when moving forward level in the boat, the water is splitting evenly around the canoe. When you heel, a lot more hull surface is now in the water on one side and as you continue forward there is much more water pushing against that side than the other. That force will want to turn the hull to the side of least resistance....away from the heel. Reading your post about your age and physical limitations it may help to say we're talking small heel, not to the rail kind of stuff. In wind and waves it may be very small, on calm water you can go as far as is comfortable.
In addition to the boat going over, you may have tensed up and sent your torso in the same direction. It's no big deal - happens a lot when someone is in an uncomfortable situation in a boat. Also, there are wind levels that are going to be tolerable in a kayak but a real bear to handle in a canoe. You may have been in that zone. In that case, having the hull up a bit was itself probably not adding much to the overall problem of canoes having more windage and your balance.
What kind of kayak do you paddle? Many things just don't translate on a 101 level between kayaks and canoes, but the larger points in these these replies are things that do.
and if others wish to weigh in on this matter, so much the better. For those who have posted during the past 6 or 8 hours, I apologize for not acknowledging. When you live in the boondocks, at the far end of the technology creek, so to speak, Internet service can become problematic. I've been without service for most of the past two days. For some reason, the connection has just been restored but could go out at any time. (The "expert" sent out to fix things -- once he found our house -- surveyed the situations and announced "It's not my job," so I'm waiting for some different expert ... sigh. But the river view is gorgeous!!)
"Heeling" I understand. My background in sailing is much more extensive than that in canoeing, at least since the 1950s. (With my Flying Scot, "nirvana" was to be close-hauled with the lee rail under. But I suppose that's no longer practical for me.)
And to Celia, once again, I have no kayaks and have never been kayaking. That's a trick this old dog is unlikely to learn.
To pagayeur, your information looks particularly interesting and (I hope) useful. I'll have to study and think about it, as I will with several thoughtful posts here. I'm pasting all this stuff into a stand-alone Word doc. (It's too bad paddle-dot-net doesn't support something like a "Quote" feature. This not only makes responding to others much easier but facilitates the easy plucking out of posts, entirely or in part.)
second opinion > My one dunking last year occurred when my Adirondack
(which I was paddling solo) tipped a bit to leeward in gusty winds.
The exposed hull to windward acted like a sail, and both
the canoe and I were in the drink.
When paddling with sidewinds there is always drift, which can cause instability, just like heeling upstream in a river may do. Therefore I would heel a bit to the windward side then:
Wind (cont’d) A strong wind (well, any wind) will try to put the craft broadside to it. The wind in this instance was too strong, at least for my strength and skills. But I didn’t understand that at the time, and I was attempting to head the canoe up and into the wind. I suspect my tipping to leeward was an effort to gain more purchase from the paddle so as to accomplish this.
Canoeing and sailing have one thing in common for sure. In both cases, before you head out, you find yourself anxiously looking for signs of wind on the water or in the tree tops. But what you’re looking (hoping?) for is quite different.
Refrain from leaning You always want to remain parallel to tree trunks. The hull of your boat is tilted to facilitate carving a turn or anchoring a turn.
Not you. Yes the cardinal rule is keep your head in the confines of the gunwales. As the boat is heeled there is less of this distance so pay attention, and do NOT peer over the edge to see how far the boat is heeled. Thats a good way to study fish.
That means remain flexible in the hips and body and remember to breathe.
I refer to the change in hull orientation as heeling. Once I told a person to lean the boat. After they got wet and mad I realize the only word they heard was “lean” and they ignored the second word “boat”
other thoughs Depending on the type of boat you are paddling- you can also move forward from center to be a little bow-heavy which will keep you better on track (moves the pivot point forward so the rest of the boat trails out behind). If you boat is beamy enough with a wide enough center seat/thwart you can just slide over to one side on that for extended periods of heeling (as opposed to holding your position with a lean or muscles).
Not only that (trimming towards the bow), but you can turn the canoe around, sit/kneel in the same position as before (depending on thwart/seat positioning) but backwards, and -- now facing the stern -- paddle the craft stern first. There is a good description with illustrations of this technique in Bill Mason's book, Path of the Paddle. The wind will (so it is claimed) treat the boat like a weather vane, with the stern pointed into the wind.
Of course, you aren't going to set any performance records doing this. But it is much preferable to taking a swim in a stiff wind.
umm yes but trying a fancy MacKenzie reversal is probably going to land you in the drink…and some canoes have low sheerline in the stern…the bow is higher…sterns can welcome in waves.
If you are in a Prospector with symmetrical sheer lines reversing makes sense and can be done just by spinning on your butt and rekneeling. Essentially you are now free to move forward in the new bow to pin it better in the wind.
Depth A canoe with little depth (bow, stern, center) has no business out in severe wind and chop. That’s one thing I had in mind with my recent order of a Rendezvous, which has the most depth of any Wenonah solo (the Prospectors are tandems).
you have to be kidding I put a lot of kms in on my solos and they have a hull shape that is fine for almost all waves that I can paddle in. When it gets to 50 mph its too much work. RapidFire is a pretty shallow boat but handles Gulf chop very well. My Heron has been in some insane water and its twelve inches deep…the hull shape seems to shed waves.
That Rendezvous, sure its a sail…its more affected by wind because it has a lot of skin area…Carry a lot of gear …otherwise its a handful.
I dont know now if you are talking soloing a tandem Canadian Style in which you can reverse the bow and stern pretty easily if the hull is symmetrical but solos which have a skegged stern may be difficult to handle backewards.
kayamedic?? I'm 64, partially disabled and just returned to canoeing 3 years ago when I could no longer run. I don't go out in 45 knot winds or heavy waves-- not at all!
There are lots of flatwater conditions between calm and dangerous. A stiff breeze with moderate chop, complicated by large boat wakes, is more than my present canoes are comfortable in -- at least for me. The Rendezvous is meant to get me out on the water on some days when I'd otherwise be sitting home reading. Go to the Wenonah site and read the write-up on the Rendezvous.
Hull shape and depth Trent, what some here are saying is that the hull shape itself has as much to do with how the canoe handles conditions etc as measurements like how much of it is in the water. And if a craft had to sink a lot of boat into the water to be secure in conditions, my flat-bottomed Explorer LV kayak would be a very bad idea. But whatever else people have to say about the NDK’s quality control or the relatively small hatch openings or the short seat, that boat is largely regarded as being one of a handful of the most secure boats to be in when things get really bad. That’s true even with someone like me not sinking it fully.
One of the big aspects of solo paddle craft is the idea of secondary stability, which may be a myth but nonetheless expresses a pretty concrete idea. It is the point at which a boat will tend to return to upright, similar to the degrees of heel that are tolerable without capsize in a sailboat. Since paddle craft don’t have weighted keels, that all happens by dint of the hull design itself. Many canoes/kayaks with very little in the water have much higher degrees of that stability because of their allover hull design. So they may be more shall we say interesting to keep on track than some of the others, but in bad conditions they will actually be a lot more forgiving.
I am not suggesting that manufacturers lie or anything, but I have found more than one write-up on a web site that I didn’t exactly agree with after spending some time in the boat. They are doing their best to convey a general experience, but once your butt is in the boat things get a lot more specific.
At some point, a question of confidence I have written Wenonah and suggested that they provide more specs in their literature and web site (which is the same as the catalog). I didn’t write because I’m unhappy with their boats, but just because more information in better than less.
I’ve been pleased with my three Wenonahs. Their reported strengths and weaknesses (these too are acknowledged in the catalog) seem consistent with my own assessments of the various boats after I’ve paddled them. Their hull shapes seem to enable them to meet my expectations, which in turn result from prior information supplied by the boat company.
In short, unless you can test a boat on the water (and I can’t), you have to decide if you trust the manufacturer or not. I may be utterly disappointed with my new Rendezvous. I may find it’s hopelessly incapable of meeting the (limited) demands of 12-15 mph winds in moderate chop on flatwater. But if that proves to be the case, it will be the first time a Wenonah has disappointed me.
