i have a petrel play and i would say you definitely want a skeg.

its a 'play boat' and it has a lot of rocker and is very easily spun and maneuvered.....but if you want to go straight and make distance (which it is quite capable of) you will find you will use some of that skeg....even if you are a competent paddler.

i  have some sea kayaks without a skeg but they have a hull with sharper chines ...

go with the skeg

 h  

I'll agree with Hspira.  I built the S&G Petrtel Play in 2014 then retrofit a skeg into it a couple of years later when I started paddling more in rough water.  Is a skeg required?  Absolutely not, but there are many situations where it is very helpful.  Nick Schade said it best on his FB page when he said that they give the paddler another level of control.  Other than a little extra weight and expense, the only downside is a little loss of storage capacity in the aft compartment.

Personally, I put a skeg in every boat that I will paddle in waves.  I will add that I volunteer as a safety paddler with a Florida based non-profit that does multi-day kayak campoing trips.  For all of our coastal trips, we require that the kayaks have either a skeg or a rudder.  We have found that the paddlers without have a harder time covering the necessary distance when we have strong crosswinds or quartering waves from behind.

just to build on Mark's comments, my play is the the strip built....which has even rounder sections than the stitch and glue and tracks less well absent a skeg.

i do also agree with mark, that it could also be considered a safety item.  if you are exhausted becuase you can't get your boat to track well in the a particular wind/sea state....that's a problem and i have been there before.

skegs, in my view, can also be implmented robustly....i have never had one fails in over two decades of paddling and, like mark, they are now just a standard that i apply. 

there are a couple different approaches to implementing.  i make my own skeg/housing (some in-progress pictures below) but use the control mechanism from superior kaykaks.

their website is https://www.nashboatworks.com/product-page/skeg-kit.  i like their product becuase their material is all fibreglass and the general design that they sell (and i build to when i make my own skeg/housing) is as bomb-proof an approach  i have ever seen.  

h

   Thanks to you both for taking the time to reply and posting pictures and links. I think thats convinced me to go ahead and fit a skeg while stil at the building stage.

Pete

   I also concur with all the above pro-skeg comments.

I retrofitted a skeg into my wife's Shearwater 16 hybrid. We found that the boat, when not loaded down, sat rather high in the water and got blown around a bit. The skeg really helped. I determined the location by how far back I could reach through the rear hatch to filet the back of the skeg box. I offset it an inch from the keel line as per Nick. This minimizes the amount of sand collected if you do drag your boat up onto the beach.

I have been using Nick's design:

https://guillemot-kayaks.com/catalog/accessory-plans/retractable-sea-kayak-skeg-plans

But lately I have been using the KajakSport control:

https://kajaksport.fi/products/skeg/skeg-system-3-pro/ks-control-unit/

which is very robust, inexpensive and repairable. (I keep these in stock)

Dan

   Built a Petrel Play for Cruiser. She says that she has to make little short strokes with the PP to stay in a semi straight line in flat water. (coming from a Valley Etain) The With the skeg she can control the foward line with ease.  In certain wind and wave the skeg made a lot of difference. 

The Nick S Kit sizes of tubing, wire and method of cable entering the skeg housing is better than the Valley skeg configuration for movement and dependability.  I would make my new skeg blades carbon fiber. Also be sure to make slot a little wider than you think for the blade.  I tend to make mine just a little too thick.

Since I have had to paddle miles with my other long straight, very weather cocking sea kayak I would never build another one without a retractable skeg.  Those people that say "real kayaker don't need skegs"  just want to rationalize away a good thing. 

   The Valley "choke" cable is too tight and can be subject to corrosion and dirt.  The Nick S. version is cable run through plastic tubing.  SS cable will not corrode to plastic tubing and there is enough clearence for dirt. 

 Mark, the pictures of your skeg are the exact one I plan on ordering. Did you make it flush on the bottom? Also, I noticed you seem to have it centered on the keel. Why there and not off center like the guillemot version?   

   I built a PP with the CLC optional skeg this past winter. I find the skeg is necessary for tracking in flat water. MarkN had advised me to do the skeg as well and I'm very happy I did.