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Yesterday evening I borrowed Henks's Cetus as a preparation for a tour at sea on Saturday: just to get a bit used to her.
I paddled out of the harbour to the Alkmaardermeer and in the protected waters of the harbour the Cetus felt very manoeuvrable; the bow even yawning a bit at every paddlestroke. Dropping the skeg partially compensated for this.
Strange enough I did not recognise this the first time a paddled the Cetus for 15 minutes because I than concluded that the Cetus was only manoeuvrable when edged. That's how it is with testing: sometimes you have to change opinion though.
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Last week I paddled the Greenlander in my weekly trip to the club on wednesday-evening.
I was a bit surprised on that occasion because I got the impression she was fast and effortless paddled.
Ofcourse, after a holiday of 2 weeks paddling at sea, it could be that I was in good shape. But as our holiday-paddling-pace was rather relaxed, it could well be that it is not in my shape but all in the Greenlander herself.
So yesterday I took the Greenlader again with me, but now I was accompanied by a GPS for measuring speed.
There was almost no wind, no waves and I started with about 8,5 km/h on shallow water.
Entering deeper water, while reaching the Zaan, this increased a bit and I ended up paddling between 9,0-9,5 km/h.
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Tiny en ik gaan in de zomervakantie al jaren naar Noorwegen. Door de jaren heen is het zo gegroeid dat we tegenwoordig met een rugzak de bergen ingaan voor een trektocht van zo'n 15 dagen en dan voldoende eten meenemen voor de hele tocht. Alles wat we nodig hebben dragen we op onze rug en water scheppen we uit een beekje, zodat we de hele tocht ver weg van de bewoonde wereld kunnen en willen blijven. Heerlijk vinden we dat: om weer voor een jaar bij te tanken.
Dit jaar zijn we weer naar Noorwegen geweest: uiteraard met voor 15 dagen eten mee, maar dit keer met zeekajaks.
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Wednesday evening I paddled a short tour with the Cetus on the Alkmaardermeer: for a first impression.
Because I may (Henk and Leo were so kind to offer me the use of their kayaks) test the Cetus, such an impression is important for me to know if it is necessary to do some customising in the cockpit.
My first thoughts are:
- Stability is outstanding: the primary- and secondary stability feel very secure.
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Although I got the impression of the Silhouette being quite fast, I did not look in detail yet to the speed-aspect of the kayak.
Last week, being in the mood for a workout, I took her along on Wednesday-evening for a trip to the club planning to paddle 18 km's.
Being fresh, I started my warming up and measured 9- 9,5km/h; being easy. I tried also to paddle at 7- and 8 km/h but that was difficult to maintain, as this was too slow for me at that moment.
Being "on steam" after 4 km's, I started varying my speed:
- Paddling 8,5 km/h felt as a very natural speed in this kayak: being a speed that I could just maintain forever.
- A good exercise-speed was 9,5-10km/h: Creating sweat on my head. But I must say that the 10km/h is not something I could go on with for longer periods.
- Going for a full sprint I reached 11,8km/h with the first attempt. But this was something I could not reach again with the second and third attempt; it stopped than at 10,5km/h.
- Paddling on the lake against a 3Bft-wind I reached, as exercise pace, an 8,5/km/h, sometimes increasing to 9km/h.
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Arnold inspired me to customize his cockpit better. And so I did. I used foam to make the backrest more fluent without the rim pressing my tail-bone anymore. And for my knees I made some foamblocks as kneegrips and attached them with doublesided tape.
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What can you say about a kayak, having paddled her only for 10 minutes.
As Hans described in his blog we had a very nice sunday, together with Monique and Stef (click here for Hans' blogpost) while they showed their Black Pearl in her home: salt water.
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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.
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For today I asked Tiny to shoot pictures when rolling the Silhouette. I did let go two invitations for a paddle tour and for paddling in surf. But the weather was perfect for making pictures. Yeah, sometime you have to make choices.
The wind was blowing at 5 or 6 bft. and gave some additional information when paddling to our exercise spot. Because I was paddling in shallow water there were no significant waves and now the Silhouette started to weathercock a bit. But she was easy to correct. Tiny, paddling an AnasAcuta, did have much more weathercocking and used the skeg.
So I think the conclusion might be that the Silhouette weathercocks only slightly and can be easily controlled with paddlestrokes. Using the skeg will make correction even easier. When paddling in waves at sea the waves influence the weathercock-behaviour in a way that the balance between weather- and leecocking will move and change the performance of the Silhouette to a neutral behaviour or in strong winds into leecocking.
About the wet exercises I can not add much text, as I described this already after the swimming pool exercises.
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Thinking about what kayak to take with me on the club outing to the IJsselmeer (Durgerdam - Marken vv.) on 1 march didn't take long because I didn't paddle the Silhouette in quiet weather yet.
