The holy grail of surfski design - ultimately ...

Hi Cryder,
I appreciate allowing me to understand more personally what you love about surfski.

I think I owe you a better explanation about my surfski choice (Gorge or Perth Dr.)

I am 40 years old. I paddle almost every day and mostly when I paddle I teach others. That means that I am focussed on delivering on their learning experience on water rather than getting mine. I really enjoy it but it doesn't help my specific fitness buildup at all.

I have the opportunity to paddle on my own about 50-60 times per year and this happens in two blocks. One is summer time between July and August and one is in winter time in January. Because my sessions are spread so far apart I have given up working on specific fitness as it would never hold for 4 months before I can do another build up, I decided to work exclusively on my downwind skills and to approach my surfski as one would approach their surfing.

I go out to surf, I am obsessed with efficiency and try to use the least amount of energy to catch each wave I surf.

So based on the information above if I went to Perth or Gorge and we had great downwind at 30 - 35 knots I know in my head what I can do in those conditions. For my final result in any of those races the time difference between paddling an elite boat or V8 for example would be approximately 1:00 - 1:30 for every hour on water. That difference is not guaranteed and it could be a lot less but if everything worked well this is what it is going to be.

Where would I be realistically if I did my best in the best choice boat (fastest for me for that day)?

I would say that if I am lucky I would be in top 100 in Perth and maybe about the same in Gorge. If we say that I do really really well then maybe I am in top 50 which I seriously doubt.

If I look at the race results and I see how many places difference I would get for paddling 1-2 min slower or faster then maybe I will move 5-10 places in either direction, maybe finishing 121st instead of 135th or maybe finishing 35th instead of 49th.

When I do these calculations I ask myself: "So what"?

What does it matter if I am 50th or 100th?

But what matters for me is that I know Perth is not Tarifa and I know that while I can have relatively safe paddle here at 50+ knots this same wind will be really scary at the coastline of Australia and I would always chose more stable boat for my week of paddling before the race and at the actual event.

The same goes for Gorge. If I am there for the first time especially I am going to take a boat i know and feel comfortable in.

I am not sure why but I would probably use your exact words to describe my session in V5 today. I feel every movement of the water under my boat and it reacts to the tiniest touch of the rudder or shifting of my body weight.

I find special satisfaction in the development of the skill to catch fast waves with a boat that is supposed to not allow me to do that.

Thanks for taking the time to connect here at the forum.

Boyan

Hi Davgdavg,
I appreciate your point and I will try to be more sport specific and avoid metaphors.

This is what I am getting from the people who expressed opinion of how unstable boats have more benefits:

1. Unstable boat will automatically keep you out of trouble because if the conditions exceed by a large margin your abilities to deal with them in that boat that means you will not make it and will stay safe.

2. Unstable boat gives you positive learning challenge because it will make it harder to control and thus build your skills.

3. Unstable boat will teach you better technique because it is more challenging and mistakes in the technique become more obvious.


I say you can't have it both ways. Here is why:

Let's put some numbers so it is easier to understand. Lets use Beaufort (let's call them B1, B2, B3...etc) scale for quantifying.

• Let's say that a person of given abilities plus the factor of their unstable boat would result in them being completely in control and unchallenged at B1 type of conditions.

• That same person will feel positively challenged with their unstable boat if we put them in B2 type of conditions.

• That same person will not be able to paddle out in B3 type of conditions because their unstable boat will deliver on the promise to be their safeguard, making the decision for them.

So what about putting that same person in a more stable boat:

• They will probably not be challenged in B2 type of conditions.
• They will be positively challenged in B3 type of conditions and...
• Their boat will stop them from going out at B4 type of conditions

What is the difference?

Here is where I see the main difference:

If I am the person with the unstable boat and the conditions I predominantly get are B3 I will never learn how to paddle because my boat will safeguard me from going on the water.

I can achieve the exact same result just by choosing not to paddle at all and it will not require me to have a useless 3000$ worth of boat in my garage.

You can't apply different formulas to the different sides of the argument. If you say that someone can do something stupid on a stable boat then you also have to say that someone else can do something stupid on an unstable one. Don't mix up the cause and effect - the boat doesn't cause the problem, bad decisions cause the problem.

I disagree with the comparison to aviation but I will be very happy to use comparison with hang gliding. Why don't hang glider schools teach people how to fly in the most difficult to control racing hang glider?

If unstable surfski are so effective in learning why am I stocking V5 and V8 for our surfski school and not V12 and V14?

Please send me a link to a successful surfski school where they exclusively teach on advanced racing boats no matter the level of their participants?

Pilots start by flying a flight simulator and never from the real thing. Why do they do that?

I think an uneducated pilot will do just as much harm in civil aviation as they would do flying Chesna. But who says that a person in a stable boat automatically has less experience than a person on unstable?

I vaguely remember something someone told me once and it went like this: "if your theory is not confirmed by an experiment or what you observe in reality then your theory is wrong".

Here is a real case of a client of ours:

He bought a "stable" elite boat and logged exactly zero hours paddling for one year. He thought it was his fault and when he came to us I put him in a V8 and he had the time of his life. He went back to Morocco and ditched his elite boat in exchange of V8 Pro and has been sending me photos and videos almost every single day. For just 8 weeks he has spent x 1000 (in reality infinite) times more time on water.

Are you saying that his first year of "experience" with his boat keeping him on dry land 100% of the time counts for anything?

I hope this puts a different perspective on things.

Best regards
Boyan

This is a reply to Dasher - still new to the forum so not sure if it will go directly below his question or at the current end of the topic.

Dasher,

I've been paddling for about 5 seasons (I differentiate between "years" and "seasons" since I am in British Columbia and while I "could" paddle year round, I typically do not paddle from about November to March inclusive. I weigh about 185 pounds and I am just about to "roll over" the odometer to 50 years old. I seem to able to hold 11 kph at will on flatwater (puts me at about 135 bpm on heart rate monitor). It's when I try to get my split times down (or speed up - same thing) that my HR goes over the top and I can't sustain it. Then I suck wind and drop to less than 10 kph while I recover - seems counter-productive.

I still own the V10 as well as the V10 Sport. I need to paddle about 3 km on flat water to get to our harbour mouth where the waves can sometimes be found. So every session includes 6 km of flatwater by necessity. This is why I am so interested in the "maximum hull speed argument". I wonder if I will ever be able to get to the waves faster in my V10 Sport, and I realize that if I use a "faster, less stable" boat, that I probably won't be as confident once I hit the waves.

So unless I transport my boat on a car and connect with other paddlers for shuttles back to start point, there are few occasions for pure downwind runs - more like "work hard against wind and waves"; hold breath while turning abeam (I'm getting better), then try to catch a few waves before the shoreline and bow meet. Repeat until too tired to continue (sadly this seems to come fairly quickly). My typical session is 60-90 minutes in total.

Some days when the wind is absent I use the V10 and try to work on my flatwater speed and technique. I will humbly submit that there is not a huge speed difference for me between the two boats (V10 is performance layup and V10S is Ultra so weights are 32-34 pounds and 24-25 pounds respectively). As you might expect, the acceleration is better with the lighter boat, but the glide at max speed is more or less the same (for me at my current level of fitness/technique).

I also have access to a couple of V8's and have decided to use one of them on days where the wind and waves make me think twice about going out in my Sport. I did notice about 1.0-1.5 kph difference on flats with the V8, but the added confidence in the waves made it worth it, and my top speed on waves was about the same as I typically get in this harbour (15.5-16.0 kph).

I have trialed a few of the newer generation of boats and I feel that the trend to a lower volume bow and more forward seat would yield positive results for me. So I am on the lookout for a used "newer" boat. I tell myself that there are far worse vices.

I hope this helps.

Rick

With water like this who needs a V5?



Looks like there's a leash r two missing but I could be wrong.

Nice video LakeMan
It was made by one of our guests from Israel.

We take safety very seriously and no one goes out at sea without a leash. The only time we ask our paddlers to take the leashes off is when we practice surf skills. If they don't remove them we can easily go through 10 broken leashes in one training session and the beach break always brings boat and paddler to the beach anyway

Best Regards
Boyan

Nicely done.

Glad to hear people wear leashes.

On davgdavg's point ...
as fas as I remember "drowning" or "near drowning" stastistics (paddling): these accidents mostly occur only a few meters from shore (inland lakes, rivers as well as ocean) and mostly happen with recreational paddlers > SOT, SUP recently increasingly adds itself to the statistics, CANOE, INFLATABLES and kayaks, mostly cold water is the reason (more so though: warm air temperatures combined with cold water) for dramatic outcomes.

It is possible that if unexperienced folks are not stopped by tipping over after a few meters then go for the extra mile to places where they should not be .. but then you'll still have "stable" SOTs, SUPs, fishing kayaks where folks go out too far as well ...

S600 imo means for serious regular paddlers, use a ski (whichever) that you can handle in all conditions, know your limits, improve. It does not mean that all WE-paddlers should get a V5 for rock gardening or DW on the same day ... but taking davgdavg's concers, will people get the point, no matter how often the messenger emphasizes what is meant?

Imo, one can not force common sense on all middle aged out of shape dare devils anyway. Insanity starts already on the streets when former mammoth hunters and saber tiger fighters (which 10k years later are stuck in middle management or in a cubicle) compensate by racing to the water sides and find their climax in weird parking stunts. Some risked the lifes of others on the streets already before arriving at the beach, try to discuss "safe driving" with these species or "safe paddling" lol.

PS: I'd still distinguish between DW paddling and flat water desires though as balancing a tippier faster ski is part of the stuff that some want to master on flat water. It's clear that it also depends where you paddle flat water > big lakes with unpredictable winds/weather (and waves), rivers with strong currents or the local "pond". We know that the flat water "upgrades" to tippy skies are often too early and for a long while do not result in the hoped for speed increase if the technique and strength suck (that would be me lol). For lonesome fitness paddlers it should not matter it they finish their "after/pre work 10k course" 30 sec or 1 min earlier, but it matters if they tip over into cold water, are eyhausted from paddling and have problems to remount that tippy ski, no matter how protective the clothing. So besides DW, I'd see the S600 safety philosophy being applied to flat cold water paddling. Winterpaddling = V7 for me for example.

As lakeman said, one could apply common sense.

Uffilation wrote: On davgdavg's point ...
as fas as I remember "drowning" or "near drowning" stastistics (paddling): these accidents mostly occur only a few meters from shore (inland lakes, rivers as well as ocean) and mostly happen with recreational paddlers

There was one of these reports lat year in the UK - it indicated that kayak incidents had doubled in 5 years. Cue much harrumphing from sea kayakers (a tribe which has a 'safety belief system' that virtually 180degrees from that of surfski funnily enough). Apparently it was all the fault of those SOTs...even though the numbers were just for kayaks in general.

But while the incidents have doubled, the use of SOTs has likely far outstripped this. There are no official numbers that I know of, but a conservative estimate locally is 5 SOTs for every SINK on the sea, very possibly 10+. Seen in this light a doubling of incidents would suggest that SOT 'beginners' are on average rather safer than sea-kayakers.

So with davgdavg's point - there are no official numbers on surfski incidents but looking at those that get reported here and incidents I'm aware of in races in the UK, it seems to tally much more closely with Boyan's outlook. Most seem to happen to people in intermediate and above boats and often these people are not complete beginners. at least to kayaking in general. If there's a particularly risky group it seems to be experienced flatwater kayakers who believe they need a fast boat, but who have little experience of the sea.

Davgdavg's 'problem' beginner is the prototypical, know-nothing guy off the street (also much beloved of sea-kayaker discussions) who needs to be excluded on safety grounds by the use of advanced kit. I don't really believe most people taking up surfski fall into this category.

A better definition for a 'risky' beginner is where there is a discrepancy between an individual's ambition and ability. There's a Top Gun quote about that...

Sea-kayaking and surfski are birds of a feather in this regard - for many participants there's a perpetual disconnect between the skills they have the time/inclination to develop and what they aspire to do (or more specifically have been told is the thing to aspire to).

Local club sea-kayakers own an avalanche of dayglo safety kit and an 'expedition' boat, and yet can't roll in any but the most benign conditions. If they were realistic they'd admit all they really do (and secretly want to do...) is potter along the coast on daytrips, and a decent SOT (say a V5 ) would allow them to do this with a much greater safety margin.

I sold my intermediate boat recently - originally I entertained the idea of it becoming my main race boat. In the end I realised - as Boyan points out - that the amount of time and effort needed to become fully competent in it just simply wasn't worth (for me personally - your mileage will vary) the incremental increase in speed, reduction in safety and zero increase in the perception of 'fun' over the V7. I find the V5 maybe even more fun - in fact it's a quite different experience - more a waveski/surfski hybrid than a pure ski.

Ok, to each his own.

Hi davgdavg,

as to the question of whether rather a stable or a tippy boat teach you something:

Depends on a) what you want to learn, and b) where to use what.

to a): Boyan primarily wants to teach people efficient downwind surfing. For that you have to be able to focus on the waves, and to put the lever down when needed. A tippy boat will distract you from that. For trying to master a tippy boat, you need not travel to Tarifa.

to b): I agree with you that is helps a lot to practice in a tippy boat in moderate conditions. At least it helps MY balance and command also of stable boats in the ocean, clearly. Beginners in our club even manage to tip over in 65cm wide ferries, and they do not improve much their rough water capacities if they to not challenge themselves with somewhat narrower boat eventually.

So my need for a sleek intermediate surfski is not so much driven by the wish to paddle it in the ocean, but three other things:

1. I need the balance challenge in the moderate conditions I have at my disposal.
2. I want a boat that I can quickly remount in case I capsize when riding barge wakes.
3. I want a boat that I can race at FW competitions.

Of course I could also heighten the seat of a 'slow' ski to achieve point 1, but that would not help for point 3. So I will not abandon my search for the Holy Grail ... or do you guys have other purposes in life?

Impala, that sounds like two skis to me ... same as with bikes, why crossbreed a racing bike and a mountain bike, instead of having one for the respective activity. Horses for courses. One for surfing boat wakes on the river (or winter paddling) and one for racing and balance training.

"Or do you guys have other purposes in life? " ... like convincing the better half that I need a shed for two skis?

Hi Impala,
I like that you have point 1,2,3 to keep your decision making process in tact and I would still insist that point 3 doesn't compulsory mean that an elite surfski will deliver best results. You need to define what FW racing means in terms of speed:

• For 10 kph average you don't need anything more than V8.
• For up to about 11.0 - 11.5 kph average speed you don't need anything more than V10 Sport.
• For about 12.0 - 13.0 kph average speed you can look into V10, V12, V14.

Based on the above you need to ask yourself two questions:

1. What is your race speed on FW?
2. How much time and energy do you have to better the speed from point 1

Keep in mind that with age our ability to maintain speed is more likely to reduce than increase and the same goes to our ability to keep balance.

Best Regards

Boyan

Did I understand correctly that the amount of effort going into pushing a V10S and V14 on flat water for an hour at 11 kmh is the same? (with enough balance for the V14)

SurfskiEstonia wrote: Did I understand correctly that the amount of effort going into pushing a V10S and V14 on flat water for an hour at 11 kmh is the same? (with enough balance for the V14)

No, this is not what this means. The correct interpretation is:

• If you paddle V14 with 11 kph average on the flat that indicates serious deficiency in stroke technique. The reason is that If your stroke was mainly correct and your stability level mainly adequate then by being able to paddle with 11 kph average in V10 Sport should immediately translate to at least 12.5 kph average speed on V14 with no additional effort.

From the above that means that anyone who went for the V14 upgrade is not technically ready to do so.

The biggest mistake people make is to think that being able to stay upright in their surfski means that they are at that level and there is nothing further from reality.


Best Regards
Boyan

Boyan

Where do you get those numbers?

You said that unless you are able to increase your speed from 11 kph in a V10S to at least 12.5 kph in a V14 (that is a 14% increase!) you have a "serious deficiency in stroke technique". Greg Barton only get a 2.8% average speed increase by changing from the V10S to the V14 (see my previous post). Do you really think he is lacking in technique?

Plus, by attributing such large difference in average speed to the boats you seem to be going against your initial arguments. The heat of the battle, I guess

Hi Malvina
I get my numbers from practical experience.

Greg's graph is based entirely on theoretical calculations based on his design. I am ready to bet that he will not be able to paddle v5 at 12.5 kph over an hour paddling but i am not going to start an argument about it because i know that the general idea of what he says is correct - don't upgrade your boat if this is going to sacrifice your stability.

I'm not sure why you attribute Greg's technique toward a theoretical computer model. What is the connection? If I had written the computer model would the theoretical illustration be attributed toward my technique?

I am not going against my argument for stable boat one bit. I never said that surfski 600 meant one model surfski for all.

I said:

1. Get a stable boat
2. Practice your skills
3. Have fun

How did this change by me saying that if you upgrade from v10 sport to v14 and you don't get at least 1.5 km speed improvement and not sacrifice on stability, you should not upgrade?

My biggest challenge here is that I am trying to argue practical finding vs theories and this is not easy to do especially when speaking to practically anonymous characters.

If I knew who i was speaking to i would have been able to research and give more informed suggestions that could guide decisions.

Best Regards
Boyan

Boyan Zlatarev wrote: Hi Impala,
I like that you have point 1,2,3 to keep your decision making process in tact and I would still insist that point 3 doesn't compulsory mean that an elite surfski will deliver best results. You need to define what FW racing means in terms of speed:

• For 10 kph average you don't need anything more than V8.
• For up to about 11.0 - 11.5 kph average speed you don't need anything more than V10 Sport.
• For about 12.0 - 13.0 kph average speed you can look into V10, V12, V14.

Based on the above you need to ask yourself two questions:

1. What is your race speed on FW?
2. How much time and energy do you have to better the speed from point 1

Keep in mind that with age our ability to maintain speed is more likely to reduce than increase and the same goes to our ability to keep balance.

Hi Boyan,

I totally agree to all of your points. Just my background, I started paddling 25 years ago and marathon adventure racing 10 years ago, and developed my boat use from race sea kayak (Kayakpro Nemo, an incredibly good kayak for smaller paddlers) to own designs that were never more narrow than 51 cm. I currently own a sea kakak with surfski pedals and underfloor rudder that is comparable to the V8 (but faster ), and an intermediate ski that I can keep above 11.5 kph over 2h (but only when water is deep enough; the downside of this boat is that it sucks in shallow water because it has a relatively fat butt). For the rare occasions I do downwind races, I choose one of these two safe boats, and will likely not change this for the rest of my life. A faster ski is only meant to be misused for training on my river and FW racing, and only if it does not suck in the shallow. But for downwind, I am totally on your side re boat choice.

A remark to Barton's speed table: according to my experience with my different boat types, Greg's estimations of speed differences between his designs are more or less realistic, but I seriously doubt he could paddle a V6 at nearly 13 kph speed over 10km - even 12 kph would be very ambitious. At a winter race series with 10-14 km length I participated in recently, there were really good young race paddlers (extended German national top) in sophisticated K1 racers, but they never were faster than 13.5 kph. Funny imagination that ol' Greg would come in third or so on a V6 (perhaps he would have managed back in his prime, and the table is a reminiscence of that?). And so what, this is not what the V6 was made for, but rather to be fast as hell DW with Boyan inside .

See you soon ...

Hi Boyan,

Today I went out on almost perfectly calm water in my V10Sport. Was able to maintain 11 kph (more or less) - probably closer to 10.5 average over the hour. I tried to do a full out sprint and my max speed was 13.5 kph (and I almost gave myself a hernia ). I can't imagine getting to 15-16 kph. Perhaps some time in the gym is warranted.

All the best,

Rick

davgdavg wrote: Ok, to each his own.

Actually davgdavg it's a fair point - so I looked at some numbers for you.

health.hawaii.gov/injuryprevention/files...How-are-we-doing.pdf

The stats about drownings in Hawaii are certainly eye-opening (though I can't see any mention of kayaking anywhere). However the absolute numbers are actually pretty close (P10, left hand graph). They've chosen to then display the numbers for 'per 100000' of population which certainly makes the tourist deaths look quite significant.

However most tourists likely come to Hawaii for the beach/ocean environment and so spend more time in the water whereas it's not a given that all locals are into watersports in the first place and those that are probably have to fit them round work/family. I think a survey that looked at deaths per hour engaged in watersports might return quite a different result.

Interesting that the Hawaii research (pop'n 1.5million) has resident drownings at about 42 per year.

Here's the drowning statistics for the UK (pop'n 70 million): nationalwatersafety.wordpress.com/
Watersports fatalities for 2015 - 104.

15 deaths for 'manually powered watersports' - it doesn't differentiate between SUP/Rowing/Kayaking, let alone different disciplines or designs.

Of those deaths only 7 were on the sea.

Total watersports participation in the UK estimated to run at +12million: www.rya.org.uk/SiteCollectionDocuments/s...xecutive_Summary.pdf

Canoeing is all lumped in together - approx 1.4million (presumably including SOTs)
Interestingly I see they have added kayak-fishing as it's own category - 70,000 participants...SUP is 210,000, Rowing 300,000.

A generous estimate of surfski participation in the UK might be 500 so any death could be considered far more significant and there have been a few close calls - but not in entry level boats. I don't think the V5/7/8 are somehow going to precipitate armageddon, quite the opposite.

Looking at some US participation numbers - broken down somewhat by discpline:

www.paddlinglight.com/articles/death-sea-kayaking/

Number of Outdoor Participation by Activity in 2006

Whitewater kayaking: 828,000
Sea/Touring Kayaking: 1,136,000
Recreational Kayaking: 4,134,000
Canoeing: 9,154,000
SUP: 0 (it wasn’t tracked)
Kayak fishing: 0 (it wasn’t tracked)

Number of Outdoor Participation by Activity in 2012

Whitewater kayaking: 1,878,000
Sea/Touring Kayaking: 2,446,000
Recreational Kayaking: 8,144,000
Canoeing: 9,839,000 (had a high of 10,553,000 in 2010)
SUP: 1,542,000
Kayak fishing: 1,409,000

My - admittedly dodgy - maths indicates the increase in SUP, Kayak Fishing and Rec kayaking (which i'm assuming is a good chunk of general SOT paddlers) is about 5.3x the increase in sea kayaking. I'd speculate this trend has continued (possibly accelerated) since 2012. Certainly it has been the last 5 years that the SOT and SUP thing has really been noticeable in the UK. So my guess of 5x increase doesn't look unreasonable.

I have the opposite problem, can't hold the average speed around 11 more than half an hour - the form brakes up badly, but can easily sprint up to 16-17 km/h as many times as needed. I am 32 years old, 85kg, going to the gym regularly, reasonable body fat. I paddle a Nelo Ocean Ski L (somewhere between V12 and V14 in terms of stability, as I've read).

Also wanna say, that I'm not hating on You, Boyan. You've shown very nice and approachable attitude on this forum and I appreciate it very much. I just don't think anyone else could get away with advertising a new super ski and it then turning out a joke to prove a point.

I know my technique is not good. I've been paddling a ski for the second season this year, having one season of K1 training, but I can't imagine that I would ever be able to paddle a tippy boat, however long I paddle a stable boat. It's just not the kind of switch that can be made, at least not in my opinion.

I feel that I am much better in applying power in this ski this season than the last by constantly paddling a tippy ski. I also feel that K1 training helps a lot with the technique, making me sit dead straight in the middle and not count on the secondary stability to kick in.

Or do You think I'd make a better progress by paddling something like a V10S? How would a progression to paddle a fast ski be made? I once read something on this forum where a guy said that he wanted to "get that feeling of an efficient hull travelling through water" and that's a definite point for me. We rarely have any big conditions on the beaches here and paddling a very stable ski would not do it for me as it's just kinda boring. Interested in Your views on this and also other forum users