Reply To: Advice about boats.

#11391
Geza Vamos

Your question about rudders: two ends of the sea kayak design spectrum are west coast designs that are wide and stable, with large hatches for lots of storage, but slow and more traditional inuit/greeland/British style boats made for speed: narrow, tippy, less storage space. The west coast designs depend on a rudder, the traditional designs have a skeg to provide straight line tracking and you steer with rudder strokes, as you do in white water boats. The choice depends very much personal preference and ability – you need to try both styles, ideally in calm water and then with lots of wind and waves, and see what works for you. Personally I like the retractable skegs, however got a rudder on my new boat to enable sailing.