: That is the question.

: I'm designing a rough water and day tripping play kayak. I can decide on most
: of the design easily enough, but the one question I keep coming back to is
: how V'd to make the hull - both at the ends and throughout the length. As
: it happens I'm building S&G, but pretty much the same question applies to
: many strip designs - how flat do you make the bottom?

: Looking at alternative existing designs for basically the same brief, the
: Idglorssuit kayak (and Anas Acuta, Pintail, Q-boat etc based on it) are
: very heavily V'd. However most others are not - the Black Pearl for
: example, or our esteemed site owner's Petrel.

: It's easy to say "V adds directional stability" - but to my mind
: that's a bit of a catch all and it really depends on what you're comparing
: to - in particular, it's true when you're comparing it to a round hull,
: but I'm not at all convinced it's true when comparing it to a flat bottom
: with hard chines: in this case greater V will make the underwater section
: more nearly cound than flat bottom and hard chines. I think this is one of
: the reasons Duane S went totally flat bottomed for the Mini-Benny - Duane?

: The only thing I think I'm sure of is that a flat bottom will slap more in
: big waves - but that's not really too much of a hardship if it's better in
: every other way.

: So - the question is - to V or not to V?

: dave

Btw, Rob Mack's Laughing Loon Disko Bay has quite alot of V on the bottom, have one of those too, and it also has very good initial stability. But it's V is shaped like a SOF boat, with a bit of concavity to the V which I think adds to the initial stability.

The V bottom boats I've paddled, and that's quite a few, all gain initial stability once any forward speed is attained, it's only at rest that you notice the motion instability. Kinda like trying to balance on a surfboard, no stability at all standing still, not bad stability once it's moving.

Bill H.