Observations on paddling in the wind

[castoff]

Spent some time this last week visiting my Dad in Central FL. We rented a house on one of the many suburban sinkhole lakes in the area. I brought our tandem MRC Explorer with me and paddle each morning. One of the days was windy with shifts and some stronger gusts. The canoe was empty, and I was paddling solo. So, I turned it around and paddled it stern forward. I kneeled behind the yoke/thwart or sat in the bow (now stern) seat.

As has be discussed here before paddling into the wind you want weight in the bow and downwind weight in the stern. What you are doing is changing the center of lateral resistance (CLR) of the wind against the canoe. This concept is also used to sail. If the CLR of the canoe is such that the wind’s center of lateral effort (CLE) is the same the canoe will stay at a 90’ to the wind.

If the CLR is moved forward of the CLE then the stern moves downwind, and if the CLR is moved behind the CLE then the bow moves downwind. The amount you make that change alters how the canoe will handle.

You can change this dynamic by moving the CLR forward to help paddle into the wind or back to paddle downwind. I had fun doing this with my body by knelling as close to the center thwart for paddling up wind and moving slightly back to paddle at an angle to cross wind and sitting in the seat going downwind. You can also use the wind to correct for yaw when paddling on the downwind side of the canoe. Get it right and you can eliminate the yaw correction component from the stroke. Anyway, I entertained myself that morning dancing a canoe with the wind as my partner.

A few photos of the cattails, water lilies, and sunsets.

[string]

We had 2 days of very gentle rain. Before it started I had the flower garden tilled and planted. This morning the bed is covered with new growth. The sun is warm and the sky is beautiful.
It is a perfect day for paddling but today that sounds like work.
And a rose breasted grosbeak stopped by the feeder. Don’t recall seeing one before.

[PJC]

Dancing with the wind… that’s an apt description. Solo canoeing an empty tandem can make a person very aware of wind. My closest section of “home river” is wide, shallow, sandy and runs east to west for almost 100 miles, so it is usual for me to be paddling against the prevailing westerlies of this part of the country. If we get a tail wind it usually means we’ll be camping in a storm that night.
One thing that wasn’t mentioned is that a useful trick when paddling into a headwind is that it can be used to work a “wind ferry” with little regard to current (or on a lake). Angling your heading to the right of the wind, for example, and easing your paddle rate to so you’re not making much head way against the wind will move the boat laterally across the river to the right. Its a useful trick for moving into the faster waters around sandbars, for instance.

After many years of paddling a low volume solo canoe (Blackhawk Starship) into those winds, I added a NovaCraft Prospector 16 to my fleet. On my first outing on that river with the much higher volume and more rockered (and almost empty) Prospector I found myself running against a pretty brisk headwind on a 9 mile section that I paddled under similar conditions probably hundreds of times. I made it about three miles downstream and thought I was gonna’ die. It was exhausting. Trim as I would I couldn’t get it to keep a heading - all I was doing was correcting directions and barely making any progress downstream. After an hour and a half or so of this, the thought occurred that maybe I should quit being dumb and go back to the put-in. (Yet another entry in the further adventures of the man of genius.) Turning the boat around and heading upstream I found that if I sat on the rear deckplate the bow stuck up enough to act like a sail. I made it back upstream almost without a paddle stroke - I just sat there ruddering and listening to the bottom bang on the waves like a small power boat or something. It took less than half the time to go upstream as it did to go down and with way less effort.
Dancing with the wind.

[castoff]

Using the wind to ferry across the lake was one of the dance steps. Using the raised hull of the canoe as a spinnaker sail, I haven’t tried!

[Jyak]

Great insight on weathercocking, and the role a skeg and rudder play in trimming the kayak.

Your pictures remind me of a place on the Upper Chesapeake Bay called Turner Creek Landing. The cove to the right of the lauch has Lotus plants that bloom in September.

It’s a 10 hour round trip paddle from where I launch, if the tide is favorable; an 8 hour paddle from the Head of the Bay which is an hour drive; or a short paddle from the Turner Creek Landing launch which is over a two hour drive.

[castoff]

Very cool, we don’t have Lotus. My photos are of Fragrant Water Lily. Florida also has Spatterdock.

Spatterdock

[Jyak]

The lotus leaves grow to almost 2 ft above the water surface. One advantage of building speed and endurance is that it takes over 2 hours one way to drive around the top of the bay and down the other side, or 4 hrs 40 min round trip by kayak.

[sing]

@castoff

As has be discussed here before paddling into the wind you want weight in the bow and downwind weight in the stern. What you are doing is changing the center of lateral resistance (CLR) of the wind against the canoe. This concept is also used to sail. If the CLR of the canoe is such that the wind’s center of lateral effort (CLE) is the same the canoe will stay at a 90’ to the wind.

Can’t say much about this as my Hornbeck has a fixed seat just aft of the center line. Also, I am using a 240 cm kayak paddle. If the wind is particular strong, my adaptation is to lengthen/shorten the paddle grip on one side or the other for a longer/shorter stroke. Or, aim upwind of the point I am trying to reach and let wind push me towards the target as I get closer. Not much finesse on my part.

Sometimes I wish for a solo canoe with a “traditional” seating arrangement. But, I as I get older and my knees more challenged, I am probably better served with the “kayak seating” arrangement.

Nice pics!

-sing

[ppine]

I took 2 guys out to test their skill before a week long river trip. They said they used to paddle. The wind came up in the afternoon, steady 20-25 mph. They gave up and walked the canoe back to the boat ramp.

I was paddling my OT Guide 18 in wood canvas solo with my dog. I moved forward and knelt in front of the center thwart and paddled the big canoe back to the boat ramp. After that my 2 companions paid more attention to what I told them. They both ended up in the bow of other people’s canoes.

[spiritboat]

I agree. But with one caveat: "Sail when you can, paddle when ye must."

PS- As to wear and tear on my old knees: I dispensed with manufacturer’s seats sometime back, preferring a loose layered glued stack of EVA foam(ala almost small ww-type saddle)to comfortably rest my buttocks while using knee pads in wide brace at center.

[szihn]

Paddling a kayak in wind is something I do more often then not. It’s a rare day when the wind is not blowing here.

But my experience may not add anything of real value because I am an inland paddler and the largest factor I need to deal with is waves made by the wind. If the wind gets strong enough the idea of going where I want to go disappears and you just get blown in the direction of that wind. I never have lost 100% of the “voting rights” to a wind, but loosing 90% of them is expected when the wind gets over 40MPH and I have been blown to shore 3 times now when I just had to tuck-tail and run. So I just don’t try it very often if the wind is at 30 MPH or more.

But in lake paddling, the wind fetch is very noteworthy because if the wind had only a short distance on the water the wind itself can blow you around, but the waves don’t have time to build much so I have been defeated by wind alone a few times and had the waves only be about 14-18 inches tall. I have learned that if I get a few miles of open water in a wind of about 25 MPH the waves will be far higher then those I deal with in a 35-40 MPH wind but the waves having only 150 yards to build. In such cases the challenge is to not get blown into the middle of a lake where the wind is just as strong but the waves have a few miles to gain size.

Most western lakes are not as large as eastern lakes. (not all, but most) So keeping the wind fetch under 1 miles is often possible if you plan correctly.

In the oceans the waves can be made by weather systems so far from you that you can’t even see them. In my time in the Marines I learned about tides and waves, doing boat drills in California, Oregon and Alaska. But those were IBS’s. (Inflatable Boat-Small) And with a combat load and 7 Marines on board, it took the full efforts of all Marines aboard to control them in big surf and waves in the Pacific Ocean. It could be pretty intense and even frightening at times. But the drills and training were re-scheduled when the Navy would tell command what was coming. We’d get a warning usually several hours before the biggest waves would get to our position. Today, inland, I have no such resources, other then the weather forecasts, which are none to reliable in the mountains.

I read many posts on various threads about the majority of paddlers here in the USA and in other places in the world and about 95% of them are in oceans. I find them interesting---- bordering on riveting. I hope to someday go back to Alaska and paddle the shores there, and also the great lakes too. In a month I am going out for 9-10 days on Ft Peck Lake in Montana which is a very large lake by Western standards.

I think back to my military days and can see how the conditions were produced, and how wind, tides and currents played into our plans and movements in those IBSs. Now days, in a kayak, the natural factors are the same, but the “mission” is totally different and the way I can move in a kayak is as different as the movement of a construction truck is from motorcycle. So I didn’t come into kayaking totally blind, but the amount of good I retained in my ability to paddle a water craft was so different as to be nearly worthless. (trying to blend it into kayaking.) What USMC training did do for me which helps me now was to make me aware of the power of water and wind, and teach me the way to read a beach or shoreline. Often the prettiest places with their magnificent rocks and cliffs are also the most dangerous places you can be if the wind comes up in a way that is not to your liking. As with my days in the military, I try to always obey the adage “don’t get into water you can’t get out of”.

The ability to paddle a kayak is simply NOT the same as paddling an inflatable raft. ESPECIALLY a raft in wind. And being alone is way different if things get bad then it was to have teams of 7 or 14 Marines to all pull together. I suspect a canoe is somewhere in-between a raft and a kayak. I now also have a 16 foot canoe and I use it ONLY on calmer waters, and mostly when I want to take friends or my dogs with me. But I only take the canoe out on pretty calm days, or on the rivers where the wind is not so dangerous and waves are not built up.