Tips to stay balanced/avoiding capsizing

[bradley@ippy]

I took a mate out on the kayak with an interesting result (He flipped it).

Now my mate has been on a kayak (quite a few times) but never fished off one. He's over 6ft tall and close to 100kg. The kayaks we used was the SCORPIO TERRAPIN which is 2.7meters long and has large adult rating size ( buggers me what the limit is). I gave him some paddling pointers and kept it simple with just the one rod.

He picked it up quickly was able to move to A to B even though it didn't look pretty. Fishing off it he didn't have any trouble. The main issue he had was the craft didn't feel stable to him. Which has me scratching my head as both my missus and I (we both why around 70 kg ) believe they are quite stable.

Was the kayak weight limit near its max causing it to be unstable?
Is there any tips to make a kayak more stable with adding extra stuff to it??
Was it a case lack of experiences??

I would really appreciate some feedback as he's very keen to give it another go minus the flip part.

Cheers Brad

[tunaticer]

To be honest I think he was nervous about tipping it over and made his situation worse.
A lot of newby's have an uneasy beginning in kayaks and over-compensate for any rocking that may occur, often to a point of creating a rhythm of unbalances that make it feel worse than it is.
That kayak he was in shouldn't have felt unstable esp with 100kgs above it.
Whilst that kayak is entry level, it should be fairly comfortable to be on the water with.
Only thing i can wonder about was his posture in the kayak......were his knees up in the air or basically down in the kayak body? Raised knees raises the centre of gravity and can exaggerate the lack of stability.

[GBC]

Those entry level boats do change their stablilty characteristics with bigger loads - once the reverse sides go under, so too does the primary stability. There isn't any secondary. My small emotion exhilarator is similar flat bottomed with reverse sides.
Being a paddler from the wrong side of 100 kegs I've experienced it a bit. This and the beginner's nervousness, stiffness and all round inability to relax would have scared the poor bugger off yak fishing pretty much for good.
Fastest way to get stable is to throw the legs off the side - feet in the water.
A good boat will feel more tippy when stopped, then harden up under way. That he felt more unstable underway makes me guess the boat was overloaded and water was running over surfaces that it shouldn't - once those reverse sides go under the waterline length and effective width decreases significantly.
This is all just an armchair guess mind you - vids help a lot here.

[Phoenix]

My guess is that there are 2 issues here;

1) Your kayak is too small. Way too small. I use an Ocean Kayak Prowler. Capacity is 200 kilos. By the way this cost me a mere $700 (second hand) including paddle, seat and C-tug (which is worth $200 alone).

You will find that the length of the kayak is a big determiner in speed, and the beam influences stability/ maneuverability.

If you are 90 kilos, and you kayak only has a capacity for 100 kilos - you're going to get very wet.

2) There are three golden rules of kayak fishing
2a} Dress to swim, rig to flip. So always wear a rated PFD - and ensure everything is leashed to the kayak. It's a KAYAK - one of the prices of what we do, is that we will get wet. Occasionally you will flip your kayak, usually when you least want to. This is inevitable. Be ready for it, and know how to re-enter your kayak. If/ when you do flip - there is a strong chance that you may injure yourself. Last time I did this was during a surf launch, and I nearly lost the tip of a finger - which was crushed between the paddle and the kayak. If you were to hit your head, you could easily loose consciousness and be unable to deploy CO2 life jacket for instance. I use a PFD type 2.

2b} Work with the kayak. everything I need, is within arms reach at all times. My knife, pliars, and two Alvery bait buckets are threaded onto my seat. Always give yourself room {or a length of line, to prevent yourself from getting accidentally hooked whilst trying to deal with fish etc.

3b} Where your head goes, your body will follow. You need to think of a pendulum, floating on the water. If you move the center of gravity to the left, you will change the balance, and stability. Hence this is why most kayak fisho's end up in the drink.

I use thigh straps - they both increase stability and the efficiency of each paddle stroke.

[Charlie]

The only time I've gone over is trying to paddle across current, keep your body at right angles to the water and try to deliberately push the gunnel under you wont tipover, once you realize this your fine. A lot of kayaks have low initial stability and good secondary stability, takes a while to get used for the beginner but keep the head and body upright and just trust you won't tip over.

[Gigantor]

Brad, Think most of the comments above are on the right mark. Particularly Phoenix point about size of person vs size/capacity of yak. A general belief is that kayaks under 3 meters don't offer great stability (sit too low in the water and require additional energy to move through water etc.) and a tall person of 100kgs would dramatically change the stability aspects.

I'm 6 foot 4 inches and weigh 110kgs and have never had any issues with flipping any of my yaks. I've had a sit-in ocean kayak (Current Designs - Pacifica) and a number of Hobie sit-on kayaks andf the only time I've ever been a little unstable has been in choppy waters in the middle of Lake Wivenhoe. Personally I think the key to stable kayaking is slow, careful body movements. i.e. use the arms and hands to cast, not the body twist etc.

I've had a 15 foor Rosco canoe and now have a 2-person Hobie Oasis kayak and the only time any of these have rocked around or looked like tipping was when my passenger moved too quickly.

Cheers,

Pete