In most speeds paddling is mostly about technique, not so much power. If you look the power requirements to paddle a kayak at 6-8 km/h the values are pretty low. We have a local paddling race and the one top paddler there is 65 years old. He averaged 9-9.5 km/h at the 40 km distance. He's not a bodybuilder, more a skinny looking guy. He didn't have a multisport or racing kayak, just quite long "usual" one.

So use efforts to train your technique. The best tip I've got for it is to keep the speed up. With higher speed you'll need to produce more power and then you can feel the differences in techniques. It's very common that when you paddle a slow cruising speeds for a long time the technique can turn to poor, paddling with arms rather than body.

You can feel the difference between 2.1 and 2.3 lbs. While it doesn't seem to be a big difference, you should notice it. You can feel the difference if you paddle 0.5 km/h faster or slower which is about the same difference.

Of course it's possible that the kayak you loaned had scratches in bottom or something which made it slower.

16 feet versin will most likely be a bit slower above certain speed, it deoends on the speed range it's paddled.

Toni.

: I went paddling yesterday with a group of plastic boats. One of the guys
: loaned me a boat to paddle. Now, I am not a young man and I don't get to
: paddle very often. But at the the end of the day I was tired but everyone
: was way faster than me. My ego has no problem with that, especially since
: I was beat and not to impressed with the boat I had been loaned.

: But this got me to thinking about my design and what the numbers really mean
: out on the water. I decided to take the Hydro number and graph them from
: the different versions of the design and just see how they compared. One
: of the big things I was curious about was the scaled down 16' version vs.
: my 19' I was planning on building.

: Once I get these into a graph where I can compare it comes back to what does
: it really mean? How much difference is really noticeable? I used the total
: resistance figure to make my graph. Looking at the 3.5 knot speed there
: the worst design has 2.37 lbs resistance verses 2.1 lbs for the best
: design. Seems minor and I would assume not noticeable to the average
: paddler.

: So this brings me to question. At what point do these number really matter to
: the average paddler? Are we looking at .5 lbs or 1 lbs before we could
: really see a difference?