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.
yep
is his name Andrew? one of the best technical creek V paddlers I know and paranoid as hell of the sea.
it’s pretty big out thar!
steve
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.
Dogmaticus
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!
steve
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.
Why do you even care…
– Last Updated: Dec-09-07 10:20 AM EST –
...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.
So
The truth comes out …
your not one brick short of a full load…your one shingle short of a full abode 
Best wishes
Roy
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.
Uh?
> “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?"
Uh? Sounds like the guy is loading the question in favor of the matching boat. If he wants more exercise he should go in a shorter boat. The graph above is probably limited to 17-20 ft boats, so it doesn’t tell the whole story.
We got a Vasa trainer
and it gives you your watts that you are putting out. It’s neat to see how hard you start but after 5 min. how little you can really hold.
Likely a bad measure
Doing the tethered thing would force the paddle to slip back through the unmoving water - creating a simple drag only scenario and creating a lot of turbulence - and not acting efficiently as a lever as it really does at speed.
Some do it as a limited training exercise - but resulting pull force reading is hooked to a scale probably does not equate well to sustainable effort actually moving forward or speed one can hold.
Young and cheerful
I agree that having a mix of ages is always more interesting than everybody being within 10 yrs of each other.
It’s not just in the paddling world, either.
I didn’t realize this until I left a job where most of the workers were over 35 y.o. and took some classes at an urban community college (and worked there a few hrs/wk). The ages of students ranged from teens to about 80. It was such a breath of fresh air to be there.
Later I took another job where the average age was over 50. Yeah, BO-RING, SET-IN-WAYS attitude. After that I again worked with people who ranged from 16 to who knows. Same phenomenon. The young ones (even the slightly slacker ones) were fun to be around. None of them were burned out on life.
Nor does it measure what the paddler
knows about which water is better for forward momentum (or any direction for that matter) to suit their purposes.
Dogmaticus
Did some simple stuff like this w/scale
– Last Updated: Dec-10-07 1:22 PM EST –
in a place where we got reliable, smooth, tidal currents just for fun. Tested a bunch of different boats within minutes with the same weight in them.
Edit, boats were tethered facing current, paddle was in hand just for balance.
True…
…but… I was wondering if it might tell you something. At first I discarded this as totally useless, but then I thought certainly if you can’t get the scale to read x lbs when stationary then you aren’t going to be able to apply x lbs when in motion. Knowing this might help you choose a boat – knowing that you can ignore the resistance curve above x lbs.
Attach scale to piling…
… or seawall and ram kayak into it at full speed. L