: Hey Nick,
: THE GE is an incredible design. It just passed the test!

: I have been trying to find the limits on my boat this summer. I have short
: sprinted her to 8.4 in calm water. I have been impressed by how well she
: rolls, but yesterday I found out what Vesilind, my Guillmot GE is really
: capable of.

: Surf was up pretty high yesterday, but a nice day so I decided to go play on
: the bigger waves on one of my favorite rock gardens. Went out to Cape
: Nedick light and the marginal way. I got a bit more surf then I bargained
: for! However, the situation gave me a lot of confidence in this design.
: Now, I know just what this boat can do when its pushed to the limits.

: I was going from one of my favorite shoals to another, about 1/4 a mile away.
: I got caught out to sea directly under an incredible thunderstorm cell a
: bit farther from my storm hole then I should have been. The weather had
: been forecasted for nice, but the VHF went off with a weather tone and
: warning about 1 minute before the storm came over the cliffs. I was half
: way to my storm hole. (I always have a storm hole planned when I am in the
: rocks) when the outflow from the storm (wind) went from nothing to just
: everything. Wham! The wind came on so suddenly and with such force that I
: watched a cliff sparrow get plucked out of the air and slammed into the
: water just a few feet from me and drowned. The air went from very 90's to
: darn cold as the down drafts dropped cold air onto the water and fast. The
: thermal gradients were incredible and that did not bode well for what was
: to come. I began hauling butt to get into my storm hole, as I knew I'd
: never make it back to or up the rocky ledge put in. The weather radio
: later reported gusts in excess of 45 mph in that cell, and I am a big
: believer in the "in excess part."

: Nick, the average sea state went from pretty chilled out, to average 6-8 foot
: swells with 1.5 foot wind chop with a period of about a foot a part, all
: of that rolling over a very complex set of shoals. But in the
: rocks......as the tide dropped the swell heights kept rising to between
: 10-14 feet over the shallow bottom with the wind driven stuff on top of
: that. I got to the place that I couldn't see the even the tops of the rock
: cliffs or the several stories tall buildings on top of that when I was in
: the troughs. It was like being in Mts. all of this localized to what was
: under the storm cell.

: The deeper rocks that are normally silent became descent sized boomers.
: Despite all of that this boat ran down the front edges and never once
: broke deep or nosed the bottom. when waves broke around the boat it held
: true and up right. In nose into the wind driven waves, it was still pretty
: dry. The wind chop marched up my deck but broke to the sides just before
: the recess So it never took to slapping me in the torso.

: The bigger wind gusts at the front of the cell were tearing the tops off the
: waves in big chunks flying them above my head and tossing them 15 to 20
: feet, to land hard on the boat. Whomf! They landed like 15 gallons water
: bombs being tossed at ya from a bucket. You could hear them slam the boat
: as they hit. To give you an idea, they sounded like the sound made when
: you slap your deck hard with the palm of your hand. The sheets of rain
: were just incredible, and it made it really hard to see. I'm thinking
: motorcycle windsheild on my next boat. So the water was coming at me
: from all directions. Then it got just plain dark. Then we had about a
: minute and a half of small hail, and I haven't reached my storm hole yet.

: It was really something. Had to do some very fancy paddling into the wind
: around the shoals to get up wind of my storm hole. So I could get blown
: back into it. The wind grabbed my seaward blade twice and pulled my whole
: torso to port. (Yeah, I'm thinking Greenland paddles!!!! ) I was pulling
: hard in the water on the other side, but the sudden change in balance
: well... I was sure I was heading into a roll, but twice I hit it with a
: hip snap, and a brace kept powering the other blade. That boat design of
: yours kept me looking at the sky rather then kissin fish! and worse losing
: ground when Indeed to be moving forward. If I had gone over I'd have been
: down wind fast and I am guessing would have had to ridden the whole storm
: out to sea in deeper water.

: Once I was passed my storm hole entrance, I had to wait then choose my swell
: and then cut back and turn on a swell crest and surf back into my storm
: hole. If I missed the move, I was going to broach but good. All of this in
: a 20 foot yak! That's big for what I was asking it to do. As I waited to
: make my turn, while I studied the sets, she sculled like a dream,
: responded to my braces quickly and held station as if she were waiting for
: a bus. The wind was gusting out of two directions 30 points and 15 points
: to each side of my bow. Hey Nick do ya remember I stripped a second set of
: strips on the bow and then sanded in two radius chines into the bow and
: sanded back the skeg a tad? Thanks for helping me think that out, and its
: perfect! As figured; a little knee goes a long way on this boat, and she
: still tracks awesome. I had to ferry left and right into the wind to get
: into my storm hole on HUGE! stuff. She was a dream to move even in really
: nasty water. I was a bit busy at the time for contemplative thought, but I
: couldn't believe what this boat would do in this stuff. again and again I
: kept thinking this is going to be the limit and then the boat would ride
: right over it.

: Nick, Veslind doesn't move like a 20 foot boat. Perhaps the best part of this
: boat was how she handles the wind. She didn't weather cock or work herself
: broad side. She stayed oriented and right as I wanted her. I have been in
: much bigger seas, but not in everything boiling all at once like this. I
: have been in boats that in big seas the control surfaces get taken over by
: the water and wind. In this design the boat design stayed firmly in
: partnership with its skipper rather then turning itself over to be
: controlled by the wind and surf. I really appreciated that yesterday!

: I pushed hard and made my storm hole. Then wormed myself even deeper into it.
: I holed up under a ledge between two cliffs and under a light house
: sitting in on a kelp bush, and just sculled keeping station. Just out side
: my storm hole waves were climbing the cliff walls and making some pretty
: great thunder on their own.

: When the lightening started jamming. I pulled a petrussen maneuver to lower
: my above water profile. It was easy to hang out, just holding to the side
: of my boat. I was blessing my full wet suit I wear even on a 90 degree
: afternoon. When the lightening counted 2 plus miles out, I sculled out a
: bit, then rolled up easily, and waited for the sea to calm down a bit. As
: I waited I listened on my VHF to other bigger boats yachts farther out to
: sea distressing about the weather as it reached them. It reminded me just
: how truly rugged these little Quajaks can be.

: After the storm subsided, I went looking for some scuba divers that had been
: caught under the water in the storm. We all had been suprised. They had a
: similarly exciting 30 minutes at depth! hanging on to rocks and feeling
: the concussion of the thunder rolling through the water. Yikes!

: Nick! This boat design kicks butt for me every day! But when you really need
: to squeeze ever last bit of performance from it, she has plenty of
: performance in reserve! Nick, I remember 2 years ago looking at your boats
: bottoms out in the snow behind your barn; looking at the shapes and trying
: to intuit their performance. Nick, I got a heck of a lot more boat then I
: bargained for. I know you designed this GE beast as a touring boat
: but....Wow she does a whole lot more. The more I work her, and I am
: working her very hard, the more I am impressed by her! A huge Thankyou for
: this very incredible design!

: She brought me in safe from the storm and that.....is a pretty good test of a
: design!

: Thanks again,
: !RUSS

Hi Russ,
I thought I knew all Nick's designs, having paddled three of them. I don't know what a Guillemot GE is. The only 20' boat I see on Nicks site, is a double.

Sounds like you had a great "extreme conditions" experience. I read it twice. That kind of paddling is way beyond my level.

Larry C.