Kayak Stability and Leaning + progress report

Kayak Stability and Leaning

This link is to a somewhat confusing article about stability.

Here is my understanding, with the idea that we need to find a way to put more pints down below the waterline:

1) Shapes with hard corners near the waterline, like the empty yogurt container, are very stable. They call this a box shape.

2) Also very stable are v-hull designs.

3) Stability improves if the hull flares out above the water line -but paddling becomes more difficult because you have to reach further to get to the water.

Here are some gratuitous graphs:






The conclusion of the matter is: by adding a v-hull to the bottom of our flat bottom "unsuitible" design we can increase boyancy without messing up stability!

What does that mean in a practical sense? Visualize the flat bottomed boat bottom side up so that the bottom looks like a serving board. Put pints of yogurt on top and shape them into a ^ hat shape. Make an addition to the canoe that covers up all the yogurt. This is the improved design with more boyancy and good stability.