gunwale, projecting some extra volume further down in the hull. At a little over a pound this was by far my heaviest modification but it also had the most dramatic affect on stability.
With this stringer in place suddenly the kayak started to approach modern sea kayak stability, meaning that when I started to tip sideways it would push back at me. This gave me some thing I’m often jealous of with fiberglass kayaks, which is the boat itself helping at the end of a roll.
On the downside this also slowed the kayak more than anything I’ve tried so far, so it’s not something I would personally consider unless I was building a dedicated rolling kayak. I’m pretty sensitive to this stuff though and others might not find it a bad compromise. Strangely it also made the maneuverability a bit more sluggish which doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.
For the final test I removed that stringer and spread the main stringers 1/2” further apart which had a surprisingly big impact on stability. This was probably my favorite version, the kayak felt quick underneath me again and snappy on the turns.
Given how much this slight chine spread increased stability, I wish I could spread the stringers all the way to the historic location but unfortunately that would cause the skin to touch the ribs and modern skin on frame builders aren’t too keen on that sort of thing.
For these tests I’ve been cutting a hole in the saran wrap approximately the size of the original cockpits (14×16) and with the dry suit on today I was really surprised by how little water entered the boat even while rolling without a skirt. It’s pretty clear why they made them so small.
Having killed an entire roll of shrink wrap I think I’ve learned all I can here. Tomorrow I start on the next version to address some things that need to be changed beyond just tinkering around the edges.
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