elmo said:
mick_allen said:
...under hull location(s) so always in water in waves etc, and underhull retraction so no windage...
Is there such an animal Mick :?:
daniel
Rudders are better than skegs for protracted correctional navigation (long crossing, etc), it doesn't matter what anybody claims. They also allow for completely efficient symetrical paddling - that's why racers use them. Again, end of story - don't care what the Broze Brothers say, or anyone else. Nice for kayak sailors and photographers. Can't argue here. Medical issues (chronic connective tissue problems) - a rudder helps, surely does! Newbies should be banned from using rudders. You should be confident in your self-rescue/re-enter and roll, in case you ever have to get out to right a jammed rudder. Harsh eh? Then don't get a rudder. I've done it in a tide race (don't use your rudder in a tide race, moron). Oh, I'm the moron.
However, that mechanical maintenance issue has bit me hard twice now. One when my cable connector came apart in heavy seas off Brooks at Cape Clerke, and once when a rudder broke on a friend's kayak and I had to tow him for 6 hours west of Cape Caution in a shoulder-season gale/net-ebb fiasco. Did I mention the issue with the moron, too?
Alternatively, I can't tell you the number of times I've seen frustrating skeg cable field repairs induce grown men to tears, as tiny Stainless Steel puncture wounds sunk deep into the ends of their cold, prune-like digits :roll: and endless forays out through surf and then back in to clear skeg box jams. Chris Duff had it right around NZ with his un-skegged, surf-saavy NDK Explorer. And, he retained hull integrity as well.
Stuff Mike says is good. Skeg boats are typically derigeur these days. But I'm sure Ecomarine sells more ruddered boats. I say, disable the rudder for a year or two, then start using it in directionally challenging conditions where it helps save energieis for expeditioning-like pursuits. If it packs it in during use, no problem. I do think skeg boat owners shoud do the same thing. There's alot of skeg-dependent paddlers out there. That's like reverse-sexism for us rudder users.
If I've made redundant comments already made previously please forgive me, I didn't read other posts. Only read my own. Just kidding Elmo. Have fun with it all - neat to see you growing comfortably into the sport.
Oh, did I mention I'm opinionated?
Best overall conventional rudder? Seaward. Solid bro. Great uphaul system too (see the Cosma). These boys do it right.
And hey, just got a killer deal on a used Global Navigator rudder for $50.00. Pulls up over the stern, no 270 degree flip needed. For my wife's kayak. She has calcific shoulder tendonitis. How the heck do you spell that, tenysinovitis? I, on the other hand, have rotator cuff syndrome, so love/hate my rudder. And that German godess of sea kayaking, black-slithered Freya? She's going around Australia in an Epic, with, yeap, a rudder. Don't hang on to that stern comin in through 25 foot surf though on the western coast of AU. The pruny digitis will be floating around there in that case.
Doug L