Last weekend I spoke with Arnold and Stef; both paddling a Silhouet themselves. I asked them about their experiences regarding leecocking with the Silhouette.
Interesting to get the same answer in both occasions: "No, I don't have problems with that!"
Amazing, because I certainly noticed leecocking under certain conditions.
I experienced such answers before when asking owners for experiences with their kayaks. I guess this has something to do with being experienced, as well as having found ways to handle the certain behaviours of their kayaks.
That's of course another approach in looking at a kayak:
- Owners look at their kayaks like how they actually can paddle her under conditions they normally paddle.
- I, when testing kayaks, look at kayaks from the perspective HOW they behave and if a novice could possibly handle that or not.
Of course I could handle the Silhouette as you can read on my post from 25 january. But I noticed that I had to work for that. And having paddled a lot of kayaks, I know that there are kayaks that are easier to handle on this aspect.
Therefor I think that, although a nice kayak, the Silhouette is for more experienced paddlers because a novice could get into trouble if he or she is not able to steer the course they want.
Thinking about weather- and leecocking now, a realise that it is maybe a better idea to split up the characteristic, called leecocking, into 2 different issues:
- a) When a kayak turns away from the wind because of the balance in the wind: the bow offering more lateral surface to the wind in combination with a stern offering more lateral surface under water compared to the bow.
- b) when the bow is blown away by the wind at the moment that the kayak glides over a wave temporarily offering more surface of the bow to the wind.
Ad. b) Under certain conditions this way of leecocking can occur with every kayak. It only depends on other characteristics of the kayak how well you can handle a kayak under these conditions. In general I can say that a very manouevrable kayak and/or a kayak that weathercocks normally, is easily being brought back on the correct course in between 2 waves. It is often the case that the paddler even is not aware that the kayak leecockes and steers the kayak back on course automatically without noticing.
On the other hand, if the kayak is NOT very manoeuvrable or features an integral skeg in the stern, it could be difficult to bring her back on course in between 2 waves. In that case you have to work hard with extreem edging away from the waves as an extra handicap.
Having thought it over, I think it is not fair to call the behaviour, as described under b), also leecocking because this is not the real leecocking as being caused by the balance of kayakdesign and because it happens to all kayakdesigns.
Maybe it is a better idea to call this behaviour "WAVECOCKING", describing what happens actually: a wave causing the bow being blown aside.
Starting to use this new word directly, I think there is another reason why some kayak-owners notice less about "wavecocking", simply because they are fast paddlers.
This certainly is the case with Arnold.
Because of higher speed, the kayak has a greater forward impact, making it more difficult to change the kayak's course. Besides this it could well be that the side plane of the bow creates a certain "wing"-or wedge-effect, because of which the water is pressing the bow back harder against the wind.
For the Silhouette this turns out very good as she certainly is a kayak that can be paddled fast in waves.
When testing kayaks I mostly are not doing a total work-out, so I am not paddling at maximum speed. Beside this, I paddle a test-kayak not alone at sea thus having to make my speed to match with that of my companion's.