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Sea Kayaks Techniques Bulletin Board
Re: Wind and its effect on kayaking
Posted By: Mike Savage In Response To: Re: Wind and its effect on kayaking (Etienne Muller)
Date: Thursday, 29 May 2008, at 6:50 a.m.
: I forget the math but it is obvious from experience too. The formula is
: something like "a body moving into the wind is affect through
: resistence by its surface area multiplied by the speed of the wind
: multiplied by the velocety of the object" ??? or some such.: From the above you can see that wind has a huge effect when it is opposing
: us. If you were moveing at 5 kph into a 3 kph wind you are feeling the
: effect of 15 kph of wind. What was a virtually negigible airflow quickly
: becomes a gale on a geometric scale. Especially if you cast a wide shadow.: Thus the advent of feathered paddles.
: Considering a kayakers maximum possible speed the wind can very quickly
: convert forward effort into backward movement.: On the other hand, following winds for some reason, seem to have very little
: effect, and the effect is not exponential as for upwind work. This is a
: prime example of Murphy's Law in action. Another prime example is "
: That no matter what your destination, It will always be into the
: wind.": The upside of this is that navigation is always easy if one rembers this law.
: The third law of wind is that "If you are at sea with a splashy paddler,
: they will be upwind of you.": The best one can say for following winds is that they do not hamper you.
: Unless of course you carry a golf umbrella with you that you can deploy or
: you subscribe, as I do to, to the use of unfeathered dustbin-lid paddle
: blades, as discussed in previous submissions, Then they can be very
: useful.: Etienne Muller
Hi Etienne and Michael,
Small mistakes, Et,the apparent wind speed of a kayaker in a headwind is the kayaker speed ADDED to the wind speed, rather than multiplied together.
The formula for wind pressure is W =0.004x(V squared)xA. W = weight of wind in lbs. V = relative wind speed in mph. A = the area of the body effected i square feet.The reason for the extra effort needed to paddle into the wind with a small increase in wind speed is the squaring factor in the wind velocity.
Hope this helps,
Mike Savage
South West Cork
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