Thanks
Well, regarding our own perceptions, perhaps we all a bit ultracrepidarian. (A fine word indeed - much to be preferred to charlatan). And yet we undeniably do form these mental pictures and models of the world around us, in this case paddling. Its only human, isnāt it? I wonder how resistance to individual paddle strokes could be made made more quantitative and correlated to depth, cross currents, roiling waters, etc.
Playing music used to be something that Iād get obsessed with for periods of years. I practiced many pieces until they were firmly burned into muscle memory. (Like your instinctive archery.) Other pieces that I liked less I consciously memorized the chord progressions and melody lines - a sort of mental ācheat sheetā, but didnāt practice as much but were held in consciousness.
If Iād then put the instrument down for a year or two and pursued other interests (as Iām prone to do and why I donāt really consider myself an accomplished musician), upon returning I could often remember the pieces I practiced less better than the ones I practiced to death and committed to muscle memory. The latter were just a blank to me. I had to relearn them from scratch (more quickly the second time around) or scrap 'em. I donāt think paddling in general is quite like that, though perhaps something like a practiced freestyle routine might be. Its like forgetting a poem but remembering how to speak English.
The stroke victim is indeed a striking case. Its as if seeing is a kind of muscle memory that persists independently of consciousness.
Darn - I wish music were like that for me. Iād still be able to play this - note for note, though perhaps a little fasterā¦ a blank space but a beautiful one.
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I like daydreaming when I paddle. Iām pretty sure that I cover more miles when I am not consciously thinking about what I am doing. About a week ago Iām cruising upstream along the edge of the river as usual to minimize my exposure to the current and I come up to a somewhat dangerous section where the quieter water along the edge ends and the current gets stronger and Iāll have to kneel and either cross the river (about 100 yards) or just bulldog my way upstream for hundreds of yards against swift water. No problem. been in this spot on the river many times and I typically make the effort to cross the river to get to the inside bend knowing that the angle of my canoe relative to the downstream current is always important as I leave my safe area. As I approach the eddyline that I have to cross I get this wonderful feeling of effortless speed and my first reaction is to just go with the flow and charge into the swift current and then I realize that Iām in a big recirculation vortex that is pushing me upstream fast towards an eddyline where the downstream current is swift. So fortunately my real time paddling consciousness returned (I could sense the transition from the dream state) and I realized that something very bad might be about to happen if/when I get pushed hard sideways (in a lake oriented canoe) with about 8-9 mph speed relative to the water and I backpaddled HARD to get out of there.
Not sure if this relates to the discussion but I thought it might. 
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My Mother was named Georgia. Some of my earliest memories are of my Dad singing that song as we were driving places. He sang a lot of the songs from that time period too, and would get as all singing on the down road. That was back when the only AC we had was 460, so the windows were down. BTW, Nice instrumental.
I grew up with the willie Nelson version on Stardust, just an utterly fantastic album to begin with
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Youāre putting me in mind of a place where I used to practice eddy turns and peel outs and such. Its a really good solid high volume eddy under a railroad bridge but quite a way from where I live. Such spots are rare around here so when you pass them they must be āplayedā a bit. So practicing a jet ferry was the order of the dayā¦
Hit it fast and timed a hard torso rotating sweep stroke to keep from a violent peel out.
Thatās the only time Iāve ever broken a paddle. 
A classic to be sureā¦ dang its been a long time since Iāve listened to it.
If I were to take an animal spirit totem, I think it would be a Great Blue Heron. They hang in the kind of places I like, but mostly because they sing about like I do. I try to never be caught singing.
But weāre drifting off topicā¦ and I better get going and do something that might pass for productive pretty soon.
Catch yāall in a bit. Be well, friends.
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One time I almost swamped my canoe when it suddenly dipped a rail under the surface as I crossed an eddyline under a railroad trestle. My black lab did a quick major weight shift and saved usā¦ended up with about 4 inches of water in the boat and felt pretty lucky.
Donāt be stealing my totem. They are exceptional hunters too. We just paddled a short way up a tributary, not sure we drifted.
Currents, wind and tides affect your boat. They interact all the time.
There is no laminar flow in rivers, they have turbulent flow. River bends, rocks, sweepers and the bottom contours create eddys, boils and other water movement.
Learn to read the subtle changes in flow. They you can eddy hop upstream and stay in the current going down stream.
A met a guy that famously paddled up the Colorado River from the Confluence of the Green and Colorado to Moab. This is a common shuttle in a jet boat. Skilled paddlers use eddys to paddle upstream even in large rivers with heavy current.
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Wowser.
Sarcasm is rarely effective in social media. Many people struggle with this idea of turbulent flow. Few people can read rivers well and see all of the edddys and eddy lines.
I paddle a 145 Tsunami. Perception plays with your mind if you donāt have a direct speed read out. My paddling partner doesnāt use a GPS. Sheāll constantly talk about how fast it feels weāre going. When I say we dropped one mph, she doesnāt believe it. We recently paddled a river going into the wind on an incoming tide at 4.2 mph. When we reached open water and turned up the bay, the wind and tide was on our right quarter. We jumped from 4.2 mph to 5.1 mph, yet it felt slower because the wind at 6 mph became stagnant and the waves were going with us. Perception! GPS doesnāt lie. We rounded an Island and headed back into the river (now fighting the outgoing tide and river flow. We dropped to 3.6 mph.
Again perception was different than actual speed.
Someone mentioned float planes and speed boats. Float planes have a step to break the tension or suction or what you call it. Look up planing hull and displacement hull.
By the way, my paddling partner tells me when the front of my boat start to make the gurgling sound. Probablybreactingbto the bluff bow on the WS rotomoldrd boats. A short kayak will bury the stern as it tries to climb the bow wave and the rear deck buries into a trough. Longer boats dont bury as easily; they just become harder to paddle, and they fall off the glide faster The 175 Tsunami is 3 feet longer than the 145 Tsunami, but I canāt push it appreciably faster than the shorter boat, maybe .3 mph faster.
String, Iāve been in and out of this site since it began and it seems some are still out there bragging about how āāfastāā their boats will go, and having 2 sons and hubby who all had cars from the 50ās that were also fast and occasionally taken to the ādrag stripā, I decided years ago, itās a āguyā thing and still chuckle while each tries to outdo the other. As a female paddler for over 28 years, Iāve always paddled a boat I enjoyed, whether my shorter OT Castine, or Necky Chatham and never ever was I concerned or even though about how fast sheād go for me. Glad to see youāre still on here as well as Celia and a few others who always give sound advice to the newbies. May we all paddle on and never run out of rivers or ocean water to travel through. Have a blessed day. SK/GR, MI
Do you really believe stating an example of speed going from 4.2 mph to 3.6 mph is bragging. How can you compare a boat if you want a faster boat unless someone tells you the speed. Excuse me! I saw an example of a boat going 6.6 to 7 mph. For some reason, I wasnāt offended. Donāt worry. I wo t bring speed into picture again. Donāt want people to aspire.
Good to hear from you shirlann. There are and have always been a few paddlers here who are practical with their advice. They range from pros to duffers like me.
3 years ago I did a short class for our meetup group on forward stroke. All 5 of the attendees were women. I recently paddled with 2 of them and I had to work to keep up. I was proud of them. I have 15 years " experience" on them and sometimes it catches up with me.
Not sure what wowser implies, but ppine is correct - Iād be surprised to find a realistic example of laminar flow in moving water with obstructions and changes in direction. Turbulence is the norm in natural flows.
Turbulence requires speed too, right? And even a pool-and-drop river has laminar in the pools. The water going under my boat in places like this have laminar; obstructions get dodged.
Turbulence requires velocity differential. If youāre drifting along in a placid body of water flowing downstream, itās true there is no turbulence between the boat and the water - but youāre basically flotsam, so not too interesting. If you start paddling and give yourself a velocity relative to the moving water (in any direction), a turbulent boundary layer will form on the hull at any reasonable speed.
Re the placid water, if itās all moving together (bulk flow), there may or may not be turbulence within the water (free-stream turbulence), either carried along with the water from upstream obstructions, or caused by wind/water interaction at the surface.
Even if there is no free-stream turbulence in the moving body of water, there will be a boundary layer at the interface between the water and the stream bed or any other physical obstruction, which is almost certainly going to be turbulent.
How does the rocking motion of the boat as its paddled affect forward motion. Does it break tension or create drag.