lhunt

With a 'regular' paddle, we got blade area, shaft length, and bent/straight shaft. What additional parameters apply to wing blades? Are there different degrees of cupping? Are some blade shapes somehow more aggressive, less forgiving, more suited for beginners, rough water, etc? I don't mind spending the $$$ on a good blade, but just don't know what to look for or how to size it to me. I went through the Epic 'blade picker' software, and it's telling me I want the 'Mid-Wing'.

You still definitely need to worry about shaft length. My Epic paddle is sized 205 - 215 cm and I set it at 210. Like with a regular paddle, the length depends on the width of the boat and the angle of your stroke. It seems like there are fashions in length - for a while everybody was going shorter and shorter then they started increasing it a little. With an adjustable paddle you can experiment and take videos to see if you are getting the paddle all the way in at the start of the stroke without bending forward to do it.

I don't think I've ever seen a racer with a bent shaft - it adds weight and arguably you can get just as good ergonomics with a good stroke.

Blades come in different sizes, and that's going to be a personal preference. I switched from mid-wing to small-mid-wing when I had some forearm problems, but maybe now that I've gotten my stroke a little better (and am a little stronger) I could move up, dunno. The difference is extremely small, and it seems like it takes hours of concentrated experimentation to feel it. The goal is to lock your paddle into the water so that it doesn't move back during the stroke. If you can do that with a small paddle, a bigger paddle will actually slow you down (extra weight and windage, etc.)

I wouldn't get a paddle for beginners, if there is such a thing - I would get the real thing and let it inform your stroke.

I don't think there are any rough water differences. Wing paddles are quite supportive during the stroke and that's mostly what you use for balance in rough water. If you are worried about breaking the paddle, that would make you get something other than full carbon, I guess, but I like my paddle light.

The Epic paddles come with different stiffness of shafts - you want the more forgiving of the two (the burgundy-colored one). The stiffer one is for sprinting.

Which of the wing paddles that Leon listed are better for you? You just have to try them out. Borrow if you can for some time. But I found that my stroke kept changing well after I bought the paddle, and probably it is changing to get the most out of that particular paddle. Bottom line, I think they are all good :-)

Lisa

Wow, nice shots, David. Here are mine, such as they are. With some of Leon's mixed in.

-Lisa

Forgot to say I'd be willing to go Sunday, too.

I'd like to go on Saturday after the Solstice paddle, if anyone else does (and, of course, if Christopher does). The T-storms are forecast for 2:00 PM, which makes them more of an issue for the Solstice paddle than the moonlight paddle - the overall possibility for Saturday afternoon is 57%. The overall probability for Gloucester evening is given at 11%, and 6% for overnight. (Dunno what hours are denoted by "evening" and "overnight".)

-Lisa

35 mm. film canisters are great for this sort of thing. I'm glad I stockpiled them from when one could actually buy film (!)

-Lisa

biased by fog and cloud cover, but gives you a good map of surface water temps:

http://marine.rutgers.edu/mrs/sat_data/?nothumbs=0&product=sst&region=capecod

best

Phil

That's a good one. Interesting to note how much it changes throughout one day, and how much warmer it was on May 23 than it is now. Hmm... Not for long, I hope!

Measured 55 deg. (again) in open water off of Singing Beach and near the Miseries yesterday, late morning and late lunchtime, respectively.

Lisa

55 deg. yesterday in Salem Sound (about midway between Misery and Eagle Islands).

49 deg. measured in open water off of Singing Beach Manchester MA last Friday...

If you are ever looking for an after-work paddling buddy for some Concord River workouts, by all means let me know...

~Chris

Hi, Chris,

I'm sure we could try this, depending on how late in the day you want to go... Next week is problematic, but maybe after that sometime. Once the summer season comes for real I do much more of my paddling in the ocean, but there are still times when it isn't possible and I make up with a river workout. Lisa underscore Huntington at the Yahoo place will do it.

Hope you guys have a good time on Sunday. I feel like it's having guests on "my" river :-)

Lisa

Hi, guys, Can't go Sunday, but I go from Bedford to the North Bridge 2 or 3 times a week, and there is no problem with flooding or anything else. Bedford is an excellent launch. Remember that river temperatures are not far off air temperatures - it's probably warmer than you think. Yes, Bedford is on the East side of the river, the other side is Carlisle.

Speaking of finding your way, the Gould barn is at 1 Howlett St, Topsfield, MA.

We talked about having a gear table...

Bob

Hi, Bob, I think the separate groups are a great idea - much more efficient and we don't end up wasting so much time passing things around. I guess my post sounds like I'm complaining about bringing stuff - not so at all :-). We could, if we wanted to, set up a gear table during lunch break with a person there to answer questions - might not be necessary though.

Lisa

Each of the leaders will discuss gear and clothing, car racks and loading tips, demonstrate sitting in the boat, possibly demonstrate a wet exit and forward stroke, and answer questions...Before the breakup into groups we will have an Intro to NSPN, the kayak components, and paddles.

So just to call it out, sounds like each leader needs to bring drysuit, wetsuit, sprayskirt, paddle, pump, paddle float, compass/chart or whatever? Participants last year were mostly interested in what to wear for summer paddling, but telling them about cold weather clothing is a good way to hammer in the idea that cold water is important and dangerous. I was planning (weather permitting) to wear my summer paddling clothing, hat and all. Not very fashionable, but it does make it simpler to answer the questions.

-Lisa

Greg Barton says here http://www.epickayaks.com/news/news/to-wax-or-not-to-wax

(I fixed the link in the above)

I'm sure Leon will chime in shortly on this one but I believe a rough un-waxed hull will make the boat go faster. Something to do with a porous or scratched hull encapsulating air molecules which create less friction against the water or something like that.

Let the barrage of responses begin!

I do think the hull should be as smooth as possible, with or without the wax.

-Lisa

Anyone have a particular gps they like? waterproof, user friendly and priced somewhat low?

This topic has some good info - I don't have anything to add to what I said then but maybe others do.

If you add a waypoint or have one in and there is no screen chart/display wouldn't it try to put you over an island to get to a waypoint?

A handheld GPS being used in "off road" mode just points you in the right direction. Maps help a lot, of course, but it still won't give you turn by turn directions like the car's GPS does.

Usually I'm using it in familiar territory, or have mapped out the waypoints beforehand, so I will pick a waypoint that takes me around the island first. Or else you can set up a "route", which is a list of waypoints and traverse them one at a time. So on the rare occasions that I use the GPS to find my way around, I'm usually following a simple pointer rather than trying to see the map as I paddle.

A typical scenario, for example, would be to do a "find" on a waypoint that is "home" (where your car is). Then a quick look at the resulting line on the map helps you decide to go to the right of that island that's in the way. Then you can either paddle a little to the right of the line, or you can put in a new waypoint on the right-hand edge of the island. You might get away with keeping the right-hand edge of the island on the map centered at the top of the screen, but the pointer is easier to see.

That simple scenario shows why you still need either local knowledge or a chart. You still need to decide which side of the island to go to, and there might be considerations other than which is the shorter route.

Some text-only GPS's have a very rudimentary pointer, but the degrees of resolution can be too low to be useful. So, yes, I agree, text-only not of much use.

-Lisa

I agree with the others:

• DSC w/GPS good,
• GPS without computer connection marginal (as a GPS)

Because you specifically mentioned the compass, I did want to add that if the compass is part of the draw you might want to check whether it is a real compass. Many GPS "compasses" work by comparing where you are now with where you were a few seconds ago to determine the direction (so you only get a reading while you are moving). Some, on the other hand, have integral magnetic compasses. While on land, the magnetic compass is useful. While paddling, the magnetic compass is a drawback because it defeats the GPS's ability to keep you on a good ferry angle during a "navigate to waypoint". Sometimes you can disable the magnetic compass above a certain speed (say, 1 mph), giving you the best of both worlds.

However, sending the GPS signal with the distress call, that's good.

-Lisa

I could, but it's a bit of a drive. And let's see if anyone has a longer boat (the Walden is 10').

By the way, Beth, how long is your wing paddle? Shorter paddle gives you higher cadence...

Hi, Beth,

You must be doing it right! I remember when I first started to "get it". I did what I thought was the right thing for, oh, maybe a minute or so, then said to myself "You're kidding, right? I'm going to do that for 3-1/2 hrs in a race?"

Then I settled down to the task. In my local river, working alone, I picked a rate I could maintain (with great concentration on technique) for 10 minutes. Then I allowed myself to revert to my old stroke to finish the workout. Next time, I did it for 10 minutes, rest for 5, then 10 more minutes. And so forth. It didn't take that long to build it up. Still, if I'm paddling casually with other people (not working out or racing), I fall into a more casual stroke. It feels "funny" otherwise. Like starting a car in 4th gear.

The speed and technique of wing and euro paddle are pretty close, especially if you aren't racing (the wing begins to help more at higher speeds). But the wing can be a reminder to polish your technique, so it might feel more difficult. A GP is a whole different thing. I think the cadence is slower, and the stroke is longer with lower arms (right, GP people?). I think that a GP slips more in the water and is therefore kinder to the joints. The wing paddle, used correctly, grabs the water more aggressively, and that can take some getting used to. One adjustment I made early in using the wing was to buy a small mid wing rather than a regular mid wing.

What part of you gets sore? Arms or torso? Using correct technique, the wing allows you to get lots of propulsion from your core. If you are rotating better with the wing for some reason, you will feel it in your torso. (Maybe you'll feel it anyway because the big push comes all at once, at the beginning of the stroke.) But you also have to use your arms to lift and position the paddle. If you do that differently than you're used to, you will feel it in your arms. Unfortunately, if it's your arms, you will feel it even if you are going slowly, I think, 'till the new muscles kick in.

When you go on your all day/multi-day trips, will they be with other people? Won't that constrain the speed anyway?

You want to know if you should take the wing on trips. So to that end: The difference between wing and GP is pretty big, I think. (I don't use a GP, so I'll probably get gonged if I'm way off. - please be gentle!) If you want to become comfortable with both, you will need to do as much exercise with the wing as you do with the GP. If you think you can do that on your trips, go for it, bring them both and switch off. If combining kayak touring and do-it-yourself stroke workshop isn't for you, then try to do the wing workouts separately. You might want to avoid a situation where you are stuck in high water wishing you were using the "other" paddle...

I'd like to make one other unrelated point. No matter what paddle you are using, there is a speed at which you are "comfortable". When conditions get rough, it's hard to paddle below that speed, wing or no wing. I'd like to posit the case that it's important to learn to paddle below your comfortable speed in all conditions, against the certainty that some day you will need that skill - somebody else is sick or tired or whatever.

Anyway, those are my very non-technical opinions on the subject - OK, guesses. :-) Hope it helps!

-Lisa

Does anyone know the name of the 86-year-old in the picture? I don’t remember. He’s famous in the kayaking world in Maine.

Earl Baldwin.

-Lisa (who never throws anything away)

Great writeup, Rob! Glad you made it back OK. As they say, 1 knot is much, much better than no knots at all. (Or, of course, negative knots.)

I wanted to add that while it may be true that you burn more energy per minute going downwind, it is in no way true that you burn more energy per mile.

I can come to the Barn and bring (for something completely different) my QCC. Will be willing to perform grunt labor as needed.

Does anyone have (or could borrow) a basic rec boat to bring for comparison? Mine didn't work so well last year because it has rigging and a rear bulkhead. People kept wanting to buy one :-) A rec boat that is more mainstream would be good to demonstrate what not to paddle in the sea. Some of the people we had last year were dismayed to hear us say that they should get a 15-16' kayak and so were drawn to my little Kestrel. I just searched the web for a picture of Cleopatra's Needle, but with no real success. I was thinking that we could get a bulkhead-less rec boat and tape a big blow up of the picture on it with the word "NO!" or something like that.

-Lisa

...In effect, he saying that you use your arms (unassisted by torso rotation) to pull back the blade the same distance (say it’s d-inches) that the kayak coasts until the blade is fully submerged. Anything less than d-inches would imply breaking. Therefore, you’ve lost d-inches of powerful torso pull. There's no free lunch.

I think the implication is that your arms move further than your torso anyway. You lock your arms to use your torso, right? So you use your arms in the very very beginning for a tiny bit until you have a good grip, then you lock them and add in all your torso motion, maybe a little extra with the arms after that (if you haven't reached the exit point yet), then you exit and wind up for the other side.

In other words, if you are going to add any arm movement to your torso movement, make sure some of it is in the beginning when the paddle isn't efficiently placed yet to override the braking. You use the torso during the most powerful part of the stroke, which is in the very beginning, but not so far in the beginning that the paddle isn't completely wet.

It's all theoretical, of course. This is the first time I saw that thing about the torso pause, and I like it better than what I was trying to do before. Going to give it a try as soon as the river is navigable...

Lisa

...I think that the idea of the "pause" in it's most simplest form is the amount of time it takes between the paddle blade being partially submerged to being completely submerged at the beginning of a stroke. This might be one tenth of a second, or some other unperceivable amount of time, but the concept is that the stroke needs to "pause" for that fraction of time in order to ensure that the paddle is fully submerged before the force on the paddle is applied to continue the stroke.

Pretty much, yes. But the only part of the stroke that is "pausing" is the tension on the torso. The arms can start the stroke for that fraction of a second to allow the boat to move past the paddle a tiny bit.

Cathy and I have found some videos on line when this first came up, and we could not actually see the pause, even when they demonstrated before and after effects. It is extremely subtle and part of a larger system of advanced techniques to further refine and improve the forward stroke.

Definitely hard to see, if the only difference is in whether the paddler's core muscles are tensed up or not. Watching the arm, you would see only a little slowing down of the backwards motion, but it would still be going very fast downwards.

When you put the paddle into the water at the beginning of the stroke, you are aiming for the water near your toes. That places the paddle at a significant angle to the water, not vertically. As you lower the paddle into the water, are you not cutting the blade into the water with a diagonal motion that (in theory) creates no strictly forward movement, and therefore no forward drag?

Not sure on this count. Seems like there should be some braking motion, even if somewhat reduced by the angle. They do say that the first part of the stroke, down near your toes, is the most powerful. That implies to me that the angle isn't as disadvantageous as you might think. (Also, that's why your arms should be quite straight when planting the paddle - to keep it as vertical as possible).

It's an interesting point, however, that maybe the rounded back of a wing paddle can reduce the braking motion if you do pause your arms as well as torso. Hmmm....

Picture paddling across ice. As you break the surface with the tip of the paddle, you create a slot that you keep inserting your paddle into until it is fully inserted and you can apply force to the paddle to move you forward. Since you are inserting the paddle at an angle in front of you, you can only do this if your boat, yourself, and the paddle are moving forward to allow you to put more of the blade through the ice. You do not want to waste energy pulling the partially inserted paddle through unbroken ice, and you also don't want to try to break any ice in front of the paddle as well as that would just slow you down.

Um, well yes, mostly. If the boat and yourself are moving forward, then your paddle will seem to move backwards a little relative to the boat and yourself, right? I mean, if it's really in ice :-) So your hand has to keep moving it back a little. I think the point is to let it go a little backwards but not use your tummy muscles to really ram it back until it's all the way in there. Which is pretty much what you said, so I'm agreeing.

Lisa:

I did not look at the pages, but isn't the whole pause "thing" just a way to get people to think about putting the blade fully in the water before applying power by unwinding the torso? Seems to me it is not plant blade, pause, apply power, but rather wait to apply power once blade planted. So the action might be quite fluid and continuous when done properly. Perhaps the concept of "pause" is more a something to present for teaching proper stroke mechanics than a description of proper stroke mechanics. Although I guess there would be a very slight pause in torso rotation as the blade is planted, but, as you say, very, very short and suspect more perceptible by the paddler than the observer unless exaggerated for teaching.

Ed Lawson

The significant paragraph is:

A tip to think about getting the “pause” going to your advantage, is to really not think of it like “a pause” with anything other than Your Torso….The Hands, Shaft, Blade…everything else keeps moving on a constant, but you need to hold-back the recoil of The Torso a split second, to allow the all of Those Other Moving Parts enough time to engage with the water fully…Specifically burying the blade fully and as far forward as is natually possible. The Torso-Pause may come to you easier if you think about the movement in these terms.

-Brent Reitz

The pause is during the plant, not before or after. The new point here (to me) is that you keep your arms moving to avoid braking, but you don't start to use up the powerful but precious few inches that you can get out of your torso until you have full engagement of the paddle.

So I'm mostly in agreement with you. I don't think it's just a psychological thing, it's mechanical. But I do agree that it's subtle, that the pause in torso rotation is very short, and that you "wait to apply power until paddle is planted".

Surely, if one hesitates when placing blade into watery stuff, then one is totally and momentarily applying <drag> to the picture -- ie, totally counter-productive? If the blade is not moving backwards, then it is acting as a speed brake -- has to be!

Yes, I agree. I don't know, Christopher - I'm learning, too! It takes microseconds to get that paddle all the way in, and there's not much feedback as to exactly where you are.

Still, if you check these two pages, you see, that's what they say. (Search for "salmon" in the first one, and "catch" in the second one.) Here, Brent Reitz clarifies that it's a pause with the torso, not the hands. That actually makes sense - gives you the best of both worlds.

-Lisa