Making the World's Fastest Kayak

bart_scriv writes "BusinessWeek looks at the world's fastest kayak, which floats over the water rather than nosing through waves like more typical boats. Named 'Little Wing' for the fore and aft wings that add stability, the kayak is the creation of Ted Warren. An MIT-educated engineer, Warren 'played around for three years with 3-D wire mesh designs on his PC, crunching the numbers for speed and stability, then started building actual models to test in the waters near his Massachusetts home.'"

Comments

Not even close to the world's fastest

[Maximum Prophet]

It took this guy 3 hours to cross 13 miles. The world's fastest kayak can do 16.9 mph. http://www.kayakwisconsin.net/2006/01/blur.html

Nice, but I'd rather have a hydrofoil kayak

[PapayaSF]

Like this one. And did you all know that Alexander Graham Bell was a pioneer in hydrofoils?

What?

[Red Flayer]

FTS:

BusinessWeek looks at the world's fastest kayak, which floats over the water rather than nosing through waves like more typical boats.

Huh? Not remotely -- this is not a hovercraft. This is simply an ultra-light kayak with a differently shaped hull based on racing boat designs.

Nor is it the world's fastest kayak, at least not according to TFA. The best it's finished in a competitive race is 6 seconds out of 1st place.

OK, it's pretty cool, and I'd like to take it on the Hudson sometime. But don't overhype it, please.

Re:What?

[Ungrounded Lightning]

FTS:
BusinessWeek looks at the world's fastest kayak, which floats over the water rather than nosing through waves like more typical boats.

Huh? Not remotely -- this is not a hovercraft. This is simply an ultra-light kayak with a differently shaped hull based on racing boat designs.

The blurb makes it sound like he added hydrofoils, so it would actually "fly", rasiing the hull (mostly?) out of the water.

I was excited by this, thinking that maybe somebody had figured out a way to do man-powered hydrofoils simply, in a solid, unjointed form. Perhaps by letting the hull tuch water occasionally to provide pitch control rather than providing something like a "skimmer" to sense the surface level and adjust the angle of the fore foil (requiring a pivot joint - a moving part in a seawater environment) or using angled foils penetrating the surface for feedback (and wasting power by having foils with lift in two directions canceling each other without canceling the associated drag).

But then I read the article.

It looks like he hung a couple "wing keels" on the hull, one fore one aft. Absent any lift on the wing (entirely separate from its normal function) to lift the hull and reduce its friction, this should do nothing but improve the hull's resistance to crosswise slippage from wind and improve its ability to maintain a course by resisting turning without adding appreciable drag. (Judging by the writeup, it didn't even do that well, or at all.)

(A wing keel is essentially a fin keel - a straight-down waterfoil - with the end cut off and a short crosswise wing (also foil-shaped for minimum friction) substituted, making an inverted "t" with a narrow crossbar. A fin keel resists side-slippage. But water runs around the end, so the last foot or so provides little side force and is just there to make the water take enough of a trip to keep the rest of the fin operating. Substituting a short crosswise wing for the end of the fin does the same job without penetrating as deep into the water - important if you want to work in shallows. The main downside is that as the hull heels over to one side you lose resistance to side-slippage a bit more abruptly.)

It would be interesting to see a writeup that actually tells us what this hull's design is supposedly accomplishing and how it does it, rather than making puffy claims followed by a meandering story that doesn't support them.

Re:But can it go...

[CheddarHead]

Can it go over a waterfall or down some steep rapids? Gliding is great, as long as you have something to glide on, which isn't the case in some of the more turbulent rapids.

It's an ocean kayak, not a white water kayak. Perhaps you were not aware, but kayaks are not all created equal. White water kayaks are shorter, and more maneuverable. Ocean kayaks are longer, more stable, and with more pronounced keels for better tracking in the wind. This kayak was not designed for waterfalls and rapids.

Re:Overhyped article - a planing hull kayak

[wsherman]

So this is a planing hull.

The article was light on details but it's not possible for a human kayaker to generate enough power to get the hull up "on plane". For purely human powered kayaks (not surfing waves) the fastest hulls are displacement hulls that minimize the wetted surface area of the hull cross section. That is, fast kayaks are very long and the hull cross section is a semi-circle (very hard to turn and very unstable).

Re:Not the fastest with me in it

[Anonymous Coward]

They obviously do a better class of kayak in the US of A (assuming that's where you're from).

Considering the "Brit boat" mystique in the kayaking community, I hardly think this is the case. Builders like P&H, Valley, and NDK are making outstanding kayaks in your part of the world which are perfectly capable of high performance while carrying big paddlers.

Excellent point, but

[Red Flayer]

I think we know. The thing is mono-hulled, only 18 feet long, and has a traditional rudder. Even if you want to exclude catamaran and trimaran kayaks, you're not going to be able to compete with the fastest kayaks out there -- which are longer and have underwater foil rudders.

Now, if the question is whether or not this is the fastest kayak you can get for under $5k, maybe you're onto something.

Note that max speed increases as hull length increases, though this depends on the seas as well. And I'm also referring to straight-line speed, a more maneuverable kayak will outperform a very long one on there-and-back type races of moderate or short length.

Speed and water resistance

[pjunold]

The expression 'world fastest kayak' is somewhat like 'world fastest running shoes'. Race kayaking is all about the motor and to a much lesser degree about the kayak.

It makes much more sense to speak about the water resistance of various kayak designs. For some given athlete(balance skills, strength and technique) racing some given distance in some given conditions one could even speak of an optimal design. As a general example - the kayaks used for sprint racing are different from the kayaks used for marathon racing.

On a related note genetic algorithms have been applied to the problem of finding an optimal hull given a number of constraints: http://www.cyberiad.net/library/kayaks/racing/raci ng.htm
Nothing revolutionary turned out though.

/Peter

A(nother) kayakers perspective

[Evil Oli]

Having been paddling for several years competitively I can make the following observations:

1. Yes paddling on flat water is different to paddling on ocean/sea conditions. Generally it is harder and slower paddling in choppy water, however if you are experienced you will know how to best make use of the wind and weather conditions in order to increase your speed. Depending on the swell and wind direction you can quite often get equal speed compared to flat water and sometimes much greater speeds if assisted by good swell.

2. Carbon fibre is nothing flashy in a kayak; most competition kayaks, and increasing numbers of recreational kayaks are made with carbon fibre.

3. US$5000 is way too much to spend on something that is so ugly and slow as this kayak. You can easily pick up a K1 racing kayak weighing around 20-25 pounds which would go much faster for around US$2000-2500. And THAT is expensive.

4. Judging by the content of the article, and despite the author being a novice, you would expect an amazingly fast kayak to be faster than the reported time. Much cheaper and probably stabler kayaks are faster and cost less (and are less ugly).

I could go on and on. The whole article and indeed the kayak itself are all wrong.