Re: question on length

Posted by Bob Santore on Jan 26, 2007

Ideally you sit in a boat so that your weight is balanced. If you ever paddled a canoe by yourself but sat in the stern instead of the middle, you may have noticed the bow pointing up so high that it might even be out of the water. Now, imagine doing that in a wind, and the boat will act like a weathervane. That bow sticking way up will catch the wind and rotate around until it's pointing downwind. If you want to steer in any other direction you'll be fighting the wind the whole time.

A tandem kayak paddled solo will act the same way, since your cockpit will not be balanced to paddle solo. The boat will be seriously out of trim and very hard to steer in wind and waves. You will not have fun and it could be dangerous, especially on a big lake like Erie, which is where Tracy wants to paddle.

In Response to: Re: question on length by cyrus on Jan 26, 2007

Replies: