The "duckbill" is pointed very much upwards and its fairly small. I doubt that the surf kayakers "down under" would use them if they had a negative effect and increase the risk for submarining??

We are NOT saying the "duckbill" increases the risk of submarining (diving). What we are saying is that if the bow dives, which it will, the "duckbill" will tend to drive the bow deeper and hinder the re-surfacing of the bow. Put another way, once the bow with the duckbill submerges, as the bow attempts to resurface, it has to lift the water on the duckbill. If there is no duckbill, the bow slices back up to the surface easily.

Keith

The other negative effect of something larger close to the end of the bow is the wind pushing on it making it much harder to turn the bow across the wind.

While designing the early Sprayskirts we had that problem and found we had to minimize how far forward the shade-cloth was. My latest design change (2 years ago) moved it even further back with no noticeable reduction in splash deflection and no negative effects from the wind.

I too, pedal when tacking. Gotta love the Hobie Mirage drive!

With the prettiest early prototype Sprayskirt at over 25 mph winds, I could NOT tack or coming about the wind, no matter how hard I pedaled. The Sprayskirt looked nice, but was so impracticable in strong wind. Also whenever it dove, it refused to surface until all forward motion stopped. I finally destroyed it.

I learned quickly to limit anything near the bow that the wind can push against. Every inch closer to the bow gives the wind more leverage.