Dave Van ) writes:
in article , William R. Watt at
wrote on 6/7/04 9:00 PM:


Thats' what "amateur" means, "unpaid".

But the literal meaning is "to love" or "for love".


which proves Nystrom is a boatbulding whore for paying himself


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William R. Watt ) writes:

I see. I thought you were writing about an actual hull shape. I don't see
how anyone can disagree that the circumference of a cirle encloses the
largest area for the least perimeter, but actual kayak hulls aren't built
that way due to other considerations such as stability, draft, and
tracking.

Sorry, that was not clearly worded. If the waterline is the circumference
of the circle then the circular hull has the least girth for the area
enclosed (equvalent to the least wetted surface for the largest voume of
water displaced, or displacement). However, as is shown on Winters'
website, if the waterline is shorter than the diameter of the circle, ie
an arc of a the circular section, then flattening the sides reduces the
girth and wetted surface, an intersting and counterintuitive phenomenum.



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On 8-Jun-2004, (William R. Watt) wrote:

sorry? you claimed the opposite. that was the difference on which this
discussion is founded.

Then what are you saying? I paddle both hard and soft chine kayaks and
can't find any noticable difference that I could attribute to the
chines. The effects of chine shape on kayak performance are negligible
for most kayaks and are highly overstated by folks like you.

how anyone can disagree that the circumference of a cirle encloses the
largest area for the least perimeter, but actual kayak hulls aren't built
that way due to other considerations such as stability, draft, and
tracking.

Most recreational hulls are built for stability, but advanced hulls are
made with rounded, or nearly rounded, bottoms.

My Ellesmere has a nearly rounded hull section. It feels fairly tippy
and most beginners describe it as very tippy. However, at larger angles
of heel, the hull is extremely stable. In calm water it feels tender,
but in rough water it is very solid.

Racing kayaks and canoes are built with very tippy hulls - they cannot
sit upright when empty. They have a negative righting moment at zero
degrees of heel. Yet the paddler can relatively easily keep the craft
upright when paddling. The LOA and LWL are almost equal and they
track quite stiffly.

There are good reasons for making a rounded hull. There are many
examples of hulls with rounded sections that work well. Your examples
of tubular hulls are irrelevant, since that's not the shape given
to canoes and kayaks. The shape above the water line is not round
and the secondary stability can be significant. If you talk to advanced
paddlers, you'll quickly find that they discount the primary stability
as a factor in design. As long as you have good secondary stability,
you can paddle the vessel just fine.

Mike

"William R. Watt" wrote in message
...
Dave Van ) writes:
in article , William R. Watt at
wrote on 6/7/04 9:00 PM:


Thats' what "amateur" means, "unpaid".

But the literal meaning is "to love" or "for love".


which proves Nystrom is a boatbulding whore for paying himself

Or supports his notion that it's a labor of love.

I'm self employed. I don't know if Brian is or not. Being self employed
and having more clients and work than I "really" have time for, every minute
I spend doing something else is time I could spend earning my living. For
many nine to fivers, this is not the case but for me, and I suppose many
others, the cost of time spent is definately a factor to consider if I
choose to make a project out of building a kayak.

Brian's point about tools should be taken to heart. In woodworking, set up
is 90% of the work. If you are skimping on tools, you are likely
compromising the quality of the outcome or you are making up for it with
additional labor, increasing the time spent and adding to the "cost".

DV

"Michael Daly" ) writes:

Most recreational hulls are built for stability, but advanced hulls are
made with rounded, or nearly rounded, bottoms.

Yes, I'm going to have to backtrack on the subject of circular cross
sections for kayaks. Yesterday at the river I saw a short cheap bright
yellow plastic kayak with a very round cross section, tapering toward the
ends. I was ignoring how low is the centre of gravity when a paddler sits
on the bottom of a round hull with its deeper draft. Although it's not
easy to get into such a boat, once the paddler's butt is firmly planted on
the bottom the boat is more stable. Also, the manner of paddling a kayak,
compared to paddling a canoe or using a small sail, keeps the weight
centred so the lack of reserve bouyancy is not much of a problem. It was
unstable getting into my plastic barrel canoe, and it needed sponsons to
carry sail. In addition, rolling a kayak over is not supposed to be a
problem. It's a feature.

When sailing my narrow sail-and-paddle boats I have to lie on the bottom
of the boat to lower the center of gravity and counter the heeling force
of the sail, even though both boats have a flat bottom and reserve
bouyancy. The smallest one has to have sponsons to carry sail. I've had to
make backrests for both of them to lie back on when sailing.




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William R. Watt wrote:
Brian Nystrom ) writes:


It's real simple Bill, so perhaps even you can understand it. The price
of a stripper kayak kit that includes seat parts, footpegs, deck rigging
and finishing supplies is $1200-$1400 (based on the prices from Newfound
Woodworks) plus shipping, which isn't cheap since they must be shipped
by truck. Unless one is already a woodworker, you can figure on adding
several hundred dollars for the cost of tools and the materials to build
a strongback, sawhorses, etc., to the cost of the kit an supplies. That
brings your your total hardware and supplies cost up to $1500~$2000.

You are overstating the cost here. You don't have to be a "woodworker",
merely a homeowner, to have an electric drill (with sanding disk) and an
electric jigsaw or circular saw (either will do for cutting curves on thin
plywood.

Excuse me, but were we not talking about kits for building strippers?

The idea of using a sanding disk on an electric drill is laughable and
you know it. It's the fastest way to destroy your work.

You can cut your own strips as well if you want with a tabel saw.

So what happened to the kit idea? Is that out the window now?

And you don't even need a table saw. All you have to do is cut a slot in a
piece of plywood and mount a circular saw upside down in it. It's common
practice among beginner boatbuilders. I've done that twice. I don't own a
table saw. I have not bought any extra tools for boatbulding. Nor would
most others.

That's really funny, considering what boatbuilders actually do rather
than your hypothetical scenario. How many clamps do you figure the
average homeowner has lying about? A block plane? Japanese pull saw?
Chisels? Yes, it's possible to build a boat on a shoestring, but that's
not what most builders do. Again, you know this.

In fact I saved money buying the few tools that I have by
doing odd jobs around the house myself instead of paying someone else to
do them

I do too, but you and I are not typical of the American public. Most
people can barely do more than change a lightbulb. It's sad, but true.

which leads us to the next item, labour.

When you factor in the 200-300 hours of labor involved in building a
stripper (typical numbers derived from what hobbyist builders report on
kayak building sites), even if you only value your time at $10/hour
(slave wages), you're looking at a real cost of $3500-$5000 for your
first boat. Subsequent boats will be somewhat cheaper since you now have
the tools and strongback, but that's assuming that you build more than one.

Oh sure, I guess you pay yourself $10 an hour for labour. How do you do
that? Take $10 out of your left hand pocket and put it in your right hand
pocket? No, you save yourself the cost of paying someone else to build
your boat. Its a savings not an expense. First you write boatbuilding is
an act of love, now your write you want to pay yourself for it,
which makes you some kind of boatbuidling whore. Maybe you should rethink
your motivation. I build my boats to save money, as do
other amateur boatbuilders. Thats' what "amateur" means, "unpaid". So
don't try and add "self payment" to the cost of anyone's building his or
her own boat. You save the cost of labour, period.

As usual, you've come up with somthing totally absurd to try to cloud
the issue. The point is that a person's time is worth something. The
time required for building a strip boat is not inconsequential. If you
consider it recreation (a labor of love), fine. If it takes time that
could be used to earn a living, that's a whole different story.

Considering that you can buy a new 'glass boat for ~$2500 or a used one
for as little ~$1000 (I've bought several at that price), where is your

buying a used boat has noting to do with comparing the cost of buying a
new boat or bulding it yourself. it still cost 1/3 less to build a
stripper canoe or kayak compared to buying it off the shelf.

How many people would be willing to shell out $5000 for a strip built
boat in the first place? by your rationale, one might be able to save
tens of thousands of dollars by building their own yacht. But if you
can't afford one in the first place, what's the point?

One minute you're talking about building in the cheapest manner
possible, then you're talking about the most expensive boats available.
This discussion started out being about saving money by building vs.
buying a COMMERCIAL boat. You keep taking that discussion off on
unrelated tangents.

savings, Bill? You accuse me of imaginative, yet it's quite obvious that
your "1/3 savings" figure is wishful thinking at best. I enjoy building
boats, but I'm under no illusion that it saves me any money. The main
reason for building a boat (other than the recreational aspects of
woodworking) is that I get exactly what I want.

you have not shown that buying a boat costs less than 50% more than
building it yourself. I'm actually quite amazed at the strange ideas about
money expressed above. Do really beleive what you wrote?

What I believe is that you've got very little grasp of reality. You keep
changing the subject in an attempt to avoid admitting that you're wrong.
You can buy commercial boats for less than the cost of a kit plus the
tools and materials necessary to build it. Building takes time, which is
a valuable commodity for most people. You've offered means of "saving
money" which are simply a trade off for increased building time and
difficulty, which makes building even less of a possibility for most
people. Hell, Greenlanders built their boats for centuries using
driftwood and tools made from stone and bone. That was about as cheap as
you can get, but it took a LONG time to build a boat. Perhaps you're
retired and don't consider your time to be worth anything, but most
people value their time.

Yet boat builders are still a MINUSCULE percentage of the total number
of kayakers. You really need to get a grip on the reality of the market.
To put some perspective on it, I belong to a club with over 400 members
in it. Out of those, I know of 9 (2.25%) who have built boats. That's
among paddlers who are dedicated enough to join a club. We represent
only a small fraction of the total kayaking population, the majority of
whom paddle plastic recreational boats. Based on that, I think it's safe
to say kayak builders represent well under 1% of the kayaking
population. Is that specific enough for you???

how did you get off on this rant? what we are discussing is the
possibility of custom designing a plywood or stipper kayak, and that it
cost no more to custom design one of these than to build from one set
plan. try to stay with the tour.

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! You go off on a tangent
whenever it suits you. What a hypocrite!

The point is that the market for plans and kits is small. People who
produce them apparently don't think that your idea of custom plans and
kits at bargain basement prices is economically feasible. Since they're
in the business and you're not, I'll defer to their wisdom.

I've read
somewhere some Brian Nystrom guy built his own first boat at one time.

You read wrong. I built my third boat. My first two were commercial boats.

the first boat you built was the first boat your built, not the first
boat you owned.

So your first comment was pointless. I built a boat, then another and
another. I plan to build a few more, because I enjoy it and I can build
what I want. So what? I've already stated that I don't do it under the
illusion of saving money.

I've already addressed this fallacy above. Either it's a "labor of love"
and you don't count the labor cost, or you're not saving anything. You
can't have it both ways, Bill.

your fallacy. your imaginary cash flow.

You need to get a grip on reality, Bill.

Where does this come from? I don't see any reason why a chine has to
cause turbulence. Lapstrake boats are not comparable with single chine
kayaks, whose chines are typically fully immersed and which have
smoother entries and exits. You're comparing apples and oranges.

water passes smoothly over a smooth surface. water passing over a hard
chine becomes turbulant when the angle of the surface changes abruptly.
why is this so difficlut to grasp?

When does water pass across the chine? The major flow is along the axis
of the boat, not across it. The water flows around the boat and
underneath it.

...it shows exactly what I was talking about. For a given beam width,
the spherical hull has the least wetted surface. If you ignore the beam
width and look only at equal displacement, a spherical hull still has
the least wetted surface. Although shape E is not perfectly spherical,
it's pretty obvious that a spherical shape with slightly increased depth
would have as little or perhaps slightly less surface area. This
explains why racing boat hulls are narrow and round. It's too bad he
chose not to include such a sample in the diagram.

I think you need to define what you mean by "spherical hull". A sphere is
not a circle. Do you mean by "spherical" that the immersed section is a
semi-circle.

OK. For a given displacement a true spherical shape has the least
surface area. However, that's not a practical shape for a boat. For a
real boat shape, a semicircular cross section will have the least
surface area.

I agree about the minimal girth, but can you name any
non-racing kayaks whose immersed section is a semi-circle? How do they
deal with the instability? Sponsons?

You evidently don't understand stability, either. In the Winters diagram
you reference, the semicircular cross section at the top will be quite
stable, due to the amount of flare above the waterline. Here's a link
that explains this in more depth:

http://www.guillemot-kayaks.com/Desi...tyArticle.html

nope, the drag of the hard chine hull includes the turbulence about the
chine which is greater than the difference in friction resistance.

Again, where is the reference? I don't believe that a single hard chine
is going to cause turbulence in an of itself in a well designed kayak.

it occurs toward the top of the speed range when residual drag
overtakes surface drag. at low speeds its not important.

Why? You have yet to explain why there would be more drag on a hard
chine boat. You make vague references to turbulence, but have offered no
proof of this. Why would this only be an issue at higher speeds? Water
flows over the hull at all speeds, doesn't it? If the chine caused
turbulence, it would create drag at all speeds, wouldn't it? You're not
making any sense.

but
don't forget you can have a V-bottom hard chined boat which tracks better
than a round bottom hull with the same length and wetted surface and the
hard chined hull will have less residual resistance because it spends less
time slewing around, and more time going straight. as we have all seen,
the boat with the rounded bottom cross section will often have "deadwood"
added at the bow and stern or a skeg (or rudder) or both to help it track,
and these add wetted surface to the rounded hull.

You're drawing a lot of invalid conclusions here. A long, narrow,
rounded hull with straight keel line (typical racing hull configuration)
tracks VERY strongly.

there you go dragging in racing boats again. do you intend to limit your
part of the discussion to racing boats so you can prove some obsacure point?

The point I'm making is that your sweeping generalities about hull
shapes are simply wrong. A rounded hull can track strongly. A rounded
hull can be quite stable. The fact that you don't understand how doesn't
change these facts.

... One reason why most of them have rudders is to
enable the paddler to turn the boat, not because it won't track. The

now you're really showing how little you actually know about kayaks. the
rudder is there for tracking, for the most part in cross winds. it's not there
for turning.

It depends on the type of boat. On a touring boat, a rudder should be
used only to control the boat's heading, though most paddlers use them
to turn the boat. I agree that this is incorrect, but that's what most
people do.

In the case of racing boats, the rudder is used to turn in lieu of
turning stroke.

however skegs and rudders are added to round bottom kayaks to
provide decent tracking which they can't get otherwise.

Utter nonsense! I used to own Nigel Foster Silhouette, which has a
rounded bottom. That was a very stong tracking boat. I also owned a
Norkapp HM, which was an extremely strong tracking boat. Tracking has
very little to do with the cross sectional shape of the hull.

I agree that as
the lenght of the boat increases tracking increases. Someboduy who shal
remain nameless mentioned in this newsgroup some time ago that too many
people buy kayaks which are too long for what they need. perhaps they do
it to get decent traking from a round bottom hull?

No, that's not the case. There really aren't that many round bottomed
kayaks on the market. The majority have shallow V hulls.

main reason for rudders is to get maximum efficiency from the powerplant
(the paddler). It's more efficient to have a small rudder to control the
direction of the boat than it is to use leans and sweep strokes, which
reduce the biomechanical efficiency of the stoke.

which means they can't get it from the hull shape they are using. they
have to stick on a skeg or rudder. either the hull slews around creating

No, it has nothing to do with the hull slewing around. The boats in
question are VERY difficult to turn because they track extremely
stongly. You've completely missed the point again. Either that or you're
trying to reinterpret what I said and confuse the issue again.

By "deadwood" are you referring to bow and stern overhangs? If so, they
do nothing to aid tracking, as they're not in the water most of the time.

deadwood is extra hull under the bow or stern (or both) which improves
tracking by making the hull harder to turn. think of those long thin
entries on some knife blade bows. same at the stern.

I don't know how you can consider that "deadwood", as it contributes to
increasing the boat's maximum hull speed. Every high performance boat,
from kayaks to aircraft carriers have relatively plumb bows and sterns
with fine entries. It's certainly not done for aesthetics.

I'll guarantee you that if you stick a graph in the faces of customers,
the overwhelming majority of them will have no idea what they're looking
at, nor will they care. On the other hand, if a dealer simply told them
that a particular boat was well suited to someone their size, that same
percentage would accept that. The few that would understand the graph
might ask "why", in which case you can offer a more detailed explanation.

but you just finished writing that most kayak salespeople don't know squat
about the boats they are selling.

What's your point?

what I imagien is teh designer supplied teh retialer with a DC with all
the infor on it, including a program which will graph power vs speed for
different body weights. the reatiler has an old $30 486 PC system in the
store so peopel can find out which boats are suited to them.

Did your spell checker die or something?

You can imagine all you want, but that doesn't mean that anyone will
actually use it. As a former retailer, I can tell you from experience
that few people show more than a passing interest in such aids.

as for your comment about graphs, that's all they do in schools now.
every subject is full of graphs. they came in with th enew math in the 60's.
everybody with a high school diploma has been saturated with graphs.

That doesn't mean that they have any interest in seeing graphs outside
the artificial confines of the classroom. You're the data guy, so how
about conducting a poll and asking people when the last time they
created a graph, or even looked for one was? You're assuming that the
general population is like you, which isn't the case.

While I certainly wouldn't question your data analysis capability, it
has nothing to do with the way people react to information in real
world. What makes perfect sense to you would be nothing more than
"technical gibberish" to most people. I've dealt with people in the real
world (as a retailer and as a technical trainer) and I can tell you
unequivocally that's a FACT.

thanks but what I did is just what you are saying, the display and
interpertation of graphical data. did you know pie charts are the worst
way to present data? peopel don't see vertical pie shaped sections teh
same way they see horizonatl pie shaped sections. there are lots of other
perceptual problem with graphs. however everybody uses them, everybody
expect them, and they are a good way of presenting numerical relations if
done properly.

That's fascinating, Bill, but what does it have to do with this discussion?

Sorry Bill, but whether you like it or not, that's the way it works in
the real world. While I agree that that manufacturers should make
technical information available, doing so would be largely a wasted
effort as the overwhelming majority of customers would neither
understand it or care. Given that, I can't fault them for not wasting
their resources to distribute this information widely. Selling the boat
is the dealer's job; the manufacturer should provide them with the
information to do so, but they're not responsible for getting it to the
customer. If they want to put it on a web site where interested
customers can find it, fine, but including it in marketing literature
would be an unnecessary expense and waste of paper.

Its not techincal information when it's personal. It's personal
information. That's the real world. People's questions can be answered
with the right information. As I wrote earlier, it's the seller who
provides the right information for the buyer who will take sales away from
the seller who doesn't. As you wrote ealier, and as I have seen too, kayak
salespersons don't know much about the boats they sell and are not very
helpfull to buyers. Retail wages are low and aren't likely to improve. We
aren't likely to see knowlegeable people selling kayaks for low wages.
That's where computers can make a difference at the retail level for a
minimal outlay, a difference to both the buyer who will be more satisfied
with the boat he or she buys, and a difference to the retailer who
attracts business away from competitors.

You're still operating under the mistaken assumption that most people
will do the research or that they even care about such things. While
true enthusiasts or students of the sport may, the average paddler
doesn't. Like it or not, most people are sheep. They're perfectly
content to be led around and let others make decisions for them. This
seems to be especially true when it comes to recreation. They want to
recreate, not analyze data relating to their recreational pursuits.

William R. Watt wrote:

I'm looking at last season's "Boats and Paddles" booklet put out
by Mountain Co-op. They give the list price for every boat. That's
useful information for the buyer to have. They give the weigth for
every boat. That's uselful to know becaue all these boats will be
picked up and carried, some portaged. They give the capacity for
about half of the boats (weight and volume) which might be useful
to a buyer. It would be better to have it for all the boats but it
looks like the the manufacture (designer) didn't provide it. They
also give the length, beam, depth, and cockpit dimensions, none of
which is very useful to the buyer. Here is where the personal
information would be useful, ie the power vs speed graph for
different body weights, the body size, and perhaps the draft so
the buyer knows if it is a shallow water hull for his or her body
weight. Since Mountain Co-op is going to the expense of printing
the booklets they could use the same amount of money to provide
more relevant and meanignful information for the buyer.

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William R. Watt wrote:

I'm looking at last season's "Boats and Paddles" booklet put out
by Mountain Co-op. They give the list price for every boat. That's
useful information for the buyer to have.

No kidding.

They give the weigth for
every boat. That's uselful to know becaue all these boats will be
picked up and carried, some portaged.

Obviously.

They give the capacity for
about half of the boats (weight and volume) which might be useful
to a buyer. It would be better to have it for all the boats but it
looks like the the manufacture (designer) didn't provide it.

Right. Are you going to get to the point eventually?

They
also give the length, beam, depth, and cockpit dimensions, none of
which is very useful to the buyer.

This statement shows how little you know about kayaks and kayak buyers.

For many people, length is critical due to storage and transportation
issues. It's also a good general indicator of a boat's suitability for
various types of paddling. For example, you wouldn't buy a 18' kayak for
poking around tidal estuaries with their narrow winding creeks. A 12'
boat is not going to be ideal for taking out on long open water
crossings. Length is also a decent indicator of maneuverability, at
least in gross terms.

Likewise beam width is a good basic indicator of stability. A 28" boat
is going to be more stable than a 22" boat. Beam width is also a
reasonable indicator of performance potential. Using the same example,
the boat with the 28" beam is going to be significantly slower than the
boat with the 22" beam, all else being equal.

When you combine length and beam, it tells you a fair amount about the
general nature of a kayak and whether it's likely to be suitable for a
specific application.

The depth and cockpit dimensions tell quite a bit about how a boat will
fit the paddler.

Here is where the personal
information would be useful, ie the power vs speed graph for
different body weights, the body size, and perhaps the draft so
the buyer knows if it is a shallow water hull for his or her body
weight. Since Mountain Co-op is going to the expense of printing
the booklets they could use the same amount of money to provide
more relevant and meanignful information for the buyer.

While providing such information would certainly do no harm, it's
actually much less useful (and understandable) to most people than the
information you so easily dismissed.

William R. Watt wrote:

Dave Van ) writes:

in article , William R. Watt at
wrote on 6/7/04 9:00 PM:



Thats' what "amateur" means, "unpaid".

But the literal meaning is "to love" or "for love".



which proves Nystrom is a boatbulding whore for paying himself

No, it proves that you're simply being an ass. You obviously have little
comprehension of reality and you've spent most of this discussion
twisting and misinterpreting what I've said in a vain attempt to prove
your incorrect assumptions. My time is worth something to me and I've
wasted too much of it on your stupidity, pointless circular arguments
and issue-clouding tangents. Go live in your dream world where everyone
reads statistics and builds boats on a shoestring. I've got better
things to do than argue with an idiot.

Dave Van wrote:

"William R. Watt" wrote in message
...

Dave Van ) writes:

in article , William R. Watt at
wrote on 6/7/04 9:00 PM:



Thats' what "amateur" means, "unpaid".

But the literal meaning is "to love" or "for love".


which proves Nystrom is a boatbulding whore for paying himself


Or supports his notion that it's a labor of love.

I'm self employed. I don't know if Brian is or not. Being self employed
and having more clients and work than I "really" have time for, every minute
I spend doing something else is time I could spend earning my living. For
many nine to fivers, this is not the case but for me, and I suppose many
others, the cost of time spent is definately a factor to consider if I
choose to make a project out of building a kayak.

Brian's point about tools should be taken to heart. In woodworking, set up
is 90% of the work. If you are skimping on tools, you are likely
compromising the quality of the outcome or you are making up for it with
additional labor, increasing the time spent and adding to the "cost".

Your points are well taken and eloquently presented, Dave. Hopefully, if
there's anyone else still reading this thread, they're more open minded
than Bill and can see the wisdom in your words.