Elliott Kayaks - Technical Information
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At Elliott Kayaks we embrace modern technology and admire all kayak designers who strive to
achieve improvements in design. In a study of hydrodynamics, conducted by the University of Pisa,
Italy, specifically on the forces acting on a single person sprint kayak;
it was found that at 5m/s the wave resistance accounts for the main contribution to the total drag.
The total force required to maintain a kayak's speed must overcome two forms of drag or resistance:
the viscous drag on the hulls wetted surface and the wave-making resistance.
(Click here to see a 1 page pdf extract from Fluent News 2005, for the article).
Elliott Kayaks are committed to reducing wave-making in all our kayaks.
Hydrostatic test data from comprehensive measurements of the 19 fastest kayaks of the 2006 Big Kayak Test (see footnote) have lead maritime consultant Craig Elliott to the following conclusion. “The results for each kayak are most useful when compared across all the different kayaks tested. The hydrostatic measurements are helpful in interpreting what to expect in terms of speed stability and manageability of a craft. Some of the longer craft (water line length 6.0m) have a higher wetted surface area, hence, increased resistance. For example the Epic V10(1.67m^2) was slower than the Spectrum K1 (1.21m^2), both had similar stability scores. The Epic is 6.4m long, where the spectrum is only 5.18m long. All kayaks designed post August 2008 have the following design features
1. Maximum attention to the bow & half angle of entry Graham Sisson stated in 1996 that perhaps at 6.1m the Evolution Edge was too long. However if more power can be supplied than mere human power, a gain in speed can be made by hulls over 6.0m in length e.g. wind and wave energy. All our single kayak hulls are less than 6.0m in length.
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