Yeah, the “static” plant never needs to
REMAIN static, and that’s what is missing in most of the boats. The first boat(Haley & ?) was closest to dynamic, but once the static plant moves the hull’s direction of momentum a bit it should become an active draw to maintain forward momentum whenever possible to maximize the efficiency of the canoe’s momentum.
$.01
Shouldn’t you include Slalom Racers
In the list of technical paddlers.
Absolutely!
Inadvertent omission by distracted geezer.
Old pix of Mike Galt tandem
From Charlie Wilson, here are Mike Galt and Deborah Welbes showing how to nail a tandem axle in a Lotus Egret canoe.
http://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-0ZGE1yPbbfI/VPeEM07yfVI/AAAAAAAACy8/DHCrz9rxhyc/s720/EFS%2520350%2520MikeG%2520%2526%2520DebW%2520Axle.jpg
http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-tw-I1NoEr_c/VPeE5l2dC2I/AAAAAAAACzE/H0tlCSsAloc/s720/EFS%2520360%2520MikeG%2520%2526%2520DebW%2520Axle%25201.tiff.jpg
Maybe Charlie can comment on where and when.
Tandem “our style” today
– Last Updated: Mar-05-15 4:56 PM EST –
We paddled the "Hells Bay Canoe trail" in the Everglades National Park in our Jensen 17.
Did an out and back for a total of ten miles.
If you haven't done it and enjoy technical paddling in a four mile stretch of nothing but switchbacks and S curves in a five foot wide salt water creek you need to try it if you ever head south
It actually various from three feet to as much as twenty feet with tiny ponds intersecting here and there, but the narrowest switchbacks will either make a good team out of you or get you divorced.
In our case it was: it should be against the law for old people to be having this much fun!
I am guessing that the upper body and the leg workout we got was the equivalent of a twenty or thirty mile straight down river paddle.
Jack L
1987
– Last Updated: Mar-05-15 9:34 AM EST –
The shot was from Cold Run Canoe's dock on a borrow pot pond NE of Mahomet Illinois a day prior to the 1987 Conclave. Deb's extreme extension across the rail is cantilevered; her right shin is hooked under the Egret's bow slider rail. She bruised her hip on the onside rail.
This tandem thing is pretty simple. The bow draws, or pries, her stem to one side or the other; heeling to free her stem to lateral movement and to free the stern to skid. Heeling towards the maneuver with bow drawing is more stable, heeling outside with bow carving into the maneuver is faster.
The stern can power through the maneuver with sweeping forwards or encourage his ends skid with reverse sweeping strokes.
There is an intensity scale, from mild heels with both paddlers inside the rails to extreme heels with both paddlers extended across the rails. The former is more useful tripping, the latter more fun when playing on the pond.
I regret that so many of my shots are of extreme maneuver versions, because the thrust of this thread was to emphasize less extreme, more useful maneuvers. This last shot illustrates the problem, we tend to keep the wild and impressive images.
Mike has been gone for over a decade, Deb lost in the wilds of SW Missouri for longer than that, but it is good to remember old friends.
Also good to remember
old events. That Conclave was a blast. The most fun assemblage of single bladers I can remember. Ah the good old days when solo was hot…
And
And, maybe, so were we. That might be the full on effect of a productive memory.
Wedges
– Last Updated: Mar-07-15 4:46 PM EST –
Marc beat me up over excluding Wedges, insisted they be includes, because he uses them creeking solo. WHen tandem sticking, Marc is always in the stern with Molly Merlot running bow so he can't wedge running forward, but....so.... anyway..
Wedges are carved maneuvers using jam to increase the bow's carving tendency when heeled outside the turn. FreeStylers always use an inverted jam because lodging our top hand on the grip enables a powerful sweeping conclusion with the powerface. That's not too important with a straight paddle, we can always palm roll into the sweep, but one of the keys to life when using a bent. Jammed backface in, the bent inhibits the bow's carve, but jammed backface out the paddles bent blade fits along the radically enhances the carve and resultant stern skid.
Remember that for tripping hulls, heels increase the bow plane angle on the down heeled side and lessens the bow angle on the raised side. This causes the bow to carve or deflect away from the down side with it's greater resistance much like a single bevel wood chisel skips away from it's beveled edge. The inverted bent's blade increases that down bow angle and increases the deflection, or carve, inside the turn.
Under headway, the bow notices something shiny offside, She initiates with a sweeping Forward, heels the boat onside, towards her paddle side, and slices an Inverted Jam to her onside bow. The bow carves offside rather smartly and the stern skids out. When desired rotation id finished the bow Sweeps before applying a forward stroke to accelerate in the new direction.
The stern may notice something has changed forward in the boat, and can drive the hull through the maneuver with J strokes over the high rail when momentum needs be maintained momentum. Alternatively, he can Backslap, loading his backface for a reverse Sweeping low brace or apply a full-on Christie, palm rolling into the Reverse Sweeping Low Brace with powerface loaded. Both pretty much stop momentum but increase the abrupt skid.
The stern can also do nothing; pose with a feathered slice if he wants. The key for the stern paddlers is breakfast and last several meals. The bow carves inside the maneuver abruptly and the stern's mass, breakfast and adjacent biologicals, keeps right on moving forward as kenetic energy. The skid is always spectacular. particularly after a lumberjack breakfast has increased the mass involved. The stern may feel like he's gone over a big bump in the rad at 100 mph in a tourist Chevy; almost an involuntary glandular retraction.
On quiet water without wind, most tandem teams easily achieve 180 degrees of rotation before the bow concludes, so if everything is timed right 270 dg or rotation can be acquired, not unlike changing one' mind twice in five seconds.
On the creek, Wedges are a useful tool to make a tight offside turn, an example being when an anticipated 90 degree bend reveals itself to be a hairpin turn.
Marc;s right, Wedges are good fun and emphasize the potentials of changing the hull's shape in the water.