Flat hulls on Sea Kayaks .....Why not?
Well I think most people including myself would say too much wetted surface too slow won't work. But sometimes you just gotta try stuff. So what do we know is 'slow' short, wide with a flat hull right! So we made a stand up board last summer which is 12'3" long and 30" wide with a flat surfboard style hull. Just for fun I decided to sit on it and paddle it with a kayak paddle it cruised along just fine so I decided to get the GPS out and see what it could do. I managed to sprint it to a top speed of 7.2mph (6.3 kts) which shocked me considering I was paddling something with the dimensions of a rec boat. I don't think Olympic K1's will have flat hulls any time soon but I do wonder if there is some advantages for the average sea kayaker here that we are missing. The video is of me sprinting the boat. As you can see I have no seat or foot braces.
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