bowgarguide wrote:Ok now you have me confused more than normal,A say 13 ft boat 22 inches wide will be easier to maintain a speed of say 4 mph than a 18 ft boat that is the same width?
Ron
Let's back up a minute and not think too much. ALL boats have a speed at which they are the most efficient, ie.--the speed at which the least effort is required to maintain that speed. This does not mean that all boats are equal. For example (and there are a lot of factors we're ignoring) we'll say that a 12' boat takes 2 pounds of effort to maintain 3 mph. Perhaps the 18' boat would take 2.5 pounds effort to maintain 3 mph. This is generally because of the increased drag of the longer boat.
Now to make it more interesting lets' increase speed to 4 mph. The 12' boat takes 8 pounds of pressure to maintain that speed. The 18' boat takes 5 pounds of pressure to maintain that speed. Wave length is becoming a bigger factor here than drag--the longer boat has the advantage here.
Increase the speed to 7 mph. The 12' boat takes 40 pounds of pressure--which is impossible--so it can't go that fast. The 18' boat takes 12 pounds of pressure (all these figures are just examples), ....and it CAN go that fast. But please notice that it takes effort to do it.
The point at which the length cause too much drag is different for different people. For a world class paddler that point is close to 23'. Most rules give length limits for different classes anyway.
What's the best length for us to paddle? That's different for different people for different tasks. For ME the best all around length is 16'. I will certainly be building more 18' boats and definately one 20' X 20" Stilleto, but I can also see me building and using a 14 footer and in some cases a nice 12 footer. Long is not always the best...
Ah yes...just for an experiment take a look at the sleekest, longest boat around. How fast is it going? It's not! There's no paddler in it. For race boats the paddler is MORE than 50% of the equation. There are some people paddling a bathtub who can beat me in my marathon boat....
I don't care...
I think I will keep my mouth shut and keep paddling.
