: True about the planing float. However, for any float type I would
: try to keep the float out of the water for best speed. That is
: easier in a canoe - which is what I was thinking about at the
: time - than in the narrow cockpit of a kayak, for which the long
: skinny ama would be the way to go. The planing ama has more
: reserve bouyancy for a given amount of material and weight than
: a skinny design and would take up less space for storage and
: transport.

: Probably the ideal design for a kayak ama would be almost as long
: as the kayak with a narrow bottom for lowest resistance when
: slightly immersed and significantly flared sheers to increase
: the displacement rapidly if it is forced down by a gust. That is
: what I have seen on modern trimaran designs. In my experience an
: ama with a lot of down-force on it creates a lot of drag.

Actually modern trimaran's have semi-circular bottom amas with nearly straight sides. The old original tris had nearly triangular amas that caused way too much drag.

Handling can get really tricky if the drag increases as the ama is immersed caused by lots of flare, whole bunch of drag way off to one side, will be much worse on a kayak/canoe with fairly small rudders to compensate.

Bill H.