: I see,there was a lot more flair in the rear end so the wave crest would pick
: up the back abruptly and as a result the front end would get rammed into
: the trough quite deeply,makes sense.Is this a characteristic of swedeform
: hulls?
: Was the actual waterline symetrical or swedeform?
: I still think the guy in the scupper pro deserves a round of applause.
: Bert

I don't think it's flare,there's a little in both ends, and the ends are low, but without much reserve buyoncy developing above the waterline the bow didn't have much to resist being driven down. I think thats a part of where the boats twitchiness came from, the rocker made it wave friendly but the tight angle defined by the 3/4" sheerclamps and low bow restricted by the deck removed a lot of freeboard foward and therefore possible support in waves, ie. most of the boat was in the middle.

My remembrence is that it had a fine entry, and stern,,but what the side panels could do in the bow was pretty much the same as what it could do in the stern. ok,,I get it,,if the bottom panels are a tad flatter in the stern to provide some balance for the slightly aft cg and the bow is a tad finer,,if the bow doesn't have a higher "sinkage" than the stern then the stern can drive the bow down more quickly. Or is it the lever the stern can work that bow? I think it was close to symmetrical at the waterline. What I remember was looking at the waterline,visually cutting off the little amount of the bow that extended forward then measuring back about a foot from either end and simply grasping around the hull,,and the stern was bigger the same distance back from the cg,,or close enough that is stood out compared to the other sea kayaks I'd had. My uneducated sense is that you can have different sinkage fore/aft and different levers from the cg that the bouyancy in the ends can lever,,,but also the shape of the hull in the ends provides a different resistance to turning so instead of just tossing weight in the back of the hull,,,the bow and stern should be shaped differently, not the entry but what happens in the water. On that hull if you put the same curve on the stern as the bow I don't think it would handle much differently paddled forward or backwards.
The funny part about the race from CCK in Oakland to Treasure Island and back was that I had just taken a stroke clinic the week before,,was using a 225cm Lightning, installed a little makeshift rudder,and still hadn't really learned good technique so I was pretty much trying to paddle with a deeper forward stroke and higher arms with too long a paddle,,,thank god the guy in the Scupper Pro blew up. I had squishy shoulders for days afterwards and the guys who went around Treasure Island and Yerba Buena nearly 50% longer came flying in ahead of me. Cititzen races are great that way because you can have gorillas paddling Spectrums or Sea Lions and scare the pants of folks with fancy gear but not the desire to hurt.