I’m about to re deck my Osprey double. I want the new cockpits closer together than Pygmy’s original plans. (At risk of valuing style over substance, my wife and I are always in “sync” and prefer being close enough to touch... even when we’re paddling) To trim the 20’ boat, since I’m 250#, and she’s 125#, we put the ice chest just behind her front seat and load the bow with stuff, rarely ever using the stern hatch.

The boat has no tendency to “weathercock” in beam wind conditions of ten to fifteen kts.(more than that, I don’t know since we head for shore).

I’d like to know how the placement of the cockpits (center of buoyancy?) will affect the boat’s behaviour in beam winds. Apparently designers build boats to turn into the wind slightly rather than downwind. Since the bows of kayaks are invariably higher than the sterns and sea kayaks have so little rocker, it seems the bow would catch more wind and turn downwind if the paddler was positioned in the center. I can’t seem to find any source that describes the effect and how to control it. Apparently everybody talks about “Weathercocking”, but nobody ever does anything about it. (pardon the paraphrasing.)

thanks again everyone for being such a great resource.

Tom