ron-t kayaking blog
29 September 2013 ............ Penmon in an east wind
I can finally go out in my boat again - I took the plunge and reshaped the back end of my Isel.
I thought it would be relatively straightforward, and easier than doing the bow.
It wasn`t, it was a bit of a nightmare, and has taken nearly three weeks.
I have basically done two things - first of all, I have added more rocker to the back end, and secondly, I have got rid of the concave sections at the rear end of the hull.
I have a bit of thing about concave sections in sea kayaks, as I reckon they are a somewhat artificial hull shape that have more disadvantages than advantages.
I don`t think they are appropriate in a play boat, so they had to go.
Coincidentally, the day after I finished, there were strong winds out of the east, so it provided a good chance to go and see how the boat now behaves in a strong wind.
So I headed back down to Penmon again. On the drive down I pased Bull Bay - it was pretty wild there.
It didn`t look quite so wild at Trwyn y Penrhyn, where I launched from.
However it was a very strong wind, and my progress along the coast was incredibly slow, my aging muscles found it very hard going.
It was interesting to note that the sea was somewhat different from the last time I was there, when the wind was from the west.
When the wind was from the west, the waves were quite distinct waves, but today with the wind from the east, the sea was more lumpy, the waves were quite discontinuous.
Curiously, that is exactly how the North sea behaves around the Aberdeenshire and Angus coastline in a strong wind - and that`s in the east.
Maybe it was the different wave shape, maybe it was because I have added volume to the back end of the boat by filling in the concave bits, but the boat didn`t seem to be pitching as much as it was last time I was at Penmon in the west wind.
There is some logic in that - by filling in the concave sections, I have added volume to the back end of the boat, so the boat has effectively a longer bouyancy distribution, so should pitch less.
As I slowly worked my way along the coast, the waves sometimes changed character a bit, and I would meet a batch of longer, deeper, greener waves - the boat rather liked these, as it glided up and over them with no kind of splashing at all - they were rather fun.
Closer to Penmon Point the waves got increasingly larger, and it wasn`t really sensible to carry on, so I turned and came back, in no particular hurry.
On the way back, I experimented with how the boat behaved in terms of wind cocking and lee cocking - sitting idly, the boat is quite neutral, it turns broadside on to the waves.
As you paddle forward trying hard not to deliberately turn the boat either way, the bow grips more than the stern, and it gently turns upwind.
If you really want it to, you can paddle backwards, and it turns the other way.
The natural turning upwind is easily overcome just by the amount of power applied on each side, so I`m quite happy with this.
I think it is generally agreed that a boat that natively windcocks is preferable to one that leecocks.
By the time I was about halfway back, I realised that the sea was easing, there were less white horses and foam on the surface.
So I headed back up to Penmon Point - progress was a bit faster this time, and I made it around the point into the sound.
There were still some big waves in the sound, so I binned any notion of heading across to Puffin Island.
I reckoned I would head up and around the lighthouse, then turn back.
As I got closer to the lighthouse, I began to see what effect the lighthouse was having on the waves - they were rearing up and curling round the base in an extremely menacing way - there was no way I was going to tangle with them, so had a change of plan and retreated.
Back at Trwyn y Penrhyn, by the time I had loaded up, changed, and had something to eat, the weather had improved quite a bit, and I could enjoy the excellent view you get from there of a big length of the North Wales coastline.
Here are various pictures of it, starting by looking east to Great Orme, then right along the coast, past Snowdonia, and westwards down to the upper part of the Lleyn Peninsula.
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