When we approximate the Axle except heel the canoe away from the intended rotation, we carve the bow into the turn, for a snappier maneuver. The bow is now reaching over the high side of the boat to place the hanging draw. Biomechanics are compromised and the brace changes from a standard high brace to a slice to the rail pry, but the more vertical blade draws the bow more firmly. The most important difference is the Hull shape, the carving bow results in the stern skidding loose with greater velocity. There is enough rotational momentum that the stern needn't power through the maneuver with sweeping forwards at all.
I feel Wedges are showing off maneuvers of limited use in tandem even if balance is improved they are unbraced. Worse, most seem to be using straight blades and inverted bents are the key to Wedges, so let's move on.
So we're rolling down stream, bow paddling left, stern right and the bow spies something shiny, maybe an escaped beer can gently rolling in an eddy . She initiates the offside turn upstream, away from her paddle with a by adding a sweeping component to her forward stroke. This should alert the somnolent stern that they're turning to his side.
The bow carried her blade across the boat, sticking a Cross Draw and heeling the boat towards her placement while the suddenly alert stern applies strong Js to successive forward stroke. The canoe's bow draws to the Cross Draw, the stern is forced into a skid that enhances as the bow paddler draws to her bow. When pointing upstream and in the eddy, the bpw concludes with a little Cross Forward, running the boat further into the eddy and closer to the libationary container. The basic Cross Axle is a Cross Duffek heeled towards the bow's stroke, the stern thumping the hull through an arc with J strokes. Of course, there can be more.
To hot the maneuver up, like it's a Guinness can in the eddy, the bow sticks the same Duffek with the exception of extending torso across the rail, heeling it to the soup. The element of risk, bringing the craft close to a bathing opportunity, excites the stern who palm rolls from his J into a Reverse Sweeping Low Brace. [See solo Christy.]
The bow draws from her static Draw placement all the way across the bow and into an onside Sweep. The combination can crank the hull past 270 degrees of rotation and is very useful if the bow happens to notice the can has been opened and is empty of amber liquid.
I've found a shot of both hot and not Cross Axles, but problems with Picasa remain; awaiting the arrival of someone younger. For an unexplained reason Picasa/Google required a password change which interrupted email delivery from Gmail. And I still cannot find the images I uploaded yesterday. Perfect!
I deeply regret missing the enjoyment of Steve Jobs funeral, but now look forward to the pleasure of at least one of the Googles twins' in the indefinite future.
Question I followed the solo thread with interest, though much was over my head and am now following this one.
My family has a summer cottage and a couple of big canoes that we use for day trips and occasional weekend outings, so I have particular interest in this discussion.
If I concentrate long enough, I can follow the intricacies of some of the maneuvers. They seem like they’d be pretty cool to play around with. The problem is, the descriptions seem quite complicated and I can’t see how one would pull them off spontaneously, when needed. I’m afraid that when push came to shove (no pun intended) I’d immediately fall back on my old, not so elegant or efficient standards.
How does one progress to the point where all of this is comfortable, and comes naturally as it appears to be for the folks in the videos?
Focused Practice Focused practice and communication between tandem partners works wonders as long as it isn’t taken to medicinal levels.
There are problems, especially that the stern, seated to see everything the bow is doing, can become overly critical. This often results in a bug bitten night slept in the hammock.
Attending a regional event can help amp learning up. We all learn faster with coaching.
The young stern man has his eyes fixed on the canoe’s peripatetic pivot point, but I’m not sure what tandem move this is. Perhaps Charlie Wilson could explain.
That's an Axle, the bow about as extended across the rail as can be, note the blade's angle to the water, the bent blade almost in a low vrace angle. The stern guy just just sweeping through 180, 270, whatever degrees of rotation. The key here is enough forward energy to keep the bow's paddleblade on top of the water. Note this gal's is at a opening/climbing angle of attack.
Hull is a Lotus/Galt Egret, paddles are 12 dg bent Quimbies. Note this is fun, but maybe not quite how you'd eddy out on the Brule.
What's playing in your head? The Philharmonic playing Clair de Lune or Bob Segers drums on Fire Down Below?
Glenn send an email to charliewilson77@gmail.com and I'll send you the rest to post while I try to figure out the enhanced membership.
Observations on technique and lost times The photo shows the power and importance of a skilled bow paddler in making effective tandem turns. The water patterns indicate that the stern has already skidded quite a ways, so this is not just the beginning of the turning move. Yet the bow gal is still firmly planted on her Duffek.
The photo also reminds us of the bracing benefits of magnum bent shaft blades. The bow would have had a much more difficult time with her extension, angle, brace and dry hair had she been using a quill or rodent tail paddle.
The photo finally makes me nostalgic for the days when talented young paddlers sought out the open canoe, now near extinction, as the best hull for dynamic and sophisticated paddling. For planing up shavings of crystal spray, while listening to the poetry of Thomas Hardy. Who does this anymore?
Nah . . . it’s much better today, when you can just buy an ugly plastic jelly bean and turn it with some juvenile sweep strokes while listening to kerplunk, kerplunk, kerplunk.
Once the waterways abounded with elegant paddlers in elegant tandem canoes listening to elegant music.
And once upon a time, you could learn elegant and poetic open canoe paddling by observing the dozens of open canoes surrounding you on Golden Pond or the blue Danube. Now, the best bet is to learn at symposium that teaches classic flatwater and river canoeing. If calling the basic and ancient art of single blade canoeing by new names such as “functional freestyle” can take us back to the future . . . Amen.
Glenn MacGrady has taken six of my images, reduced the file size and posted on his Picasa site. I think they are all labeled. One maneuver, the Reverse Cross Axle will probably not be discussed here - it's a way fun show-off maneuver with no practical application.
The link is: https://picasaweb.google.com/gmacgrady/Charlie Wilson FreestylePhotos? authkey=Gv1sRgCJfa_pHg6seogAE I hope.
Let’s caption and explain the moves No captions or labels survived the translation process. But I think it would be interesting for Charlie tell us the name of each move for each picture and make any comments.
