My paddling bible is Bill Mason’s Path of the Paddle. The one bit of advice that stands out for me is the recommendation to “descend rapids slowly”. While the OP does not exactly present a rapids situation, the advice is still good. I would back ferry past this hazard. By doing so I would not risk that “oh crap” moment that comes when you realize that your boat speed plus the current push is going to set you into the hazard. Overly cautious? Yeah, maybe.
Peter
@pgeorg said:
My paddling bible is Bill Mason’s Path of the Paddle. The one bit of advice that stands out for me is the recommendation to “descend rapids slowly”. While the OP does not exactly present a rapids situation, the advice is still good. I would back ferry past this hazard. By doing so I would not risk that “oh crap” moment that comes when you realize that your boat speed plus the current push is going to set you into the hazard. Overly cautious? Yeah, maybe.Peter
Agreed.
I’ve kinda gone full circle in my thinking, starting out I was clueless- meaning I was simply drifting, but not really understanding the currents or how to position boat.
Then I adopted the open boat “Bill Mason” mentality- going slower than the current, backpaddling, some eddy sets with back ferries being the main staple of my canoe tripping days.
Switching into decked ww c1s I became more proactive- forward paddling, jet ferries, power moves, boat tilt became important for eddy turns, peelouts, and negotiating big features- like large standing waves, holes, boily eddy lines.
Now I’m in the old lazy mode- trying to do as little as possible, letting the currents do the work- the only difference from when I started out is that hopefully I understand a little better how to use the river and angle the boat to put it where I want to go.
One of the weird paradoxes of big rapids was that sometimes it was easier to paddle away from hazards if you start on the same side as they are on.
Perhaps it’s because your bow is naturally pointed away from the obstruction and in general we tend to go where we look and in this case you’re looking away from the hazard.
Outside or inside bend?
If I want to slow things down, minimize splash, or simply stay in the shallows for self rescue then the inside bend is my place. I find myself doing this more on “new to me” runs where I don’t know what is up around the bend.
If I want faster water that requires less effort then I’m on the outside bend. If I’m on a really shallow river or feeling particularly lazy then the outside bend is my friend. Of course strainers are more of a concern there.
I do a fair amount of dodging in current with trees. ( I like to paddle narrow class II and III “fishin’creeks”) On those trips I often go into slow mode in a ww kayak., Generally killing the speed- is safer and easier if I have to duck under, push through, or get out and carry around wood if you’re going slow.
So paddling is a bit like music- not just the notes or route you take, but consider tempo as well.
Allan Olesen: I understand what you’re saying for river bends, but I think this situation is different. To make the current turn me if I take my line I must get to the right of the strong sideways current, but it’s way to shallow there to paddle.
Reading and rereading all answers made me understand the situation much better.
I learned canoeing from books that recommend to stay on the inside of a bend. I think I thought that meant to stay on the shallow right in the above example, away from the strainer, although I now think a river bend is different from this example.
However, as GBG, pblanc, tdaniel and others pointed out, paddling on the left, or at least farther to the left, will make it easier to paddle away from the strainer, with less change of heading, deeper water to allow effective paddle strokes towards the right bank, and faster travel as a plus.
I will try my friend’s line next time. Always thought I’d be too close to the strainer for comfort.
Have not tried the back ferry in this situation.
Here’s a video of a very similar situation. I’m hardly the most graceful or expert paddler to “show how it’s done”, but at least I didn’t need to go searching to find this, and the illustrated moves worked okay in this case and would be a safe method in such a situation where too much speed while riding the main current would create the risk of a crash and pin.
The back-paddling during the approach was just a very slight back ferry, with just enough angle (stern angled slightly toward the viewer) to coax the boat closer to the near shore and cause it to enter that sheltered water near the inside of the bend while mainly just keeping the rate of forward travel to a practical minimum (playing it safe on what was a first run). From there, a little bit of nearly constant side-slipping (resulting in the travel direction being diagonal) kept the boat away from the upended trees without applying any effort to point the canoe on a course that would make it easy to stay away from those obstacles via straight-ahead paddling. That’s another thing to keep in mind in certain cases: Canoes don’t need to go straight, so turning or pivoting aren’t needed every time you dodge an obstacle. Canoes can go sideways or diagonally (in the absence of a load of camping gear, I can make the canoe in that video go straight sideways at around 3 mph). In this case, though, most of the current rushed right through alongside the first two obstacles, so once the canoe exited that main current, gliding alongside the remaining obstacles where the sideways current was much weaker, was easy.
nice video, combining approaches- going slow (back ferrying) to stay out of the main current and then powering with some lateral movement around the strainer at the bottom, with gliding at the end.
The safest way to paddle around this obstacle would be to hug the right shore, with the stern of the boat in a position to back ferry. That would be pointed at the shore.