: Bert, you're the perfect weight for that boat (pax18),,any opinions on the
: conditions that you would say it's wave handling deficits overcome it's
: flat water speed to make another design appropriate? I mean there must be
: a point at which green water on top begins to slow things down.
Lee ,I'm a student of hull design,not an expert but I do know it will bury the nose in the troughs even in smaller waves(2 or 3 footers)which must be causing some drag.An observant friend of mine noted that it didn't stall on the backside of the wave too much though,not that surf-stall,surf- stall cycle,it just kept moving up the wave back.That was his comments after we raced downwind across a large bay.The only way to prevent pearling would be overhangs or fuller ends which would not contribute to the speed of the hull.It does have a moderate amount of rocker,more than I thought it would so it can be turned if you lean it over on the chines and do sweep strokes but these are not "crisp" turns,a playful boat it is not but sounds much better than the 20 as Dave described in his post.If conditions were really rough I would probably make better time in my Boreal Ellesmere or my daughters Pintail,as the advantages of manouverabilty and extra bouyancy would outweigh the fact that the Pax has a basically "faster" hull.I've heard various criticisms of these boats on other boards but I don't really care,it was a very interesting woodworking project for me and I did a lot of extra artwork and marquetry and am pleased at how it turned out so I don't want to bash it up in the surf anyway .I just finished another greenland paddle,changing the dimensions a bit from my last one and I'm going to do a laminated one next.I am also studying SOF boats,I think one of those would be interesting to make,I think the frames are beautiful and would be nice not to have to deal with epoxy fumes.
Cheers.
Bert