: I do question your knowledge and intent when you erroneously include fig 38
: which is not a baidarka and is in the new heading in the "Qajaq"
: book of Pacific Eskimo, Fig 24 is a two hole kayak and fig 16 is a
: baidarka I've never seen built.

George Dyson considers Kodiak Island kayaks "baidarkas". Since he is the person who introduced the term to modern kayakers, I will go with his definition. I'm not sure your point about doubles. It is still a "baidarka" and the question is, can you generalize about "baidarkas". I'm not sure why the fact you haven't seen Figure 16 built disqualifies it from consideration. I published more complete offsets of this boat at: http://www.guillemot-kayaks.com/Building/StripBuilt/Aleut/Offsets.html
and I expect that by this time someone is at least planning to build one. I'll build one eventually and let you try it.

If you are only going to define "baidarkas" as those kayaks that are very similar to figure 17, then I will submit that yes, you can generalize somewhat on "baidarka" performance. But that is like saying Volks Wagons have a round profile, and then when someone points out the Micro Bus, you say "I only mean Beetles."

: Unless you are blind or just wish to twist every point to fit your argument
: you know full well that the current baidarkas being built are very close
: to the lines of the solo baidarka pictured in fig 17 in the
: "Qajaq" book.

Yes, so if your definition of baidarka only encompasses Figure 17, then you are right and you can generalize about baidarkas because there is only one shape to be considered. However, I think the definition should include all the kayaks built by the peoples of the area. So, if everyone is nice and in the future only build "baidarkas" that conform to the Figure 17 lines, you will be able to say that "All baidarkas are X". But that will not be true in the future and is not even true now. The end of "Form and Function of the Baidarka" includes a picture of someone paddling the "Shields" design. This is the basic design paddled by Greg Barton in the tests with George Dyson.

: The fact is no other arctic kayak design has had the speed attributed to it
: that the baidarka has. It’s a tribute to the design that a work boat
: (baidarka) be compared to the best specialized racing boats today’s
: technology can produce.

I agree completely. They produced a good boat. I am not surprised a group of people who's life depended on the quality of their tools produced a sophisticated design. They were people and that's what people do.

It is interesting also that the great speed is generally attributed to those "baidarkas" along the lines of the boat drawn by James Shields in 1798. These are the long, narrow, relatively straight keeled boats with the low, open jaw which the Russians prohibited when they were trying to control the local population. This design is totaly different in hull shape from the Figure 17 boat. Yet, because they have the same label, "baidarka" and built by the same group of people (albeit at different times), people assume that they can attribute the same performance characteristics to both of these two significantly different kayaks.

Unfortunately, by the mid 19th century historical accounts where no longer seeing the truly fast kayaks. But by this time, due to Russian subjugation, the kayak requirements of the natives had evolved and the really fast, lightweight boats were no longer being made. The Figure 17 boat is from this later time period.

The best speculation about how these boats acheived the speeds they did are centered around their flexible construction, and the wave piercing bow. Neither of which is available to a hard shell boat along the lines of Figure 17 boat which has an up turned lower jaw that won't serve the wave piercing function. Personally, I feel it is the efficient under water shape of the boat that make it fast so the flexibility is not neccessary, and in the scale of kayaks, waves are too big to make the wave piercing that effective. But we don't really have a good example of the pre-european influenced boats to try, just a few drawings and physical descriptions. BTW some accounts suggest these early, fast boats were hard chined.

Reading the above it may sound like I have something against boats based on the Figure 17 drawing. This couldn't be farther from the truth. I am just pointing out that comparing the performance of that boat with the accounts of speed from completely different boats is a mistake. There was at least 100 years of evolution between the accounts of speed and when the Figure 17 boat was built (some time before 1934). The newer boat is fast and efficient, but it is not the same boat seen by the explorers in the mid to late 1700's. I'm sure it is better adapted to the needs of it's builder than the other earlier boats would have been. But it is a different boat. Boats based on the Figure 17 boat can be fast and efficient for their own reasons, they don't need the familial connection to earlier, different boats to be good.

: The beauty of the fluke of history of recreational kayaking that chose the
: Greenland kayak as archetype has left the baidarka design in a undiluted
: form.

The prevalence of Greenland style boats says more about the power of British marketing than about the relative merits of the two basic kayak configurations. They are both good, and starting from the two different basic models, any number of good designs can be developed. The original "baidarka" builders changed their designs as their needs changed. I'm sure modern designers will do the same.