Double blade
I understand some people are purists and traditional and have many reasons for NOT paddling a solo canoe with a double-blade paddle (and I totally appreciate and admire each reason- so to everyone, please don’t once again describe the differences and pro’s and con’s because they have been beaten to death here in many threads) but if you are willing to give it a try, you may be surprised at how much more control and on-course you are able to maintain. In the ocean or big lakes, its what I and some others do.
If it’s any consolation, Erik,
I took my Indy out of Mackerel Cove with the idea of heading toward Fort Wetherill and then up East Passage… once. Made it back OK, but I won’t be doing that again.
That is an absolutely beautiful trip
Here are some pictures (not from me) on a relatively calm day
http://erik64.smugmug.com/Kayaking/Fort-Wetherill-Jamestown-RI/i-wW4k3ds
I look at those pictures and (like you) I think “I can do that in an open boat”. Then you get out there and realize why they invented sea kayaks. Here is a video from when it gets rocking and rolling
http://vimeo.com/95287441
It looks like a lot of fun. I look at these pictures and wonder why I don’t own a sea kayak.
I can do it in an open boat!
– Last Updated: Jul-31-14 12:10 PM EST –
I was inspired by tktoo's post to head over to Jamestown this morning. I caught the sunrise at the salt marsh at Zeek's Creek - great views of the Newport Bridge. My original plan was to paddle at Dutch Harbor, which is relatively calm water. The only public access to Dutch Harbor that I know of is at the town boat ramp at Fort Getty, and the guy at the gate wanted to charge me $30 to use it! So instead I drove down to Beavertail to see the Beavertail Light, and then went to Fort Wetherill to do some paddling. Fort Wetherill was beautiful - 1 to 2 foot rolling waves, beautiful scenery. Worked out for the best.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/eckilson/sets/72157645658650539/
tktoo, you probably have other boats you can use, if not I say try it again.
Yes, erik, I do.
And, yes, it is beautiful. I try not to take it for granted and freely admit to being spoiled by spending as much of my summers in J-town as I have.
I won’t be there, but if you head over to the Narragansett Cafe tonight, you can see my BILs play their annual gig there. None are professional musicians, but there’s no cover and it’s a wide mix of types that come out. Good summer crowd and decent choice of brews.
current, not swells?
Reading your description of traveling in the direction of the swells even though you were paddling in a different direction, my first thought was: You were actually in a tidal current that happened to be going in the same direction as the swells, and you took the more visible possible cause (the swells) as the actual cause of your direction of motion, rather than the less visible possible cause (the current). No idea what the current was doing in your location on your date – just a theory.
If you want to dig for the currents data: The current predictions (as distinguished from the tide-level predictions) at tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov tell the compass headings implied by the “flood” and “ebb” labels. Then you look up the date and time of your trip in the tables and see numbers like +2.6, which means 2.6 knots in the “flood” direction, or -3.2, which means 3.2 knots in the “ebb” direction. If the current was moving in your direction of travel, then my theory looks likely. If your direction of travel was different from the current direction – never mind. I can give you an example from my neck of the woods (New York City) if you want to do this much research.
Mark
Current alone shouldn’t be a factor
– Last Updated: Aug-05-14 5:26 PM EST –
There are some very fast, non-whitewater rivers that people paddle downstream on, and they don't have any control issues, nor do they feel anything strange going on as a result. They DO notice that the riverbanks pass by awfully fast, but that's not the same as boat-handling characteristics.
I've about given up trying to explain the physics behind this, and how neither you nor your boat do anything any differently when paddling current, except that when near fixed objects you can see what the current is doing to you. Those who believe otherwise could do many things to clarify, but two examples would be to do some research into the history and methods of open-ocean navigation (where currents can't be detected, no matter how strong they are, without the use of GPS, inertial navigation, or the use of celestial landmarks over an extended timespan), or, if you can do it safely, to swim out into a big, reasonably fast river on a dark night to see for yourself that there is NO perception whatsoever of current until your feet once again touch bottom (if that happens after several minutes of free swimming, it'll scare the crap out of you because it feels like you've been bumped by an enormous, fast-swimming animal, NOT like you've come in contact with the stationary river bottom).
As always, the qualifying feature here is turbulence. When your boat suddenly encounters currents of differing velocity, THAT is something that messes with your paddling. Paddling in a broad, continuous current feels the same as paddling on a lake. It's only the visual cues that are different (assuming there are fixed landmarks nearby).