Optimization of Polo Kayak Design for Drag Reduction

Pressure drag is a significant portion of the drag forces on small boats such as kayaks and rowing shells and is a result of both profile and wave drag. These drag components depend on the boat profile, i.e., frontal area and volume distribution. As the boat begins to plane the drag coefficient decreases sharply facilitating a further increase in speed. This is highly beneficial in the sport of kayak polo, where players seek to accelerate and move quickly on the court. This poster presents a parametric study of polo kayak geometry using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations to reduce drag across several Froude numbers. A Volume of Fluid (VOF) approach models the fluid, while a Crank-Nicolson rigid body motion solver with two degrees of freedom (heave and pitch) is employed to model the boat motion. The starting geometry is representative of current polo kayak designs with a characteristic length of 3 m and width of 0.53 m. This geometry is parametrized based on the cross-sectional shape at ten discrete locations along the kayak longitudinal axis. The distribution of the cross-sectional area is studied with respect to drag and lift forces to suggest a design that is optimized for drag reduction.