You might want to tell us how tall you and your partner are and what you’re comfortable spending on new paddles…and whether you sit or kneel. In general bent shaft paddles are more efficient and Zaverals are fine paddles but they do run about $300 each and if you lack experience you may be better off learning/practicing basic technique with straight shaft paddles. It would be great if you could find a local shop that let you test paddle paddles.
The flex in your hull is no big deal, just ignore it and paddle.
A lot of Adirondack canoe racing people I know use GRB paddles. Just as good as the more popular Zavs, but quite a bit less expensive. I have 7 of them in my collection of various sizes. When not racing or training to race I do prefer a well made wood straight blade. https://www.grbnewmandesigns.com/paddles-and-accessories
Thanks for all the replies, everyone. This is giving me an idea of the things I need to learn about. Sometimes you don’t know what you don’t know, you know?
I hear you about putting the motor in the front and the navigator in the back. And I am stronger than she is. But she’s not willing to navigate. Same in a rowing shell. She just wants to provide power and rhythm and space out. Fine by me, because I like being in charge of the navigation and course corrections. And since she’s lighter than me, it makes sense for her to be in the bow anyway.
I’m 5’10" 180. Wife is 5’6" 150. But I’m long-legged and she has good posture, so she looks as tall or taller than me in a boat. Probably same length paddles? We’ll visit some shops in Seattle and see what’s available. I’m willing to spend some money on the paddles since I spent nothing on the boat. $300 each is not unreasonable. Maybe we’ll get a better canoe some day.
Here’s a picture. Probably should have included one in the first post:
I refinished the seats and put new caning on. Also made a new thwart. There are quite a few scratches on the bottom, but I’m thinking I’ll just wax it and buff it and call it good.
Took a SUP out today and Strava says I averaged 4.4mi/h for 2 hours. It’s a little disappointing that a SUP with 1 motor was faster than the canoe with 2 motors. Oh well.
A polite disagreement. The bowman can certainly over power the stern man. There are a number of factors in what Tailwinderic has described. The greatest likelihood is that it is a combination of elements. When in white water, my good friend John is in the bow, I do not necessarily want to go faster into the rapids, I want accuracy. I often give a stern command of ‘pick up your paddle’. That is specifically to eliminate inputs. A good bowman can, and does steer the canoe. Some of it is simple physics. The power phase of the bowman’s stroke is normally farther away from the center of the canoe, than the power phase of the stern paddler. There is what is normal, the stern has greater directional input than the bow. That is not an always. Trim , left and right, trim, bow to stern, strength of the bowman, paddle the gunwale or the keel, speed through the water, and then the normals of currents and winds. And, is it your wife or not.
Hello Eric, I read through the comments. The solutions are all there. Everyone had a slightly different piece of the puzzle, but it sounds like you have picked out the best of them. Camera lens distort, but, the stern seat looks too far forward. Experiment. Put something behind your seat to support your butt and slide back until the canoe nearly has both of your hips.
I paddle long distances, camp along the way, weeks and months. Normally single hand, sometime new bowmen. My normal boat is a 20’ expedition canoe. (You are going to want a longer canoe with four of you.) Speed makes a boat track. At low speeds, a boat with rocker, you need a correction almost per stroke. Get 20’ up to a true 3.5 or 4 mph, I normally switch paddle (requires fewer calories) 2 strokes per side rises to 3 strokes per side, rises to 4 and 5 strokes per side. When in big white water, big drops, get that boat up to 10 or 12 mph, she locks in like a laser. She will only turn with hard back paddling. Slower speeds, a strong bowman (woman) equal paddle lengths or the bow has a slightly longer? Good luck. Laughing especially if it is your bride.
There is another character in the boat I am looking at in the photo that MAY be coming into play, trim left and right. You can effectively steer many canoes with a twist of the hips to tilt the boat to the left or the right, The curve at the side of the canoe, tilt the canoe and the bottom is no longer symmetric. That asymmetry will steer the boat.
Bowman with a short bent shaft paddle increases power and efficiency and reduces lateral input, both.
Bowman with a short, not past the hips, keel line stroke, is more efficient, more powerful. No long strokes for the bowman unless you have called for a sweep right, sweep left, or draw right or draw left. Or “Pick up your paddle.” Accuracy in big white water at times requires that the bowman does not paddle.
I’ve only raced a boat one time. It was an aluminum tandem canoe with a partner who was very game but not experienced. That was over 40 years ago. We did okay, we came in second out of a field of 50+ boats. I’m glad I had that experience but have never looked to repeat it.
So with that disclosure here are my suggestions: Definately use short light paddles, The bow paddler may want a shorter paddle than you and may find a bent shaft more efficient, Since you are still working on course correction you might find using a bent shaft paddle in the stern a bit difficult.
Whatever you use, both of you need to focus on paddling parallel to the midline, using short power strokes. For practice, you will want to exaggerate torso rotation without lengthening the stroke (easier said than done). Think about getting the shoulder closest to the midline of the boat to rotate out facing the paddle during the stroke. 70 miles is a long way to go so you’ll want to be efficient and avoid “arm paddling”. Another drill to enhance torso rotation is to paddle robotically “straight armed”. Let me be clear, I’m not suggesting you race or paddle this way, just practice a bit to put the focus on torso rotation.
In the stern you will need to be able to steer the boat with subtle corrections on each stroke and also hutting (hit and switch). I think the dual approach will work well based on the type of boat you have. My goal as the stern paddler was always to match the bow paddler stroke for stroke in terms of cadence. This was easier said than done, especially since you are steering (pitching at the beginning of the return/feathering motion) . I would definately “hut” when necessary, and also would call “hut” out just to switch paddling muscles in your arms,shoulders, back, and torso.
Every boat has a speed it likes to be paddled at . If you try to go over that speed you end up spending lots of energy without much gain. 70 miles is a long way- think efficiency.
Yours is a superior comment. You and I would get along very well in a canoe. You and I see the same functions of paddle type, straight arms, balance, keel line, you hit a whole flock of paddle knowledge.
70 miles? Was that the race length? I am glad I am not doing that. I have done mid 20’s on flat water quite a few times, and a couple of those I called a cab rather than walk the 6 blocks up the hill to dinner. I have done 40 plus miles 3 times? In rivers, with at least a modest current. Even that once just about killed me.
I bagged a permit for the Main Salmon River in Idaho. Wanna go? Late June. The usual and proper is a raft or inflatable canoe/kayak. Two of us right now. I’ll be likely single handing in my expedition, full cover and skirts.
Hey Sailor, thanks for the invite. I did a long rv/paddling trip last summer- 63 days. Idaho was one the states I paddled in and I have enjoyed paddling there several times since my first trip in the 80s. The only paddling I’ve done on the Main is near Riggins and also thirty years ago I was way up on the Shoup section. The last few trips I’ve focused on easier day trip sections in the Payette drainage- just parking permits and invasive stickers required with plenty of forest service campsites near the river. I particularly like the Grand Jean section of the South Fork and the Cabarton Run on the North Fork. I did do a self contained middle fork trip back in the eighties out of a gyra-max c1, my buddy had a mohawk xl I think.
Unfortunately, I’ve already committed to staying closer to home (wv) this summer (I’m a teacher) and helping one of my buds with his rafting company this summer. If you are really interested in adding some folks to your trip I can certainly spread the word. I have several friends and fellow wv wildwater association members who are retired and I know they all got skunked this year on permits. They typically run catarafts and kayaks on extended trips- places like The Middle Fork, The Green, Grand Canyon, Deso Canyon, the Snake, and Main Salmon. If you are looking for raft support it could be beneficial to hook up. I personally have never run oars, just paddle rafts but hope to learn a bit this summer in wv. If you are looking to keep things small, just need one other paddler and want to stay self contained then my friends may not be what you are looking for. I myself have gotten pretty soft when it comes to overnighting and expeditions. At a minimum I’d have to invest in one of those new fangled paco pads to make sleeping on the ground bearable and buy one them fancy coolers to keep my beer cold. Ahh who am I foolin’, I drink pbr, doesn’t really matter if the beer is cold or not. Just a mesh bag in the river is good enough. Have a great trip. Brace your way through the wavetrains and keep the speed up for crossing the squirly water in the run-out.
I don’t agree with some things you say here, but will address one point specifically. It is not that the bow paddler is further away from the center, but rather that the pivot point moves forward when the hull begins to move forward.
I’ll have to think about that one. That would explain some of the effects of higher speed. Ah !! Maybe you know, I paddle long distances and white water. I do not seek out whiye water, but the long distances, yeah, you deal with it. Two things. First, when the boat goes faster, it tracks much more securely, this I know and deal with. The faster it goes the more it locks on a heading, to the point, the only way to turn it is to back paddle, hard, I mean really hard. That may be evidence of the pivot moving forward? I’ll give some though to sailing and getting a boat up on plane.
The second item is an oddity, but I am sure it is grounded solidly in physics. Top speed. In big rapids, Grand canyon, Cataract Canyon, Deso/Gray, etc. When you crest over into the rapids, the canoe takes off like a scared rabbit. Between rocketing down the tongue and the boat beginning to accelerate the maximum speed of my 20’ is 18. 2 or 18.3, I have seen low 18’s a dozen times, bur NEVER even a high 18’s. These are GPS readings, so they include the water speed, the boat speed, everything. The ‘wall’ seems to be 18.4mph. But danged if I know why. The hull speed of my 19+ foot waterline is right on 5mph, and I know I exceed that only when it planes out one the rapid acceleration on the tongue. But again, I don’t know why. Does this imply the max water speed going into the rapids is 10 mph? Laughing, and no, the boat does not want to turn, except for small corrections.
In many tandem canoes the paddle excursion of the bow paddler’s forward stroke is farther from the geometric center of the canoe than the stern paddler’s. But I have seen many tandem canoes come with a stock seat placement that trims the canoe bow light with the stern seat and the bow seat both placed a bit too far aft for neutral trim, so that is not an absolute.
But as Pagayeur correctly points out, when it comes to pivoting a canoe with forward momentum, it is not the geometric center that the canoe pivots on. As the canoe moves forward through the water it parts the water and a symmetrical bow wave forms. The forward “frontal resistance” half of the boat is somewhat pinned by the pressure of the water forming this wave and has greater resistance to yaw than the rear half. So when the boat pivots in response to turning strokes, or upon crossing an eddy line entering a relative reversal current, it doesn’t pivot at the middle but somewhere closer to the junction of the forward and middle thirds. This tends to give the stern paddler relatively more influence over yaw of the boat whether it be intentional or unintentional.
Another factor to consider when it comes to steering control is that it is very easy for the stern paddle to get his or her paddle face well aft the stern paddling station to execute stern draws and stern prrys that are very effective in pivoting the canoe.
I agree that that the bow paddler plays a critical role in making instantaneous course corrections in whitewater paddling when an unforeseen obstacle threatens a collision. The bow paddler is in a much better position to see such obstacles. But also, the bow steering strokes tend to push or pull the bow away from the obstacle. The stern paddler can very effectively pivot the canoe with a pry or draw to avoid an obstacle dead ahead, but in doing so tends to turn the canoe broadside to the obstacle.
Your canoe is not the ideal setup for a 70mile race unless its downriver with big waves. Things I would change for a flatwater race in that hull would be the seats and the bow seat location. I would change both seats to bucket/tractor seats and make the bow seat a sliding seat. That bow seat is way back, good for floating over waves but a wide paddling station for a 5’6" bow paddler. Get her up where the paddling position is just wider than her hips and her feet are planted against some foam blocks cut to fit in the bow. This will also help your trim. For the stern add a foot brace. Flat seat and no foot brace does not connect you to the canoe. remember the power transfer from the paddle is thru your body and its contact with the canoe. Bucket seats and foot braces greatly help this transfer…Watch the paddling videos that Yukonpaddler recommends, and learn sit and switch. Hopefully in that hull you will be able to make 5-8 strokes per side between huts. I like longer intervals myself, but the rocker in the Raven and blunt entry may make for more frequent huts. Pick a destination point over your bow paddlers head and when it drifts past her ear call a hut and hut again when it goes past her other ear. If it wont keep between her ears for 5-6 strokes, use her shoulders and let it yaw a bit more. Your canoe may be a 5mph hull and you will need to be able to maintain that speed if you want to finish 70 miles during daylight. If your race is downriver the current will aid your ground speed and couild make the difference for you. Yukonpaddler and I both paddle a 3 day 90 mile race each fall that is mostly open lakes with only slow current rivers for part of the distance. 4mph paddlers have a hard time making the cutoff times for each day. Good luck. Bill
This is something to try if you are really desprite to track better. I was going to do it to a small fiberglass kayak that did do track at all. But I gave it away before I could install the parts. I purchased two waterski fins. They are plastic and shallow, and they drop in. You could even use three You have to factor in the drag versus tracking benefit and place them to get the most benefit. And, of course, you are going to have to put some holes and slots in the bottom of the boat. Calk or resign those up. And, maybe, try a [extra long] kayak paddle.
You need to improve your paddling.
In the wind, how you trim your boat becomes very important. Into the wind, as an example you want the weight slightly forward of center.
