Short Boats

Dutch Geezer · Post by **Dutch Geezer** » Tue Jun 15, 2004 6:10 pm

There has been a lot of discussion over the last 12 months about short slalom boats, would they work, would they be slower, faster, etc. What do people think now, considering Neil Buckleys performance on Sunday.

Too put it in context, Neil hasn't trained full time since selection and those runs on Sunday were his first timed full runs since then. Also, he had never paddled Mike Daltons new design.

4 metre boats took over 15 years, probably since the Nomad Extreme, to evolve to where they are today. After only twelve months of developing a 3.5 - 4.0 metre boat, we have very quick designs capable of beating current 4.0 metre boats.

Our latest design, the Scimitar, was paddled at a Dutch Slalom last week. At the end of the day after 2 individual and 2 team runs, the winner, over a 80 second course, took over a second off his winning individual time.

These are not slow boats.

We now need as much constructive feedback as possible on these boats so we can give the paddler the best equipment possible. So go try them for yourselves and enjoy your paddling, but dont forget to tell us what you think.

davebrads · Post by **davebrads** » Tue Jun 15, 2004 10:25 pm

I am not surprised at all that the shorter boats are faster. If the optimum length was 4m, as some people were suggesting, then variations in design would mean that some boats would come out slightly longer than 4m. This has never been the case, so the ideal length for a slalom boat must be less than 4m.

Is 3.5m the ideal length then? The new Nomad boat is 3.6m long, which suggests that they feel that the optimum length may be slightly longer than the minimum. I feel that given no design restrictions the boats would come out closer to 3m, but we will never know now, unless the ICF have another rethink.

About 5 years ago Mark Wignall paddled a short boat built by his dad at a division 1 event on the Graveyard, and comprehensively beat everyone. He was the best paddler at the event, and one move in particular gave a shorter boat a big advantage, however this did show even then the potential of a shorter slalom boat.

rockfinder · Post by **rockfinder** » Tue Jun 15, 2004 11:43 pm

Interesting.
What will happen I suppose is that it will be a case of horses (or boats in this case) for courses - tight twisty courses will favour shorter boats where the extra length just gets in the way - longer, wider, faster courses maybe better for longer boats?
It is what happened to freestyle boats - when we started out a few years back, people were saying the Acro270 at 2.7m was "radical" and "really a bit too short" where as now, 2 metre (and less) boats are common and are a "must" at shallow venues like Tees WWC where longer designs just ground.
Evolution in Freestyle boat design has been phenomenal, driven by a few radical paddlers and designers.
The same can be true in slalom so, like the man says - try the new boats and give the designers some feedback on what is good, bad and on what you want!

frontman2 · Post by **frontman2** » Wed Jun 16, 2004 8:22 am

So when are we going to see some shorter C1 and C2 designs that we can try and/or order?

Dutch Geezer · Post by **Dutch Geezer** » Wed Jun 16, 2004 10:06 pm

Well, now that you happen to mention it, the C1 and C2 plugs were finished 2 weeks ago and just awaiting moulds to be built. I hope to have them in the country by the middle of July at the latest, the demo boats will be then be placed at Nottingham for people to try.

Again, who knows how they will perform on the moving water, but hopefully with quality feedback they will be very competitive very quickly.

Nick Penfold · Post by **Nick Penfold** » Wed Jun 16, 2004 10:22 pm

It will probably depend on the course and the paddler's weight and size, but my money is on 3.6 to 3.7m. Shorter than that, and you start to lose boat speed - which is as important as quick turning unless you drift your slaloms. Know this formula?
Max displacement speed (knots) = 1.4 x square root of waterline length (feet)
It means that 3.6m gives you about 2.65 kts
3.0m gives you 2.42 kts
So a 3.6m boat is almost 10% faster in a straight line, which counts down most of the course and has at least double value on crosses....no, we've had enough maths, I won't explain that.

Dutch Geezer · Post by **Dutch Geezer** » Wed Jun 16, 2004 10:34 pm

Just read Rockfinder's reply again about horses for courses, ie long open course use a longer boat, short boat for tight twisty courses.

If you look at Sundays results, the fastest times were actually done in 4 metre boats by Huw Swetman and Dave Backhouse. The top staggers were done forward by the top guys in there 4 metre boats as did Neil in the short boat, there were no moves on the course that only a short boat could do forward. I also think it was a longer course than has been used for a prem event at Nottingham for a while, ( if I'm wrong, dont shoot me).

I personally think that this proved that the short boat is just as fast as the 4 metre boats over a long course and that there will be no benefit in taking 2 boats to an event just in case.

There is another factor to consider at the moment. I know Double Dutch are concentrating the majority of their efforts into the development of the shorter boats. I suspect that Caiman, Galasport and Vajda are all doing the same. I think it will be a while before someone actually designs a new 4 metre boat. Given that its taken a long time to get the 4 metre boats to this standard, is someone going to suddenly come up with the ultimate 4 metre boat after all these years, I personally doubt it, but look where the short boats are already.

davebrads · Post by **davebrads** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 5:22 pm

In answer to Nick's points about boat speed, this suggests that courses will not change with the shortening of boats, but this is kind of inevitable. Take Dutch Geezers point about the stagger between the Flintstones and the Pyramid - only the top paddlers were able to do it straight. With shorter boats, more paddlers are going to be able to do this kind of move straight off, so this will push course designers into tightening up moves to maintain the difference between the top level paddlers and the rest of us. In turn this will push everyone into getting the short boats, otherwise they will be at a disadvantage.

Nicks figures regarding the speed of boats are based on the whole length of the boat being on the waterline. Current boats have a much shorter waterline than the overall length, even when sitting flat, because of the large amount of rocker. Also the length of the waterline is modified considerably when travelling at speed, as the front rides up on the bow wave and the stern sinks under the water. Build a shorter boat with the same rocker curve, and the waterline will reduce very slightly, so the reduction in straight line speed could be very small indeed. In fact Nomad were not able to find any difference between their 3.6m boat and a 4m boat.

rockfinder · Post by **rockfinder** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 9:58 pm

Hmm, we are looking at the top guys who may well do good times even paddling a wheelie bin!!!

I think shorter lengths may well be a big benefit for "lesser" paddlers in lower divisons where they have less boat to worry about. of course they will have to wait until the 2nd hand market has shorter designs available.

I'm sure Dave B is right, the course builders will start to tighten up courses - a bit like computers, the more power they have, the more jazzy the software designs get to demand and use all that extra power.

Pingu · Post by **Pingu** » Fri Jun 18, 2004 5:18 pm

No need to wait for the top designers to come up with a shorter boat.

Just play in the bottom stopper at Teesside as the tide starts to go out.

Sorted. :;):

Vicky · Post by **Vicky** » Sun Jun 20, 2004 6:00 pm

Or do whatever Becky did in the washing machine at nottingham, that certainly shortened her boat :laugh:

Andy Greensmith · Post by **Andy Greensmith** » Mon Jun 21, 2004 12:48 pm

I've paddled the new 3.6m boat from DD and found that it was very simular in a straight line to my Optima. However it was slower at turning which is the oposite to what everyone is expecting.

This is obviously early days for smaller boat design but i think you'll find that we're quite a way off yet.

Dutch Geezer · Post by **Dutch Geezer** » Wed Jun 23, 2004 9:16 pm

The new DD C1 was paddled on flat water tonight, first impressions are very promising, turns very quick and was as fast as a hybrid, even though the fittings were not quite right.

I hope to have it at Nottingham this weekend, if anyone wishes to try it.

Dave Royle · Post by **Dave Royle** » Tue Jun 29, 2004 9:41 pm

I paddled the new DD C1 at Cardington and although the times recorded show it was 5 seconds slower than the Hybrid I reckon it was more like 2 seconds slower. Better fittings would have reduced the margin further as would a bit more training in it.

The boat turns very flat and fast but its difficult to turn that into acceleration again after a breakout. For the reason I thought a bit more volume could come out of the end of the tail without sacrificing any more forward speed.

How it performs on rough water - I'll leave that to the Nottsy boys.

Nice try to start with anyway. No doubt there is still quite a bit of development to go.

Weight - 62Kg
Current Boat - Hybrid

beefy · Post by **beefy** » Wed Jun 30, 2004 9:46 am

i paddled the new dd c1 at notingham on monday
the things i found were:
~ the seat was too far back or the back end didnt have enough volume because whenever sprinting the tail was very low down in the water (i could back loop it on the flat)
~ very impressive on breakouts when you get it right
~ small margin of error with edges especially on breakouts
~ turns great on staggers
~ when in a hole not so good it bounces alot and also spins alot in the hole just like a playboat!
~ the test boat is very light though
(Front End may need more vol;ume as if the nose is not in the air it plows through the waves but if the nase is above the waves it flies over them??? Confusin

overall a ver good design but needs some adjusting