: I'm thinking of Maligiaq Padilia (I'm sure that is a butchered version of his
: name, sorry. I mean the Greenland skills champion). His boat looked to be
: about 8 inches tall and only protruded above the waterline three inches or
: so except at the ends. Very low windage, low drag, easy rolls. It's well
: suited to his compact gymnasts body, but not to 200 lb. weekend warriors.

Hi Berkeley,

Maligiaq's Texas-made kayak has only about six-seven inches of depth. When it was pulled up on the beach next to my Anas Acuta (fairly low volume by Western standards) it made my kayak look like a barge. Maligiaq was able to perform most of his traditional rolls in my boat but noted that it was much more difficult of course. He liked the rolling performance of the Romany and Pintail much better. While a 200 pounder would not want to squeeze into Maligiaq's kayak, you could still build a boat proportional for a larger paddler with much less volume than most commercial designs.

Controlling volume while making a Greenland kayak is fairly straightforward. As a general guide if you want a "normal" volume boat then measure the length of the ribs at the rib mortises as the width of the gunwales plus the width of four fingers on each side of the rib. For lower volume use fewer fingers in your measurement. Maligiaq added only two fingers from each hand in his measurement to create an extremely low volume kayak. The same goes for width. The common measurement of your hips plus a fist on each side is for a fairly large hunting boat. For the rolling kayaks used by Maligiaq and John Petersen it is common to use a measurement of the hips plus the flat of the hand on each side.

These boats can be more comfortable (and stable) than common sense would dictate provided that they are custom made to your measurements and foot size. You do need good hamstring flexibility since your legs are fairly straight-out in front of you but this can be solved with regular stretching. Getting your legs under the masik can be a struggle but once you finally "plop" into place the fit can be suprisingly comfortable and these kayaks are very controllable since you don't rattle around in them. I think that the snug cockpit is simply part of the appeal of these kayaks but it would not be too difficult to modify the cockpit or add a little more volume if desired. BTW, Maligiaq's kayak had more volume than the river squirt boats that I have paddled so the volume issue is more than simply a European body size versus an Inuit size issue.

After using Maligiaq's kayak for six months my Anas Acuta nows feels like I am paddling a bathtub and as a result I am working on an 18" wide by 17.6" Greenland skin boat as a "remedy" ;^)

Greg Stamer