NYCkayaker Far Rockaway Trip Report. And rudders.

[bonnie13 at earthlink.net]

Trip report in photographic form. What a great day.

http://bkfrogma-farrock.buzznet.com/user/photos/?id=11380621

btw, TomB - the AKT site already posted is a fantastic resource. I did have a couple of thoughts on the matter too, based on my guiding at MKC. 

I'd say a rudder for a beginner could be either a good thing, or a bad thing. It all depends on how it's used. 

If a beginner gets a rudder, does all their steering using the rudder, and never learns more about boat control using steering strokes & eventually the position of the boat itself (leaning turns), they are really missing out on learning some skills that I personally find to be a whole lot of fun & make paddling a lot more interesting than it would be otherwise. 

The major con of a rudder is that it's a moving part that can break. Might even say will break. Cables snap, pulleys jam, usually right at the most annoying time (I used to have a seda glider, that was actually a boat that was designed to work with a rudder, but the lifting & lowering mechanism was prone to getting fouled, and it would always pick the stupidest moments - like when I was towing with a 20 kt wind pushing me around). If a beginner were reliant on that rudder to the point where it is a need, not just a preference, and especially if they don't understand that that rudder CAN fail & that they have got to have at least a few rudimentary steering strokes that they can rely on in that case - that's when having a rudder actually becomes bad. Could really screw up a trip. 

Where I would say a rudder could be good would be as a means to cut down on the frustration that can result when conditions turn things into a slog. 

The first year I was with MKC, we were using a certain type of boat that was notorious for weathercocking. I still wonder how many people we never saw again because they went out on a north-south tour with the wind from a non-ideal direction and spent the entire trip doing sweep strokes on one side. That's REALLY boring. In that case, if the boats had been equipped with rudders, that would've given at least the option for a breather. We still would have encouraged the clients to try not using it for a while, but in the early stages, before they could really rely on j-leans to help hold their course, it might have been nice for them to have that option. 

Later on we found some boats that worked better for beginners & that was no longer so much the case - but that was a situation where I would have said yes, a rudder would have been nice.

The main thing is that it not become a crutch - especially for a beginner who dreams someday of doing whitewater, or playing in rock gardens, or any of that stuff where really precise control becomes a necessity.