Yeah, really. We have been over and
over this before.
The very best example is the young Olympic kayakers that tried to join some old men in their 60ies. The Olympic yakers in with their special light yak paddles and yaks could not keep up the pace of the old farts with their 10 oz paddles and 60 pound boats. The yakers pulled out for a final time with bloody hands, joint pain, ligament problems and such. At least one, one of the medal winners I was told had been hospitalized for a bit and tried to join the group again, but could not keep up and gave up.
Yaks do not win long races against canoes as the strain of the heavier paddle and deeper drafting hull is too big of a handicap.
Look at the annual Yukon race.
Look at the Mississippi race. During the 2003 race the guy that built the custom 23’ yak to beat the Cruiser canoe in 2001 gave up and paddled the bow of the Cruiser to win!
And so on, and so on.
Now I will admit that those new $400 to $500 18 oz yak paddles are an improvement, but the yak hull still drafts too deep to be efficient against a canoe in any seriously long trek. The body simply can not heal and strengthen as it can in a good canoe.
If you want to prove me wrong I know of a real old fart, skinny and almost 70 years old that races the seniors divisions. He even has a woman paddling his bow for part of the events. I’ll tell you what races he is in and you can go beat the pants off him. ;^)
LOL,
Mick
Yeah, but there’s another thing…
WIND.
Trade-offs are part of life.
Don’t like slick shafts?
Good idea. Colorado Cyclist catalog includes some “faux carbon fiber” handlebar tape that would be perfect for use on a cheapie…“No, really, this carbon fiber paddle cost me only $60!”
And I’ll 2nd what Bnystrom said about
Greenland length.I made one by the book and it is 240cm +. It is so long that I get serious blade flutter, so it hangs on the wall.It’s purty. I may cut 5" off both ends or build another one someday.
Yep…it never ends…the what if game.
It can be fun or maddening to play! ;^)
Mick
Sure, Mick
That “Olympic paddlers” diatribe sounds like an old wive’s tale. I wonder how many generations of canoeists it took to embelish it to the point it’s at when you tell it.
The fact that one guy builds an impossibly long kayak and can’t beat canoes with it proves nothing. A 23’ solo kayak simply has too much wetted area to be efficient unless you can keep it at near it’s maximum hull speed, which no one could do in a long distance event.
As for draft, most kayaks draw no more than 4" of water, so what difference is that going to make? Wetted surface area and the surface drag it creates is the major contributor to drag at lower speeds and that’s not a function of draft, but of the cross sectional shape of the hull. Racing kayaks draw more water than touring kayaks but they’re faster in the hands of a capable paddler. I don’t see any logic behind the draft claim. It smacks of the same kind of nonsense as some claims I’ve heard that Kruger “canoes” have no drag. Hydrodynamics is science, not magic.
There seems to be a small cadre of exceptional canoeists that enter all these long distance races you name, so it’s no wonder that canoes win a lot. Can you show me one instance where a world-class kayak racer has entered one of these races and been beaten by a canoeist, without making some serious mistakes that cost him/her the race?
Anecdotes can’t trump physics.
A low stroke is NOT mandatory
A GP works well at a variety of stoke angles. If you watch clips of paddlers in Greenland and particularly in races, you’ll see a lot of people paddling with relatively high strokes.
The low decks on traditional boats are for stealth and resistance to wind. They also permit the use of the abdominal muscles to a greater degree than you can in a boat with a higher deck. This compensates for the fact that you can’t use your hip flexors as much in a boat with a low deck. A low deck (or thick padding on a high deck) is necessary in order to use the traditional Greenland stroke where you are pulling up with the knees (using the abs) while pushing the paddle diagonally down and across the deck. However, the stoke itself does not need to be low. In fact, the harder you paddle, the higher the stroke will tend to become, just as with a Euro paddle.
If your reference is to the low stroke technique that Doug VanDoren teaches, that’s not a stroke that’s used in Greenland and it’s not “traditional” or “authentic” despite what he claims. It IS pretty effective at moving a kayak and I sometimes use it as a change of pace. It does require a low deck, or you won’t have any skin left on your knuckles after paddling.