This past season spent a lot of time in ww sessions and running ww for exactly that reason. Moving between river ww and ocean rock gardening & tidal races is great fun and one informs the other.
Some of the ww folks I know simply yawn when sea kayaking is mentioned. A friend who is a respected ww paddler had to vouch for us when we registered for a two day ww training with a couple of excellent coaches. Fortunately we proved ourselves good students and were invited back. I think we helped change the perception of sea kayakers as flat water paddlers who can't brace or roll.
My first time at Sullivans Falls for the first Mayhem with Maynard session at the first Downeast Symposium was apparently the first time people saw folks in long boats playing in that spot. It seems that previously most folks had only seen paddlers in whitewater boats there.
Paddling is paddling. The more I move between ww and sea kayaking the more it seems strange that most kayakers do one or the other, rather than both...
Salty, I agree with you and maybe did not make my point well. The longer boat ( all things equal) will have a higher speed sweet spot. By this I mean that the point at which the power needed to go faster becomes a much higher multiplier, or in the postings article, the point at which the power curve really points upwards. My father in law added a bulbous bow to his trawler and picked up significant speed from two factors, laminar flow and waterline. I am not an engineer, he is, and his science points mostly towards waterline. My point in all of this that there is not a BIG difference in the speed of well made performance sea kayaks, (not race boats, even though they are subject to physics too) given equal influences. I said maybe two knots from slowest to fastest and I think that is a safe estimate. I consider myself a strong recreational paddler and can average 4.1 to 4.6 mph over an 18 mile paddle with 1 to 2 foot seas and 10 to 15 miles per hour of wind. Put me or hercules in any number of performance sea kayaks and this average will not have a spread exceeding 2mph for the same paddler. Just my opinion based on my experiences so far. I will also speculate that the fastest boat on that graph (the red line I think) was about to hit its sweet spot at five pounds (the curve was starting to tail) and this is why they ended the graph at 5. If it was much higher why would they have left this very important fact out of the equation? These guys who are averaging over 6 knots on long distances must be some very strong and fit people with exceptional technique, either way I would not want to meet up with them in a dark alley so I am going to make this my last post on this one. Thanks for listening. Bill
Yawning The attitude of WW guys toward sea kayakers (I’ve seen it, too) is analogous to that of mtn bikers’ attitude toward road biking in the late 80s and early 90s. They sneered at is as being for wimps…
UNTIL the guys who trained both disciplines started routinely thrashing their butts on the mtn bike race circuit. The dual-sports bikers’ aerobic AND anaerobic performance was simply better.
The sneering diminished, and now most serious mtn bikers also ride the road.
Storage space!!! People in their teens and 20s usually don’t own homes where there’s room to store long kayaks either indoors (garage) or outside. They rent apartments.
Also, it’s a lot cheaper to throw some shorty WW kayaks on a small car’s roof or inside a pickup truck bed than it is to fork out bucks for roof racks or trailers.
I mean, if young guys are so adverse to “boring” sports, then why do there continue to be young long-distance runners and triathletes? Not all young people are the same type of person (or old people, for that matter). And THAT is good.
young are so adverse to “boring” sports Though there are more young folk running ww than sea kayaking, there is a lot of grey hair on the river whenever we are running ww - and it is not just our own.
Though many of the coaches and other top guns of ww are young, a goodly number of the rest of the paddlers are Boomers or Gen Xers. The two best ww paddlers I know personally hail one from each of these generations.
If by young one means Millenials, around here they are out numbered in both ww and sea kayaking by ‘older’ folks. I don’t know what physical pass times the young folk are into, but it doesn’t seem to be paddling…
Clubs I believe even in the US you’ll find clubs with thriving children and youth K1 programs.
It’s all about the environment and a critical mass of young paddlers to attract more young people.
Here in Denmark, the most successful race club is located in a small town in the boonies with a population less than 6000. The thing is that everybody and their dog either paddles or is somehow connected to the kayak club. It is even said that many of the children eat their breakfast in the club before going to school.
The thing about young people in an kayak environment is that they makes for some cheerful and amusing company. I feel compelled to write - as opposed to grumpy old “sea kayakers”
I know a guy, a regular on class 5 creeks and rivers that told me point blank he is scared of the ocean. No problem hucking class 5, but the ocean gives him the creeps. Wow. Class 5 truly scares me. As far as attracting people to sea kayaking, I think This is the Sea and other vids are doing a pretty good job.
boat houses and clubs It is great to ride a bike to a kayak place such as bay creek in rochester and grab your boat from the rack. Please check www.blackburnchallenge.com to see 3 hour results from a 20 mile race. The narrow boat improves technique.
that was a straw man …based on a characterization and made by someone who paddles a surf ski using a wing paddle, and is proud of his speed. I agree with you.
When I find a kid who can afford a new Suki and carbon wing paddle, and has the space to store it - I’m going to invest in him or her.
No the guy I’m thinking of is Tim. Your Oregon and south Washington kayaker world down there is really big and talented in both salt and freshwater. One can learn lots by hanging out with those folks. Hope you managed well in the storm.
lost a shingle off’n my roof…dats all! ONE shingle.
neighbors have a few trees down BUT WOW… the many parts of the peninsula and over in N Oregon there’s some major damage. mostly trees falling thru houses and stuff.
yep. andrew now lives in Switzerland. no oceans there!
You May Be Right Son Enjoyed your post, son. The younger extreme-minded people may never find any type of ocean paddling appealing. I was a serious xc mountain biker/snowboarder/skier when younger. I put all my money into top of the line mountain bikes. I didn’t have enough cash or time leftover to bother with sea kayaks. I did not get into paddling until my mid-30s when I had a better job, bigger belly and probably a less extreme attitude.
But I gotta tell you, I’ve have more thrills per summer on my surfski than I ever had on my mountain bike. Its never the same twice out there.
Implications . . . As an outfitter, a question I frequently get: “If my paddling partner is 5’4” and 140 lbs and I am 6’0" and 190 lbs with a lot more upper body strength, and if my partner is purchasing a 15 foot kayak, do I need to purchase a 15 foot kayak also, in order to be a good match for my partner in terms of pace?"
The answer provided by this article (and graph) seems to be what I have been recommending all along. Chances are that you and your partner will be paddling at a pace of 2-4 knots – at which speed waterline length and length to width ratio do not have a great influence on the amount of effort required. So go ahead an get the “faster” boat. It won’t be as “fast” at slower speeds.
I agree completely These are the same kind of gross exaggerations he made in the “paddle” thread. He’s also making the assumption that the average sea kayaker actually cares about how fast he/she is going and wants to go faster. I daresay that for most people, it’s about having fun and speed is way down on their list of considerations. Personally, I have a lot more fun playing in rocks and surf than trying to get from point A to point B as quickly as I can. Given good conditions, we may go out on the water for 4 hours and only cover as many miles, playing in beach breaks, offshore breaks, or every interesting nook and cranny on the shoreline.
Dismissing anyone who doesn’t paddle above 4 knots as an “arm paddler” with poor technique is insulting and just plain wrong. It smacks of someone with an overinflated ego who’s simply wants to beat their chest and proclaim their superiority. I hope that’s not the case here.
The truth is that not everyone can, or wants to paddle at 5+ knots. If it was as easy as Envyabull claims, many more of us would be doing it. It’s not as if we’re all a bunch of schlubs who haven’t refined on our technique over the years.
...about whether someone else's chosen preference in paddling will attract younger paddlers? It's not like there aren't enough people paddling. When I'm out on the water, the furthest thing from my mind is what other people think of sea kayaking.
Paddling is about having a good time and getting some exercise. If I prefer to play in rough water without covering a lot of distance and you prefer to go as fast and far as you can, that's fine. We're both doing what we enjoy and getting plenty of exercise, either way.
However, this air of superiority of yours is getting old. Whether it's your intent or not, you're coming across as some kind of elitist braggart who has no respect for anyone who doesn't choose to paddle long and fast, as you do. The exaggerated, unrealistic claims you keep making just reinforce that image. I get the impression that you're actually interested in helping people improve their paddling skills, but if that's the case, you need to change your rhetoric, as I suspect you're pissing more people off than you're encouraging.
Last, but not least, this "younger attitude" stuff is pure crap. One doesn't have to have an old-fart attitude to enjoy some other aspect of kayaking than simply going fast.
Fish Scale? Has anyone who is into the racing end of things ever measured their ability to apply force while tethered to a stationary fish scale? I’m curious if this might be more meaningful than I had previously considered w.r.t. estimating speed in a particular hull.
