I have an old fiberglas touring kayak with a removable fixed skeg that bolts onto the end of the kayak. Due to its design, it weathercocks (points into the wind) in light breezes without the skeg attached, but is manageable for me in most conditions suitable for the boat. The boat pivots about the cockpit (under me) and I control it with sweep strokes and/or paddling predominantly on one side of the kayak. It is no worse in this respect than the whitewater kayaks I usually paddle when paddled straight on flatwater and it is much faster than the WW kayaks. With the skeg attached, the kayak tracks on flat water but tends to lee-cock (points away from the wind), especially with following waves. This is far worse since the non-adjustable skeg now acts as the pivot point far behind me and the kayak is very difficult to keep on course. After a memorable hour or so struggling to keep my kayak on course while paddling back to shore from one of Lake Superior's Apostle Islands where I had camped, I bought a Valley skeg kit to install in the boat. As soon as I need to use the kayak again for similar open water, I'll install it, too.

My opinion is you could use a retractable skeg to advantage for the conditions you mention if you paddle in those conditions or if you run any risk of getting caught in those conditions. This assumes that your kayak weathercocks or broaches (tail slides out to side and points the boat into the wind or up the wave face). Dropping the skeg as needed will add more lateral resistance to the tail of the kayak while minimizing the additional drag. If your kayak (without the skeg) lee-cocks or "falls off" (BOW slides out to side and points the boat away from the wind or DOWN the wave face) a skeg will not help since the stern already has too much lateral resistance in relation to the front and adding more won't help. Lee-cocking should not be a problem in a properly designed kayak such as your CLC (unless the builder modified the design during construction).

For best results, the skeg should be installed 2-4 feet in front of stern. This prevents the skeg from coming out of the water (rendering it momentarily non-functional) when the kayak is on top of a wave or swell like it would if it was installed on the very end of the kayak like rudders. Yes, this eats into rear compartment and makes it harder to load and unload. Some builders add a small, hand-sized deck hatch behind the skeg box to facilitate loading.

Many British sea kayak designs such as Valley, Nigel Dennis (see both at http://www.rapidstyle.com/GRO/kayaks.html) and Finland's Kayak Sport designs(http://www.gokajaksport.com) favor skegs. Paddlers (like my self) that favor skegs cite their advantanges as less drag in operation; simpler mechanism less likely to break or jam; don't compromise foot braces for rolling; new paddlers cannot mis-use them for steering (unlike rudders) and learn to control their kayaks much sooner; don't come out of the water on waves like rear-mounted rudders; doesn't add to windage when retracted; etc. Naturally, paddlers favoring rudders would counter these arguments (more efficient foil designs, stronger designs, better designed rudder-control foot braces, better training, "waves not a problem", integrate rudder into hull, etc.).

Hope this helps

Dave S

: I have a 17ft CLC kayak and am thinking of putting a retractable skeg at the
: stern to give the boat better tracking when paddling in large following
: waves and surfing. The skeg is made by Necky and looks and acts like a
: rudder, except it dosn't swivel of course. Has anyone ever installed and
: used one? I'd appreciate the feedback?