Hazen catches me at Tors CoveThe Valley Nordkapp was designed to be an expedition boat. It handles best when its loaded. Normally on day trips I don't have much in the kayak so it rides fairly high in the water and some might say the kayak is really twitchy.
On flat water This is where my Nordkapp usually sits in the water. The Nordkapp is 21 inches wide at the gunwales but I lose an inch of beam at the water line without extra weight in the kayak.
Not much of the Valley logo to see Friend Stan, who also paddles a Nordkapp, has at least 60 pounds of lean body tissue on me at 140 soaking wet. Plus he loads a pile of gear in his boat. The extra weight settles it 2 - 3 inches lower in the water compared to mine. That really lowers the center of gravity and therefore makes it more stable.
This is, I believe, how the boat should be paddled.
Question is, should I ballast the kayak? Friend Malcolm would say yes; he adds lead ballast to his Nordkapp. The problem for me is, just dealing with body weight alone, I'd have to put the equivalent of 28 litres or 6+ gallons of water on board. That presents other issues.
Maybe I need to put some weight on!
Tony: How about a 50lb bag of sand, split into two smaller bags. One in the front hatch and one in the back hatch. Sand has the wonderful ability to conform to the shape of its container, or in this case, the hull shape. It has no free surface effect, i.e., sloshing, either. It also weighs more than water per volume. I can see your light boat being a tad bouncy and, of course, higher in the wind. My boat has about 2" freeboard in the back when I sit in it, so that's not really an issue for me.
ReplyDeleteJust my musings.
Sean
Christmas should take care of that weight issue!
ReplyDeleteWhat about findng some iron wood? You could carve something to fit inside low in the center, then use them as runners for hauling the kayak up on large rock's at difficult landings? just a thought anyway
I'm a feather eight for sure. I checked my boat and there' only 15 cms of the hull in the water when I'm in it. It doesn't matter most of the time but in very confused waters it makes for a very lively ride.
ReplyDeleteIf I do set up a system to ballast the boat, then it would have to be something that can be tied down and preferably right behind my butt cheeks at the upsweep of the hull.
Lee, that's exactly the other issue, dealing with a boat that's artificially weighted up - launching and landing in challenging conditions with a glass boat.
Tony :)
How about not worrying about it. I've paddled with you a lot and from the looks of things you have adapted to your boat sitting the way it does with the gear in it that you normally carry on a paddle. If you were capsizing a lot due to instability than yes add some extra weight to make it sit lower. But why try to fix something that is not broken?
ReplyDeleteJust my 2 cents...
Here's a link to some light reading on kayak stability. It tells you how to read stability curves - which I cannot figure out for the life of me.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.guillemot-kayaks.com/guillemot/information/kayak_design/kayak_stability
The stability curves for your boat can be found here:
http://www.seakayakermag.com/PDFs/2006/June06NordkappLV.pdf
Sorry but you'll have to cut/paste these links into your browser address bar.
Sean
I'm not worried about it Dean and you're right, why fix what works.
ReplyDeleteThanks Sean for those links, I'll check them out.
Tony :-)
Dean has it right. Ballasting is something you should do if you find it useful, not otherwise. I've seen you paddling in some rough conditions, Tony, and you were very comfortable in your boat. I do not ballast all my boats. For example, Victory (22" wide) doesn't need it. However, I do ballast (moderately) my Nordkapp, because I find that doing so increases my margin for error, especially in a following sea or clapotis.
ReplyDelete