What every tripping canoe needs: The Skudder

[Glenn MacGrady]

Many of us have written elsewhere about the potential virtues of a rudder on a canoe to maintain angle in wind and waves, and when paddling up current, without the need to switch paddle sides. Kayakers have had over-stern rudders forever, but have religious debates about the blessings of skegs vs. rudders. Outrigger canoeists and surfski paddlers worship at the altar of under-stern rudders instead of over-stern rudders.

Well, kayakers can now have the best of all religious worlds: the under-stern skudder. Here are two videos of it:

And if a kayak can be fitted with a skudder, why can't a DIYer retrofit a canoe with a skudder? I'm not a DIYer, but I want one.

 

[Canotrouge]

Look great for sure, maybe a bit flimsy? I don't know since I never seen one, but just from some of the footage of the first video, where you can see some lateral movement when in the rudder position and activated to make a turn... Maybe bomb proof none the less!! It would deb fun to know of some one who had a chance to use one for a bit!!

 

[Steve in Idaho]

Seems needlessly fragile and complex. Trailer sailers have retracting centerboards and rudders. The centerboards are often essentially the same as a retractable skeg on a kayak - but much more robust, of course. I see no reason why you couldn't have both (skeg and rudder) on a kayak or canoe, without resorting to this vulnerable thing - and have a more robust rig.

 

[yellowcanoe]

Holy cow.. Looks incredibly fragile.. One bang on a submerged rock and it looks like it would snap Plus that kayak is butt impractical .. Its got no rear volume at all . Imagine packing a tent in the front hatch!

 

[Guest]

Holy cow.. Looks incredibly fragile.. One bang on a submerged rock and it looks like it would snap Plus that kayak is butt impractical .. Its got no rear volume at all . Imagine packing a tent in the front hatch!

Beyond issues with under boat fragility, hoping you don’t accidentally bang the “Skudder” against an unseen rock or log that a traditional external stern rudder would simply flip up and ride over, skeg type devices have two inherent design strikes going against them even in sea kayak use.

One is having a pebble or small rock jam between the blade and skeg housing slot when launching or paddling across shallows with the skeg retracted. Skegged boat users sometimes add a short finger loop of cord to the skeg blade, so that a companion boater can reach underneath and (hopefully) yank the skeg free while underway.

Or not, if it is really jammed get ready to land, empty the boat, flip it over and try to extract the culprit pebble or shell shard with needle nose pliers, or fish around in the void with a narrow J tent stake or wire. And hope it doesn’t happen again.

The larger strike for tripper sorts is having a waterproof skeg box occluding storage space in the stern. That is bad enough with the hatch and volume restrictions in a sea kayak, but at least there the expectation is packing gear in winky fit-through-the-hatch dry bags.

A skeg box in the stern of a canoe would make it impractical if not impossible to load a barrel or large portage pack in the stern. Even if it fit I wouldn’t want the weight of a full food barrel resting on a skeg box that provides the waterproof integrity of the hull bottom. Crack. . . . .gurgle, gurgle. . . .sinking feeling. . . .

But typical sea kayak use to typical canoe use is a bit of apples and oranges; paddling oceans, bays and big water lakes vs paddling a mix of lakes, rivers and streams, sometimes lining or portaging. Yes, you could run whitewater and portage a sea kayak, and you could take an open canoe out in the ocean. The appropriate design choice of boats is yours.

I do think that having an easily removed and reinstalled rudder housing, or even just rudder blade, on an open canoe has merit in some applications; something easily installed/deployed for travel upcurrent, open water wind and wave or sailing, and easily removed for whitewater, portaging or (especially) lining.

A Skudder would eliminate those issues, but not enough to offset the complexity, fragility and storage space occlusion in an open canoe.

A Skudder review:

http://seakayakphoto.blogspot.com/2015/10/p-skudder-long-term-test-of-sea-kayak.html

Hummm, there is no skeg box. The entire back compartment is the skeg box in this case. That would make repairs inside the skeg box easier (another issue with a glassed in waterproof skeg box), but I don’t buy putting much gear in that compartment without the control lines sawing away at the contents or gear jamming the line glide and, worse, the control arm pivot. That is a near useless gear storage compartment.

And yeah, it’s a skeg; shells and pebbles notedly get stuck in the skeg slot. That may all work fine in a day use kayak, but in a tripping canoe it isn’t a better mousetrap.

BTW, that review was with a Skudder on a P&H Scorpio, catalog blathered as “the ultimate expedition platform”. With the space lost in that stern hatch presumably an ultimate expedition with minimalist food and gear.

http://www.phseakayaks.com/kayaks.php?kayak=Scorpio MKII MV

Apples and oranges.

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

Mike, I'm surprised that you're taking sides with the Pope rather than Galileo.

That preliminary review from Seakayak was almost all positive.

With all due respect, the fears about pebbles clogging a skeg slot have been dealt with routinely and swiftly by tens of thousands of skegged kayakers for many decades. It's less of a hassle than bailing some rainwater from an open canoe or wiping some mud off a paddle.

I also don't buy the problem of a Skudder box taking up too much room in a relatively (to a kayak) gigantic tripping canoe -- not if the skeg box is approximately the size of the earlier Kari Tek skudder, which is examined in this video:

A DIYer could glass in a box that small way back in the stern of a big tripping canoe, and probably still have room for five cases of beer, a dish antenna, wannigan, Barclounger, six person tent, and Weber grill.

I also don't buy the fragility fear, based on my extensive experience with the non-retractable under-stern rudder on my fragile, 30 pound, 22' long Huki outrigger canoe. I've paddled that boat all over North America, mostly on inland lakes and rivers including: the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, the Gulf of Mexico, the Great Lakes, the Boundary Waters, Georgian Bay, Algonquin Park, the Adirondacks, all over Florida, spring rivers, mountain lakes and all my local paddling spots in Connecticut. Only once have I hit my rudder on something with significant impact, which was due to my inattention. All I have to do is be careful in shallows; and with a retractable skudder, it would be childishly easy: just retract the skudder when in shallows.

At the 2000 LL Bean seakayak symposium I paddled extensively a Lightspeed Kayak, which had a very early version of a skudder. It was brilliantly fun to paddle, and I almost bought one on the spot. The kayak had some other flaws, however, such as not fitting me.

In a tripping canoe, the skudder would primarily be used on big water crossings, where there is the most danger from loss of control in wind and waves and no risk of bottom banging.

The further DIY challenge for a kneeling canoeist would be how to control the skudder without foot pedals, but that's an issue intrinsic to all rudders.

Skudders are a'coming. Galileo is out there somewhere, probably with a Chesterfield and a Bud.

 

[Guest]

Mike, I'm surprised that you're taking sides with the Pope rather than Galileo.


Skudders are a'coming. Galileo is out there somewhere, probably with a Chesterfield and a Bud.

Nope. Not buying it. I know the truth of “positive” reviews, hell I wrote some over the years. Can’t diss manufacturer advertisers too hard.

And yeah, pebble jammed skegs have been suffered by kayakers for decades. THAT is a selling point defense? What’s next, leaky skeg boxes help wash out the stern compartment?

Bailing rainwater from a canoe or wiping mud off a paddle have nothing on dealing with a jammed skeg. Coulda shoulda brought along a bailer and a sponge. And bought a boat with a real rudder.

Five cases of beer fit nicely in my unoccluded Penobscot, although I’ll trade a JetBoil for the bulbous Webber grill so it all fits under the spray covers.

The issue of kneeling rudder control has escaped the best minds of our generation, including habitual kneeler Scott B in a Sea-1.

I am not a Krugerista, worshiping at the altar of Verlen, but if he could line and pendulum rope swing a Loon and Monarch up sheer cliffs past unattainable rapids while heading upstream through the Grand Canyon I expect he was on to something.

Galileo is still in purgatory trying to explain that parting “Eppur sa muove” comment. In a lesser know utterance he is reported to have also said “Skudders sono sciocchezze”.

(Verlen is still in hell trying to explain why he abandoned his wife and children to bed down with Valerie Fons).

 

[Canotrouge]

And really who need a ruder on a canoe... I never used one, even when I was a sea kayaking guide for a few years, I wouldn't use a kayak with a ruder, skeg, sur cause on the ocean it is useful, but on a canoe for rivers and lakes, never needed to!

 

[yellowcanoe]

Loon Monarch and Sea Wind are ocean going canoes
The Great Lakes have seiches rather than tides but there is a considerable seichal current
The rudder allows one to paddle single blade on one side only eliminating the need for correction strokes and eliminating water in the canoe. Every stroke is pure power

I don't use a rudder or a skeg on a kayak either but find it very useful in a canoe

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

The issue of kneeling rudder control has escaped the best minds of our generation

I've seen what I'll call a joystick rudder control in racing kayaks. That might be able to work.

But just thinking about it for a few minutes, I, with no tools and no experience building anything but debt, have solved the problem with a simple gedanken experiment. Galileo was a piker.

The rudder control for a kneeling paddler would obviously be electronic, using radio or bluetooth waves from a miniature hand control built into the paddle. The rudder would be geared to move per the control instructions. There would be a button or some other finger control for: deploy/retract, move right, move left, move to and hold center, and maybe free swing. Voice control activation, using a wireless throat mic, should easily be possible with today's technology to eliminate even a hand control. Cripes, my phone can do that.

Of course, theoretical physicists such as Einstein and myself don't actually build these things. An engineer must construct the mechanism and a master canoe builder must install it. I can now simply await the royalty checks and Nobel prize.

 

[Steve in Idaho]

This is getting funny to me, because I've seen this discussion/debate before...sort of. On a sailing forum I sometimes lurk at, there has been much discussion over which is the better rudder - the one mounted on the transom, or the one (spade rudder, is it?) under the hull. I remember some mileage made on the issue of weeds sticking on the under-hull. Then the transom mount, it is pointed out, loses some performance due to being closer to the disturbed water surface. The argument gets interesting when the issue is raised of through-hull rudder shafts breaking with blades going to the bottom.....

Apples to oranges, I know. But it is still amusing.