Hey Malcolm,

The needlenose bow looks cool...it will plunge a bit in seas, but be very efficient to paddle at normal touring speeds. If you pull the gunwales out, you can keep the efficient, fine ends, but get some good reserve buoyancy and flare for a drier ride. An added benefit would be increased secondary stability.

Cockpit placement is largely a function of balance...let Kayak Foundry help you set the cockpit spot...52% back of bow seems fairly common...balanced just enough to avoid leecocking. A visual of the plan view isn't a great tool to set cockpit location...the software's calculation of buoyancy center is a better idea.

If you really like the recurved stern, but feel that it is changing your keel shape overall too much, use the regular bow and stern set points, tweak them to fit, and add the recurved skeg stern in your forms when building the folder. It will change your CLR, but it won't significantly alter your volume and throw your other calculations out of whack.

Shawn

: Hello everyone,

: Here is a very badly scanned image of my plans for the folding kayak so far.
: This was done with Ross Leidy's Kayak Foundry program. It is not designed
: to do hard chines, so I had to manipulate the program a bit to fool it
: into making hard chines. Of course they are slightly rounded hard chines,
: but you get the picture.

: First off, the scan did not see the image correctly where the bow lines
: converge and where the section view overlaps the profile, and therefore it
: made some backwards lines that are not really a true representation, but
: it looks cool anyway... maybe I'll save that for a stripped deck pattern.
: However, one thing you can see is the Greenland style skeg. Talk about
: manipulating Kayak Foundry. To make it draw the skeg I had to move the
: hull control for the bow to the center, and use the center control to make
: the curve for the stern, and the sternmost control I pulled way down to
: make the skeg. Pretty cool looking.

: I should mention that I am not happy with the needlenose bow. I think Jay
: Babina was the one who inspired that, but I'm not sure. Of course I know
: the idea is probably 2,000 years old, but I saw one of Jay's kayaks with a
: really pulled in bow, and liked that. Now I'm thinking I pulled it in too
: much. Also I'm sitting here now looking at the profile view and thinking I
: should definately scoot that cockpit back a bit. Agree?

: Sorry, I left the disk at work, so no hydrostatic data. My printer is out, so
: I took it to work to print. Also at work I have the Beta 1 version, so I
: could not exaggerate the hull to fine-tune it, so this is just a
: preliminary viewing. The masterpiece is yet to come.

: I'm very happy with the profile view. I put a good bit of rocker, and a lot
: of volume in the bow, especially above the water line, so that she would
: ride over the swells. I flattened the aft deck out, but left some rocker
: to the sheer, and I lowered the coaming to the deck in the rear. I doubt
: any water will puddle on this sprayskirt!

: For those of you using Kayak Foundry and want to harden up the chine, the way
: to do it is to go to the "active section" view, and pull the red
: control all the way down, and the orange control that makes the curvature
: all the way to the left. Also if you flatten the deck it will give a nice
: hard chine at the sheer. You can go to the volume distribution and pull it
: in to make the bow and stern concave. This will help in this design since
: it's going to be skinned. I will actually cut the forms a little concave
: between each stringer so they don't interfere with the skin.

: Well, still in the design stages. Now it is your turn. I AM AN AMATEUR. Don't
: assume I know what I'm doing. If you see a potential disaster or a little
: screwup let me know now before I spend all the money putting her together.

: I would really like to hear if you think this hull shape will be too tippy. I
: left it fairly wide and a bit flatter at the center, but I tried to pull
: the bow and stern in concave. It has a good bit of vertical hull panel in
: the water. The waterline would fall just a few inches below the sheer on
: the aft deck.

: I really wanted more chines, but for a folder, and especially a first folder,
: this will be easier to do. Those of you that know your stuff, look at the
: aft section of the plan view. Notice that the lines are rather angular. Is
: that going to be a problem? You will notice a very strong keel line, even
: before the skeg. I figured since this will be a graphite and carbon yak it
: will be very succeptable to weathercocking, and I tried to get plenty of
: backbone in the water to keep her straight.

: Okay, you can look at the picture now.....