Message-Id: <3279430B.12D5@christa.unh.edu>
Date: Thu, 31 Oct 1996 16:23:39 -0800
From: Paul LaBrie <Paul.R.LaBrie@unh.edu>
To: baidarka@lists.intelenet.net
Subject: Re: longevity
Kirk Olsen wrote:
>
> Anyone else care to tackle this one? my preferences are unlikely
> to be held by others (I find the Lowie/Zimmerly 5.8 comfy)
>
To answer your 5.8 questions, from my own point of view (FWIW), the 5.8 can best be described as "tender"
in the roll axis. Kirk demonstrated several wonderfully executed rolls with it at one of Ron Franklin's
festivals in Maine. Several others who tried it unwittingly rolled it half-way in and wound up swimming.
last June I took the 5.8 to the Traditional Small Craft festival at Mystic, where everyone is encouraged to
try out everyone else's boat. Everyone who tried the baidarka went for a swim. It's pretty unforgiving.
The cockpit is cramped/tight. This is advantageous, I've found, in keeping the boat upright. Doesn't help
much in the comfort department though. I enlarged the cockpit ring slightly over what was depicted in the
drawings. Aleuts were small, rugged people. Most North Americans tend to be a bit chunkier and less
athletic...except for Kirk and a few others I know ;-)
The 5.8 has a very low profile, little rocker, and tracks very well; it has no rudder and IMHO doesn't need
one -- it does not tend to weathercock. The length, coupled with the slimness of the design, implies that
it should be very fast. I don't race nor have I ever conducted trials, etc. so I really don't know how it
fares in this department. My original reason for building one is that i was fascinated that a group of
people (the Aleuts) had the collective talents to evolve such a design -- the design is one of the most
beautiful that i have ever seen -- and I simply had to see what one might look like for real...Now if I
could only travel back in time....
- paul -
P.S. This is a bit picky (sorry!) but I think that the design is from the Museum of Anthropology and
Ethnology in St. Petersburg (formerly Leningrad) (is that also the Lowie Museum?)