Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1998 17:11:44 -0400 (EDT)
From: Kirk Olsen <kolsen@imagelan.com>
To: baidarka <baidarka@lists.intelenet.net>
Subject: Re: [baidarka] Paddle Prefs & Noise
In-Reply-To: <l0311070bb1e24a31a0b0@[205.216.99.25]>
On Mon, 27 Jul 1998, Craig O'Donnell wrote:
> I prefer a longer rather than shorter paddle and like to keep my arms low.
And I like a shorter rather than longer paddle ;-) I think my current
favorite modern paddle is 218 cm.
> It makes no sense to hold your arms high and expend effort against gravity.
Except to generate more power as the higher arm position allows a better
transfer of force to the paddle, but it will tire you faster.
> It would seem that there are two ways to paddle a boat.
Just 2? ;-) Come on Craig, you can dream up more than just 2 ;-)
> 1. Chop "down" into the water with a slight fore-aft angle to the blade. In
> this case the flat plate or foil (blade) develops a spurt of lift and pulls
> th boat forward. Try it. You can get going pretty well in flat water by
> this "chopping down" motion.
If you pull downward with too much force you will lift the boat up out of
the water some, this will generate a bounce to the boat which will decrease
your overall forward speed.
> 2. "Stirring" the water, ie, immersing the blade and pulling aft, which
> corresponds to using drag to drive a sailboat downwind. It doesn't matter
> to the blade whether it's moving and the water is stationary or it's
> stationary and the water is moving. <--- requisite Zen moment. I've read
> descriptions of this re Nat. American Indian practice where the blade is
> not even removed from the water but turned sideways and pulled back
> forward. I've also seen it done. I'm not very adept at it tho I've tried a
> few times. This would be a single-paddle technique.
A marvelous way of paddling. I like to use a thin bladed paddle for this,
a friend has a cherry paddle that slices wonderfully. The blade should
also be symmetric on both sides (front and back). If it isn't
symmetric it won't slice through the water as nicely on the underwater
recovery, thicker edges also don't slide quite as nicely.
If you can find information on Freestyle canoeing there are lots of strokes
for not going anywhere in particular but having good doing it.
One of these days I'll make a couple of hand paddles for sneaking around
using underwater recoveries.
kirk