Valley Nordkapp in windy conditions - trimming

Yesterday was the day after the gale of 16 m/s wind from the south against the Ekenäs archipelago on the Finnish south coast. Some wind was still present and kept boaters on sheltered waters with sails down. For me it was an excellent opportunity to get familiar with the waters outside the Paddlingsfabriken renting cottage. Significant wave hight on the Baltic sea was on 5 meters yesterday. I might have had a maximum of 2 meters today and they were quickly dying out. At noon time they might have been 1.5 meters. My plan was to take some admirable photos with my Olympus waterproof pocket camera, while still not knowing what kind of wave formation I would have out there between the reefs.

Since I was going alone I chose to take the less challenging boat - the PE Valley Nordkapp. Someone else would have been happy with the boat, but to me there was not much of fun. I had none of watersplasches in the face. The ride was as dry as it can be. There was a slight tendency of the boat to turn down from the wind while paddling, and a more or less immediate fall down of the bow when I stopped paddling to take pictures. Of course the waves did their job in turning the kayak on top of the effects of the wind. Another reason could have been my spare clothes in the stern hatch. No other load was present except my own weight. It had been much wiser to load them in the front to balance the kayak for headwinds and using the skeg to make it fall down. Travelling light in the boat and especially the bow made the ride extreamly dry. I think it also made the going back home on surf less of a joy. Catching waves and surfing them was a struggle. Mostly I could sea the waves going much faster and giving almost no push. Skeg up or down did not even matter much for tracking on the surf.

Despite the unfavourable weight trimming I did get as good pictures as possible while on a paddle alone. With good paddler company and a helmet on, getting ontop of one of the slippery rocks had given even better waterspray shots. Another kayaker had also put some perspective and scale to the swelling seas.