Not to be disagreeable but, I can't get my head around this wing concept in this context. No speed required. I think of the skeg as being more of a lateral brake with minimal longitudal resistance. Any size placed anywhere behind the pivot point is going to compliment toward lee cocking in a weather cocking kayak and at a certain size and distance from the pivot you will get only lee cocking and give up choice.

Best,

Reg

: The skeg is basically a wing which produces a force due to the flow
: past it and the angle of attack of the wing. The angle of attack
: comes from the turning of the boat. The further the skeg is from
: the center point of the turn, the greater the angle of attack.
: The force creates a restoring moment to the boat (assuming the
: skeg is aft of the turning center) the moment is also greater as
: the skeg moves further away from the turning center. So to
: provide the same restoring moment, the skeg would need to be
: larger if mounted near the center. The amount of restoring
: moment required to make the boat feel stable is the big unknown;
: and likely varies from paddler to paddler and with the sea/wind
: condition. I generally put skegs about 1/3 of the boat length
: from the stern and find this to provide excellent results.

: Leaning the boat does have a great effect on the effectiveness of
: the skeg, so your comment about being able to turn even with it
: deployed seems reasonable. I also usually install the skeg off
: the boat centerline for arrangement reasons and notice
: differences between turns towards or away from the skeg side,
: particularly when leaning the boat. I suspect that the skeg gets
: "shadowed" by the boat in one direction.

: I think that making a fixed skeg would make it a nuisance for
: beaching, carrying, storing, etc. and making them retractable is
: quite easy.

: So this was a long-winded way of saying "yeah, you probably
: will need some trial and error to find the best size skeg"
: :-)