I've spent the last few days looking into boat design and construction techniques, as with the winter months approaching I'm thinking of building a new sea kayak - ideally, one that I've designed myself also. In my search, I came across Guillemot Kayaks who have a wealth of information on boat design and boat construction, with freely available plans for you to build your self. I also came across this article which featured in the NSW Sea Kayaker magazine, along with a more detailed analysis and reply by John Winters. There's clearly a lot to learn, and a whole new language - but it's one that is fascinating. There's much spoken about boat design, and much of it is what Terry Pratchett calls 'lies-to-children' (amazingly, wikipedia even has an entry on lies-to-children). Clearly, much of what is talked about on kayak design falls in this classification - it's not deliberate, it's often based on widespread misconceptions, but as at least one person has said "if the general public believes it, it must be true". At the mo, I'm torn between just buying some plans and building someone else's boat, or going the whole hog and designing my own sea kayak. What I do know is that I want this boat to be a highly manoeuvrable kayak at home in surf, and tidal races, with a good turn of speed - so, not asking too much I think...
Subscribe to RSS Feed
2 Comments:
October 03, 2006 3:42 PM
October 03, 2006 4:18 PM
Post a Comment
<< Home