Monday, May 16, 2011

curiouser and curiouser...
   It's an old (and bad) joke. A guy with a badly deformed hand prays for, "...my hand to be like the other one." He wakes in the morning to find he has two deformed hands (groan). My one problem early on with my Cetus was its strong tendency to weather cock. So, I prayed for a boat that wouldn't.
   Today I took the Cetus MV out in a 20K wind with gusts and found that it didn't weather cock. Prayer answered? Be careful what you pray for...it lee cocked. In fact, it took some work to turn her into the wind. Whens the last time you had that happen in a boat? I suspect the boat is not balanced with me and my stuff in the day hatch. Perhaps after the pump is in it will balance out. If not, I can move the seat a bit forward.
   The good news was that the fore ward hatch remained dry thus confirming that I had installed the compass properly.

Paddle safe...
DS

7 comments:

gnarlydog said...

Silbs, I know what you mean when a kayak lee cocks: it's terrible.
I had one kayak that I removed the rudder from (rudders are not my style). The boat suddenly lee cocked. After some agonizing I did the drastic move to modify the stern that seemed to be a bit too extended, unlike other British boats of mine.
Now the kayak is great: neutral! And it turns faster too.
Details of the work at: http://gnarlydognews.blogspot.com/2010/04/shop-modifying-stern-of-sea-kayak.html

JohnB said...

kool, so the glass is half full!

Silbs said...

Gnarly, I had been on sailboats that lee cocked, and it is irritating. I reread your post and noticed that I had commented on it. I think I just need to get the bow down a tad. I'm not too concerned.
JB: My glass is half empty. Where is the whiskey? My hatches are 100% dry :-)

Anonymous said...

Just move the seat

Alan said...

I think it's alter kocking

Mackayak said...

On first getting into my Rockpool Isel I could not turn it into the wind (F4-5), it likes to lie beam on to the wind. It also has a lot of skeg designed in to the hull. With a bit more weight in the day hatch I got the hang of it. Weight in the front hatch didn't help. Now I don't need extra ballast to get me going, though in a stiff wind it takes a little more perseverance to turn into the wind if its not loaded up. I try to use the tops of the waves and be brave about edging.
The upside is the ride in a following sea - steady as a rock and we fly! Perhaps you will find the same?

Silbs said...

Alter kocking probably is occuring, but I don't know if it is me or the boat :-)

Moving the seat remains an option, one I really don't want to take on.

Mackayak, thanks for sharing your experience and solutions. It looks as if my Cetus MV has the most lee cocking when the winds exceed 20 knots. In those conditions I need to be able to get home if home is upwind. I will post to let you all know if ballast up forward helps.