There's nothing to say you couldn't meld the two. Last year I rented a P & H Rotomolded boat (sorry, can't recall the model) for a trip in the south end of Puget Sound. It's a 14-15' hard-chined boat with a pretty fair amount of rocker and an integrated adjustable skeg. With the relatively short length & rocker, it was a playful boat in small inlets and estuaries and the skeg definitely helped maintain the tracking during the two short crossings I did. The second crossing was in quartering winds and I would have had a hell of a time without the skeg. I tried going without it for a short distance just to see what would happen and was getting pushed all over the place.

Adjustable skeg is the better way to go if you can swing it, but I personally don't like the CLC design for an adjustable skeg. for an alternative, search the archives of this board. I remember Andy Waddington has a very detailed discussion, the good and the bad, on his webpage of how he put a skeg on one of his boats.

: I had a thought and wanted to see if it makes sense. Tracking is important to
: an open water boat. The same boat on a smaller creek, especially with some
: current, manuvering is more important. If you wanted a smaller boat, say
: 14' to serve double duty why couldn't you add a bit more rocker to the
: boat or chose a plan with good turning and then add a simple retractable
: skeg for flat water? Like the skeg design at CLC. Wouldin't this make a
: boat server double duty?

: The simple answer is to build two boats but I am just thinking outloud and
: curious. Trying to learn a little bit.