Speed Question

Firstly, thanks to everybody that replied to my question about edging a ski to turn. Lots of opinions.

I have yet another question.

I was out in my new Stellar SR yesterday. Nice flat water on the lake. I brought along a friend who was paddling my 18 foot sea kayak. The beam on the kayak is 24 inches.

As I felt quite stable in the Stellar I gave it a go. Full speed ahead or so I thought.

After a minute or two I look back and she is right on my tail !
Try as I might I could not shake her until after a few minutes she tired.

Now I was in a longer ski with less beam and using a wing paddle. She was in a clunky kayak using a flat paddle. Not sure why she was able to keep up?

I will add that at 265 pounds I am overweight and maybe the ski was so low in thwe water that the added resistance was a key factor. Maybe as she weighs about 130 pounds the kayak was not deeply submerged and that helped her.

I'm not sure and would value any opinions.

She is not an accomplished paddler and has only been in a kayak twice before! Not an ego thing but just a bit demoralizing.

ouch!

There are a lot of verables here. Just becouse skis are longer and skinner doesn't mean there a free ride to speed. You still need to push it to speed and keep it there. Skis come into there own on the faster end of speed spectrum rather than the middle. Less of a limit on speed potental than "free" intermedit speeds. When I'm paddling my SR at a moderate effort 70% MHR cruise I'm at about 6.2-6.3 mph. I have sea kayakers try and keep up with me all the time and most can for a short time and ocationaly someone stays with me for a mile or two but they are spending a lot more energy than I am. If I kick it up to a race pace some can still hang in there, for a short distance but that's it. This is with people in a fat sea kayak.. If it's a fast sea kayak and a fit paddler things are much closer and if a very fit paddler then he might beat me. Remember the difrence in speed between a fast sea kayak hull ( V8, Stellar S18s ..etc) and an elite ski at a moderate cruise is around 1mph give or take. I'm only .2 mph slower in my S18s (a fast kayak hull) than my SR... Farting around a lake on a recreational paddle or fun downwind they feel similar in speed .. In a 10k race the S18s is much slower. The SR responds to being pushed harder better than the s18s... As expected. But remember, the SR is not a great flat water boat, it's a much better boat the rougher it gets.

Bill

To continue my diatribe.

Not knowing how much time you have in skis or using a wing I will just say, beginning ski paddlers are slow, at least I hope that wasn't just me. . Again, there is little free speed in moving to a ski and nearly none in just having a wing. All reasonably sleek kayaks move threw the water efficiently up to a certain point then you need to really push them to go faster and small gains in speed require exponentially more effort. If you are new to skis and wings there is a lot to learn and a lot for your body to learn and new muscle to develop and muscle patterns to develop to go faster. Just having a wing does very little for speed. Learning to use it correctly and training your body to do this is a never ending task. After two years with a wing and coaching my brain and body are just beginning to feel like there getting the hang of using a wing. I'm sure that feeling will stick around for the next ten years or more. Definitely seek out some solid coaching for using a wing, It will pay dividends. When I began ski paddling in my SR I could only keep up 5.8 mph over 10k at 70% MHR and was spent at the end. My 10k TT was 6.1 mph and I thought I might die while crossing the finish line. Now, I can paddle at 6.2-3 for 20k at 70% MHR and feel tired but not spent, and my 10k TT in the SR is now 6.7-8 and I finish strong. I have been paddling skis for two or so years and those modest speed gains took a lot of work. Again... There is little free speed just moving to skis.

In the pure physics world, your mass and her mass difference most likely put the wetted surface advantages you get in a ski in the dumpster. Resistance wise, you might have been a lot closer than you think. The SR only having an advantage when pushed hard and if you can't push hard ( I couldn't when I started even if I felt I was) then your both paddling at moderate speeds and with the lack of whetted surface difference your speeds will not be that different. This is total speculation on my part but I think ( hope) you get what I'm trying to say*...



*there is little free speed in moving to skis.


Clearly, I have has too much coffee.

Bill

Newbflat wrote: To continue my diatribe.

Not knowing how much time you have in skis or using a wing I will just say, beginning ski paddlers are slow, at least I hope that wasn't just me. . Again, there is little free speed in moving to a ski and nearly none in just having a wing. All reasonably sleek kayaks move threw the water efficiently up to a certain point then you need to really push them to go faster and small gains in speed require exponentially more effort. If you are new to skis and wings there is a lot to learn and a lot for your body to learn and new muscle to develop and muscle patterns to develop to go faster. Just having a wing does very little for speed. Learning to use it correctly and training your body to do this is a never ending task. After two years with a wing and coaching my brain and body are just beginning to feel like there getting the hang of using a wing. I'm sure that feeling will stick around for the next ten years or more. Definitely seek out some solid coaching for using a wing, It will pay dividends. When I began ski paddling in my SR I could only keep up 5.8 mph over 10k at 70% MHR and was spent at the end. My 10k TT was 6.1 mph and I thought I might die while crossing the finish line. Now, I can paddle at 6.2-3 for 20k at 70% MHR and feel tired but not spent, and my 10k TT in the SR is now 6.7-8 and I finish strong. I have been paddling skis for two or so years and those modest speed gains took a lot of work. Again... There is little free speed just moving to skis.

In the pure physics world, your mass and her mass difference most likely put the wetted surface advantages you get in a ski in the dumpster. Resistance wise, you might have been a lot closer than you think. The SR only having an advantage when pushed hard and if you can't push hard ( I couldn't when I started even if I felt I was) then your both paddling at moderate speeds and with the lack of whetted surface difference your speeds will not be that different. This is total speculation on my part but I think ( hope) you get what I'm trying to say*...



*there is little free speed in moving to skis.


Clearly, I have has too much coffee.

Bill

Thanks for your input. I had thought (mistakenly?) that a move to a ski would give me large gains in speed. I try to concentrate on technique but have not gotten formal coaching. Watching lots of vids on wing paddle (straight entry, exit at hip etc)

I have lots to learn.

If nothing else I love the fact that reentry in the ski is a breeze compared to the kayak.

Thanks again

Think of it like going from cruising around on a mountain bike, then moving to a road bike because you want to go faster. You will get a bump in speed just from lightness and a more ergonomic peddling position but only a small a drop in rolling resistance difference if the mountain bike has slicks on it , but that's it. Now you have to peddle it fast and that's all about the engine. If you not peddling fit then it doesn't matter that your on an 18 lbs carbon fiber wonder. The half fit guy on the 24 lbs mountain bike with slicks is going to smoke you leaving you to cough up a lung while trying to catch him on that hill.

The SR is an excellent boat to learn on, especially for a larger paddler and will help you learn quickly the basics of using a wing without struggling in a tippy ski. It's stable enough to look after you in rougher water and let you put power down. In time you will be able to keep up with the people that leave you behind in flat water in there fast skis. Not in flat water but when it starts to get rough. Lots of intermediate paddlers are over skied, that includes me. I'm still faster in rough water in my SR than my V10. For me rough water is fun in my SR and still scary in my V10.

Find some coaching or attend some clinics on using wings and paddling skis and get in a regular paddling routine working on aerobic fitness. Best thing I ever did for my paddling technique was to get videoed and critiqued. I could immediately see why I was having issues with my shoulders and wasn't doing things I thought I was. It made a huge difference in one day! Most of all enjoy that first year of paddling as your speed increases "quickly" and "easily" ... After everything comes together with a base level of fitness and good basic paddle technique, those 10ths of a MPH require more and more work to bag...

Bill

I did a bit of a comparison may years ago and was very surprised at the results.
www.fennkayaks.co.nz/speed.htm

In those days the Fenn Millenium was the top end ski, and the XT entry level.

For mph take kph and divide by 1.6.

And then there was this... It was on Epic's website but it's gone now I think..
It was Barton's comments on the difference in speed between skis over a 10k corse....


"The numbers they give are as follows:

Greg [Barton, former Olympic champ, still in the top 10 usually at races with current surfski champs]:

Epic 16X: 46:40
Epic 18X: 45:50
Epic V10 Sport: 45:00
Epic V10: 44:00
Epic V12 & Legacy ICF: 43:30


Intermediate Level Paddler:

Epic 16X: 53:50
Epic 18X: 53:10
Epic V10 Sport: 52:40
Epic V10: 52:00
Epic V12: 51:45
Epic Legacy ICF: 52:40 (slower in Legacy due to stability issues)"

Bill

As above, top speeds can show a significant difference between a ski and a sea kayak, however when I paddled my sea kayak with my wing paddle before getting into skis my average speed was about 8.5km/h, when I got my first ski it only improved to about 9.5km/h for the same effort (longer steady paddles). It was disappointing at the time as I expected much more. Many of my longer ski paddles are still in the 9.5-10.5km/h range. However top speed in the sea kayak is only about 10.5km/h where as the top speed in a ski for me is more like 14-15km/h.

Going from 8.5 to 9.5 kph is a huge difference. That would be over 7 minutes on a 10 km course.

I read your post and appreciated with you, Now i want to join your service to making good health & bets running speed using Ergometer exercise machine.

"Only" 1 km/hr faster. Yes, that made me laugh, Greg. How much faster did you expect to go?

Btw, I can paddle faster and more efficiently than my large male friends in kayaks but much of that is technique. As a gross, but true, generalisation, the median ski paddler is much more interested in performance than the median kayak paddler, who tends more towards the recreational. And good for them. Otherwise I wouldn't be faster than anybody.

The other thing to keep in mind is that at lower speeds the benefits of a longer boat are minimal. At very low speeds a longer boat is actually more work to paddle because friction of hull on water is the main form of drag, rather than wave generation. As you approach racing speeds (10 kph and up?) wave generation becomes the predominant form of drag, and the long boats get a bigger and bigger advantage. Sounds like you have already discovered that as your sprint speed was a massive 40% faster in the ski, compared to a 12% advantage at slower cruising speeds.