Rehd,

It is my impression that many of the SOF books and classes cater to novice kayakers. The beam of your hips plus two fists is for a "fairly large" hunting kayak in Greenland (which are still smaller than most commonly encountered commercial kayaks). Some of the kayaks built in Greenland use just the flat of your hands on each side of your hips or just two or three fingers, for the beam measurement. For the depth behind the cockpit, a fistmele (fist with raised thumb) is commonly used on larger kayaks, and the measurement of just a fist, for very low volume rolling kayaks. This makes it very easy to lay-back.

Even the larger Greenland kayaks have very low foredeck volume and the Greenlanders have to really wriggle into them. You paddle with very little knee-bend which can be very efficient and comfortable IF you have flexible hamstrings. Today, you will find Greenlanders over 6' tall, and the original anthropometric measurements still work for them.

Volume is also dictated by rib length. For a large kayak Petersen measures a rib by laying it across the gunwales over the rib mortises and adding four fingers to the outside of the gunwales and cutting to this length. For a lower volume kayak, Maligiaq sometimes uses only two or three fingers.

In short, a true Greenlandic kayak is not for everybody and would prove very uncomfortable to someone who is not flexible (many Greenlanders routinely sit on the ground with their legs splayed out in front of them). Most of the kayaks have about 1.5" of freeboard. These are wonderful, high-performance kayaks, but the realities are that many folks want more stability and more room (for themselves and gear) and either are not naturally flexible or are not willing to adopt a stretching program to become comfortable in these kayaks. A very-low volume kayak can be wonderfully comfortable, if you space the ribs so that you sit between them. You can lean backward without any cockpit obstruction and the kayak is so responsive that it seems to respond to your thoughts. Of course, a badly fitting low-volume kayak can be as excruciating as a badly fitting shoe.

The kayak shown below is a beautiful example from Nuuk. The low freeboard and low volume is very typical. With such low volume the kayak would swamp very easily should you exit, but wet-exits are not taught and Greenland and skills such as rolling and staying in the cockpit are emphasized.

If you are curious of the Greenlander's philosopy for volume and sizing, you might find the following quotes from H.C. Petersen interesting, in the message at http://www.qajaqusa.org/cgi-bin/GreenlandTechniqueForum_config.pl/read/2777.

Greg Stamer