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Re: Racing kayak?
By:John Soberay
Date: 9/1/2001, 12:47 pm
In Response To: Racing kayak? (Roy)

: I just designed and built a SOF kayak and it is very tippy, and very fast.
: Mine is a 20 inch beam. How wide are racing kayaks?

I'm building a racing kayak too. Anyway, an olympic racer can be a maximum length of 520 cm (17 feet). The minimum weight of 12 kg or 26.4 lbs. There WAS a rule that the boat width had to be 10% of the length (which would be about 20 1/4 inches for a 17 footer, however it was eliminated. The reason being, manufacturers were making boats that were real narrow in the water, then bypassing the rule by making their decks have "wings" like a 1950-something Cadillac -thus the rule didn't really effect the performance of the boats, so they did away with it. For more info, go to www.usacanoekayak.org/ -click on "sprint" and then "boat description". I (actually we) would like to see a picture of your boat!

-john

Messages In This Thread

Racing kayak?
Roy -- 9/1/2001, 10:37 am
Re: Racing kayak? *Pic*
Hans Friedel -- 9/2/2001, 3:25 pm
Re: Racing kayak?
John Soberay -- 9/1/2001, 12:47 pm