ok mother
Technique aside he does have a point
The water is moving faster near the hull. I don’t mean to point out the obvious but the water near the hull travels a longer path in the same amount of time as the surrounding water with the shorter path. But this is the bane of performance and is the reason we are nearly always paddling within the trough of our own wake. The trough is caused by the faster water creating lower presure - a depression.
Yup… Different Context…
– Last Updated: May-22-07 5:58 AM EST –
butt to the wave, powerful sweep shoreside, stop/reverse the swweep while torguing (got "six pack" abs?) towards shore and you got a beauty of a floater, especially with a walled up curly wave.
But totally out of the realm/context of most seakayakers. Surf paddlers are largely playing with the break for floater or air. Most seakayakers are just trying to survive that situation.
sing
Stern Squriting The EddyLine…
won’t be something for the beginner either.
sing
out of context?
So easy to take a bit of advice out of context.
When I hear what you wrote, I thought about a wing stroke which of course has a lot of rotation and ends up about 12-18" further out from the boat than where it began. I tried to find a good link for an example but on first pass I couldn’t.
Ever watch beginners try to paddle parallel to the boat, no rotation? I don’t think it is that far off base to encourage a bit of torso rotation by allowing the blade to go out from the boat a bit.
Suz
yes, but
– Last Updated: May-22-07 10:01 AM EST –
There's a world of difference between a wing stroke, which has a near-vertical paddle describing an arc out from the hull, and telling a clueless beginner to try to paddle straight by making a series of low-angle sweep strokes.
Are we still doing that?
I remember as a beginer being told to keep the paddle paralel with the centre line and as close to the kayak as possible, the same guy also taught me to hold the 90 deg. paddle in front at belly level and use my right wrist like a motor cycle twist grip to get the blades to the right place. At some time since this first lesson I decided to ignore these particular pieces of advice but I’m sure I still use some of that lesson in a positive way.
IMHO a good euro stroke is very little different to a good wing stroke, so why not start beginners right? Blade starts close and moves gradually away until its exit point. I prefer a straight line but use the idea of an arc out from the hull as an exercise to stop paddlers sweep stroking. Following the line of the bow wake can also be a usefull model.
More Worst Advice…
“You can scout anytime, but you can only run it blind once.” I enjoy saying this to my friends above a monster rapid they had never run. If you time it right you could watch the blood drain from their faces…he he he.
Well…
If you believe in boundry layers and velocity gradients, the water right next to the hull has zero velocity relative to the hull. But that’s getting silly.
I’d argue that for typical touring kayaks and speeds, the difference between the relative water velocity 6" from the hull and 18" from the hull is trivial.
If I didn’t torso rotate
I wouldn’t be paddling at all…Torn tendons in the left shoulder and all.
The torso rotation and dipping the shoulders works for me and takes the strain out of the shoulder and bicep…I may not go as fast as someone else but at the end of the paddle I’m close and without pain.
while flying a rc plane today
had the thing up around 2500 and this lady watching goes “how do you know when its close to the other plane” (pointing at civilian air liner) Me “well my planes at about 2000 feet, and that 737 is at about 30000, so I figure the 28000 foot buffer zone should be enough”
paddling too close to the boat
– Last Updated: May-22-07 3:55 PM EST –
Can also be a problem. In my work as a kayak guide, I frequently see first-timers who paddle with the blade right alongside the boat, top hand very high, and awkward looking stroke. These folks will also try to stop the boat by jamming the blade in right at their hips. Wobbly paddling and near capsize is often the result.
These folks are better off if initially coached to paddle further away from the boat. They are not necessarily going to master -- or even attempt -- torso rotation during a morning tour. In a demo day situation, when the prime concern is often to get through the day with no capsizes, the advice of using a low angle stroke and paddling further away from the boat may actually have been pretty sound advice. (Though as mentioned, the rationale the dealer rep provided for doing so sounds more than a little flaky).