: First, if you are new to kayaking, you will want to develop your stroke for
: efficiency and to control tracking before modifying your kayak. An
: efficient stroke is one that does not require a lot of correction. After
: working on my stroke and becoming familiar with my first kayak I found I
: wanted more maneuverability. So I suggest you paddle for a year before you
: start gluing and chopping on your kayak.

I second that ! Try paddling a highly rockered white water kayak (in flat
water, not much wind) for a couple of sessions. Getting these to go straight
educates your senses to be more sensitive to the very slight movement at the
start of turning that you can correct without breaking your paddling rhythm,
just by pulling a little harder or longer, or sweeping your paddle a fraction
wider. It also teaches you that correction strokes have a habit of applying
power that makes you go a bit faster, which makes the whole thing go a lot
more wiggly - you learn to do correction by applying a bit _less_ power on
the other side, or sweep your paddle closer to the boat ...

Once you can paddle a really poor tracking boat in a straight line at a
reasonable speed (which will be slower than for a sea kayak - whitewater
boats are just plain slow because they are short) try your sea kayak again
in a cross-wind and see if you still find that you are having to do stern
rudders or lean the boat unconfortably to keep on line (and remember that
turns are leaned the opposite way in a sea kayak from a white water boat:).
If so, then it becomes worth while trying a skeg.

But once you have a skeg to trim, don't just paddle in the cross winds that
are giving you trouble ! You need to be sure that you can paddle almost into
the wind (just off, say 10-15 degrees either side). If you can do this OK,
then you don't have too much skeg. Too much skeg will give you lee helm,
and this means that all the energy you need to paddle into the wind - which
you may need to keep up for long periods - will go instead into keeping
straight. This is far more demoralising than having to do correction strokes
when crossing or running down wind - it may make the difference between
making progress and having to lay up storm bound for an extra day or more !

Andy