two things you might try
For the boat control problem, look to paddle with someone who is the equivalent of a BCU 3 or 4 paddler (preferrably a BCU 3 Coach). May mean that you have to take a lesson, but what isn’t obvious to you and we can’t know will be immediately obvious to an experienced observer.
For the leg pain, the suggestion to customize your outfitting is key. I’d especially encourage you to replace the pegs with a foam block so that you can move your feet around in a relaxed way. Also, pay very careful attention to posture–you shouldn’t be using the back rest for anything but a little support at the base of the spine. If you’re leaning backward it’ll limit torso rotation and put the sciatic nerve on stretch through the sciatic knotch.
Lessons learned
Thanks for the suggestions, I am definately planning on taking more lessons and am counting on stroke improvement! It makes sense that an experience paddler would be able to do wonders at correcting my stroke.
I tried a thin piece of foam under my butt but that made no difference to the sciatica, I will try the relaxation thing, that makes sense Celia. I’m having trouble visualizing these foam blocks on the foot pegs - got a picture? I will try your suggestion to move back a titch on the wet exit. I think the big issue with my wet exit is claustrophobia - I just want to get out as quickly as possible. Think I will try with goggles and a nose plug, that should help me relax more and be more thoughtful with the exit. I am a reasonably good swimmer and love swimming and being in the water so its kind of crazy that when upside down I forget how long I can hold my breath.
Wet Exits and Foam
I don’t have a photo - but what I mean is that instead of using the foot pegs at all you put in a block of minicell foam that is shaped the same as the inside of the boat, and your feet are against that. The footpegs can be located between layers of the foam - likely it’ll take a couple of layers of foam to get back to your likely foot position. You can either get lucky and find someone who has already cut blocks for a Mystic to copy it, or you just start a little big with a rough shape and shave it down until it just fits in there.
Check the archives here - I’d bet that there is thread out there somewhere in which someone talked about details of doing this.
As to the wet exits - for sure practice with nose plugs and goggles so that you can get to relax down there. Or if you have a fairly small face, where the two may be mutually exclusive at the same time, get a pair of goggles that covers the nose. I am fond of ones from dive shops with purge valves, since they don’t fog up so easily.
I am one of those who gets a horrid instant headache from anything but slt water up my nose, and even that takes some getting used to when we get into the stuff again.
Can the feathering of the paddle …
… cause the boat to pull one direction or the other? If not, and if it’s not trim or how your sitting, what do you look for on the forward stroke that would cause the boat to turn?
Problem started when I switched paddles late last summer (shorter), and changed to a higher angle stroke) … the boat started tracking left. Drove me crazy … exhausted my limited skill and knowledge trying to figure it out. All the additional corrective strokes and over compensation left me with a rotor cuff problem.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Not typically about the feather angle
Not in and of itself. But there are lots of other things that could cause a stroke to be unbalanced:
gripping the paddle even slightly off center
sitting slightly off center
boat loaded unevenly left to right
one side of the body stronger than the other side
one side of the body having a stroke that is faster or shorter or less efficient than the other side
As you gain experience you’ll learn to make finer corrections earlier, before the boat has a chance to yaw too far off course. Early corrections are easier and more efficient than waiting until the boat is markedly off course. It doesn’t matter how early you think you are correcting course there is always room for improvement.
Also keep in mind that most kayaks never go truly straight but most often “snake” forward in very shallow “S” turns. No matter how efficient your stroke is there is always some component of torque involved in every stroke.
One way to dial-in a directionally controlled forward stroke is to focus on pointing the bow directly at some distant stationary object and watching how the bow moves left and right with each stroke (right and left). As long as the bow keeps moving over the target you will be maintaining your course. The process is similar to that of holding a “site picture” while aiming a firearm. We do a similar thing while walking but it’s so ingrained that we don’t really see the course corrections.
cheers,
Part of, but not THE cause . .
Certainly the difference in lateral resistant between bow to stern is a component of the mechanism of weather-cocking but to call it “the actual cause” is inaccurate. No matter how fast you paddle nor how drastically the bow is “pinned” relative to the stern, the boat won’t weathercock without some wind force perpendicular to the length of the boat.
Two conditions are required for a boat to weathercock or lee-cock:
- One end of the boat must be “pinned” relative to the other end (ie the CLR must be offset from the system’s “at rest” CLR position)
- There has to be some wind force vector perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the boat.
Note: It common practice in high-wind conditions to use this effect to help turn the boat either up-wind or down-wind dependent on the desired course.