I actually made some graphs: waterline length vs speed and It's difficult to see the correlation shorter kayaks being faster. At 8 km/h and above, waterline length starts to help because less wave making resistance.

Just paddling at 6 km/h or so you can do it with shorter kayak just fine. In some chop it will be worse than longer one. But in other hand, shorter can be better in tight chop.

I would add one thing - longer kayaks can look better because they are slim.

ps. I've now got 53 kayaks in my virtual pool. Almost all can be downloaded as Freeship models too.

Toni.

: If you don't mind going slow, a shorter kayak will usually be easier to
: paddle at slower speeds than a longer one. Just doesn't have the ability
: to go fast if you want to. Also to gain the same amount of floatation a
: shorter kayak has to be wider so it'll tend to be a bit more difficult to
: roll, it's just more stable upside down than a skinner one.

: Bill H.