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Kayak and Canoe Design Bulletin Board
Re: Suction and such...
Posted By: Ian Johnston In Response To: Suction and such... (Pete W. P.)
Date: Tuesday, 5 October 1999, at 5:03 a.m.
Okay, now that we have decided that those bulbous protrusion thingies on ships won't benefit a kayak, what is the point of the bifurcated bow on a baidarka?
I have read some sources that say they are a benefit to the performance of the boat, are they? If the bow is pitching too much wouldn't this also negate their effectiveness, or is this a totally different principle?
My personal view is that they are a response to a problem that would exist with a skin boat in the arctic environment. The problem is that of holeing the skin covering when landing the boat on a beach, rocky shore or ice flow. The descriptions of bifurcated bows that I have read all state that they were made out of whale bone or driftwood. It would also appear so from the photographs of authentic baidarkas from museums.
I think that being very practical people the builders would have found that the easiest way to protect the small surface on the point of the bow would be to put a hard surface in front of it. The reason that it is seperate from the boat would be that they still had to wrap the skin around the end of the hull. So this gave them a way to securely fasten the skin and protect it at the same time.
Any improvement to the handling of the boat was simply a lucky side affect of the solution to an immediate problem.
Anyone else have any thoughts? Ian
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