TL;DR: The Progression is so well balanced for wind that it barely weathercocks in monster wind. The skeel is not needed for directional stability, and serves better if in a beam wind or current to keep the kayak from drifting laterally akin to a centerboard on a sailboat. Sterling happily explained the physics behind the performance in wind, but it escapes me every time I try to recall it 🙂 Seriously… I cannot recommend this kayak enough for paddlers at any level.
Or the full story…
Some notes on the Progression’s performance that day (perhaps it will help folks who are doing research into the kayak to understand how wonderfully it behaves in high winds). Quick background on me: I come from a mostly Greenland kayak background and have loved the way the low volume of GL kayaks ignore the wind, and are playful on edge. I had no doubt that the Progression would be agile, but was seriously concerned about how it’d manage high winds as I enjoy foul/harsh weather on the water.
The Progression has so much more freeboard than my GL, and the up-sweep at the bow and stern is significant. I spoke at length with Sterling and James Manke among others about how the design performed in wind and everyone assured me it was barely affected, and even that the skeg (skeel) was unnecessary. But I had to see for myself. To the point: The day of the video above had steady winds in the upper 20kt range, with gusts into the mid 30s.
We had gone out to find some surf, but it was mostly laid flat by the wind, so we played in that. To my astonishment, the Progression had a slight tendency to weathercock, but less than every other kayak out with us that day as far as I could tell by watching other’s strokes. The minor weathercocking was easily correctable with a tiny edge, or a slight sweep added to the forward stroke. Honestly, it was easier to keep on track than my GL is in similar conditions due to the ease and responsiveness of edging. The only times that the boat was more strongly affected by winds were when the stern got picked up on a following wave and I started to surf it. At that point the stern is lifted up into the wind and the bow nosed down a bit (these were small waves that day), resulting in the boat strongly wanting to turn into the wind, and requiring more of an edge to correct.
You can see the sheer force of the wind in the video when Luke comes up from the roll, the wind catches his torso–he is facing directly into the wind–and the kayak is immediately pushed backwards. He starts throwing the bow down as he crests the waves to keep the bow lower and out of the wind. Great fun and phenomenal performance.
