Storm Dennis arrives

This weekend the storm Dennis passed by. But first we had a swimming pool session on Friday. This time I took the Seajett, making it my first action with it. It soon became clear that I should do some adjustments on the seating position: the foot rest is too close in its far-most position but when removed the front bulkhead is too far away. Also the thigh braces proved to be too small, as my legs slips too easily out of them. These things made rolling more difficult and should be fixed for reliable rolling. With the Orion and Skarabee I had better swimming pool sessions. After the session it appeared that the front hatch was dry but the rear hatch had taken some water. Could be the skeg fitting but the rear bulkhead doesn't look very confident too. So, enough work to do on the Seajett, including the rudder.

The next day storm Dennis had starting to blow with a decent 5 Bft with gusts to 8 Bft. I made a trip to the other side of the lake Gooimeer from Almere to the beech of 'Oud Valkeveen'. With this wind and waves I took the Skarabee as I didn't want to take any risk with the Seajett yet. Seating in the Skarabee felt as comfortable as always and I never felt unsafe during the trip. It was hard working with my Greenland paddle against the gusts of wind. The Skarabee slammed sometimes on the waves, not very disturbing but a Baidarka would have done this much more elegant. After a while I finally came near the shore and out of the wind. I took a rest on the beach. Looking from there the water seems so quiet...

Resting on the luff side, no waves here...

The trip backwards was a lot quicker. I tried to surf as much as possible but the Skarabee was not very eager to take off. With the Explorer this trip would probably have been one exciting long surf but with the Skarabee it was up and down. I experimented with the skeg. Without the skeg the boat was indeed easier to correct. However, I was continuously busy with correcting and the Skarabee zig-zagged from left to right. With the skeg down it was a lot easier to stay on course but the boat still wants to break out sometimes, even when not in a surf. I got sweet memories of my Baidarka that tracked so much better in these conditions. On the end of the trip the waves became bigger and bigger and I had to take care not to ram the landing place. But with the skeg in I could control the surfing Skarabee to point it in the good direction.

After the trip I checked the average speed and that was a little dissapointing: against the wind 4,8 and before the wind only 7,8 km/h. With the NDK Explorer I would certainly have reached much above 8 km/h... The Skarabee is known as a fast boat but may be I am not strong enough to overcome the extra resistance of it's length and width. But with this wind I would have expected there was enough power to get it up to hull speed... I am curious how the Seajett will compare in this. We will see later.