josko

I just signed up for the bay of Fundy thing. Is anybody else from NSPN going?

Sorry - thought everyone knew Archee, aka Jan Bloch. His paddling website is: http://www.meetup.com/Cape-Cod-Sea-Kayak-Club/ He paddles a yellow Taran 18 with an Epic mid-large and is comfortable in some truly remarkable conditions.

Talking about wing paddles in crazy conditions, have any of you guys spent time with Archee?

You all are sounding like Epic is THE only wing blade out there. Are there other alternatives folks have found worked well for them? I for one, am glad I learned on an untwisted Stellar wing. I found it decidedly easier to adapt to, particularly in rough and moving water, than the Epic mid wing. Similarly, it seems there is a whole range of blade twists available, and folks in the know seem to select higher blade twists for calmer conditions. Here is a wing paddle review by a local: http://www.surfskiracing.org/2012/01/quick-review-of-wing-paddles-by-wesley-echols/ Why not look at options beyond Epic?

That's exactly what I'm trying to decide.

How would I decide between the Epic Mid Wing or the Epic Mid large Wing. Only data point I have is that I was spinning out the Stellar mid wing, which at 755 cm^2, is just 5 cm^2 larger than the Epic mid wing. Also, Archee lent me his Epic mid-large briefly, and it didn't seem overwhelming, but I didn't use it long enough to get a meaningful workout. My target use for this paddle would be the 18 nautical mile Naushon circumnavigation in the P&H Bahiya with the goal of averaging faster than 4.5 knots. I know an obvious answer is to paddle both, but to me, that would make sense in mid-season, when I'm fit enough to handle my usual blade.

USCG will likely be redoing Woods Hole buoys and changing traffic pattern by this summer. Take a look at a map of the proposed buoy changes and the associated message. On the surface, this doesn't seem to have much impact on kayakers. Topic D. (in the attached message) was clarified as requiring minimum vessel capabilities for transiting the length of the passage. It would not apply to out of channel travel and to those crossing the passage. Rerouting traffic from Broadway to main passage should be good news for us paddlers, although I doubt that the proposed highlight (part B.) will have much of an impact in the short term. As always, feel free to contact me for any details regarding kayaking Woods Hole passage. WH With Changes.pdf Woods Hole Passage-USCGmsg.docx

I think it meant my cadence was too high as the blade wasn't offering appropriate impedance., i.e. it was too small.

FWIW, I use an Ikelos and Cyprus. In mid season, I find I can average 4.5 kts with the Ikelos over an 18 nmi course (around Naushon island) vs 4.3 with the Cyprus. There's no doubt in my mind that for me, Ikelos is a more efficient blade once I'm fit enough to take advantage of it. I tried out the Stellar mid-wing two years ago, and I couldn't get past the 4.5 knot avg on that course. I ran across some surf skiers, and one of them mentioned I was spinning it out and should try a larger blade. So now I'm wondering how to select my next wing blade. It seems to all be about conditioning and cadence.

Leon, that second link's (for me) a gold mine! Thank you! While we're at it, I've learned (the hard way) that I need to start the season with a small blade and work up to a larger one, Otherwise elbow tendons seem to pay the price. I've also noticed that blade size seems to correlate with athlete's ability. Has anybody found an explanation of why a higher blade is more demanding of the athlete's body , and how to set up an off-season workout program to work one's way up to larger blades?

With advance apologies for thread drift, could someone explain the concept and purpose of 'twist' in a wing blade. I took a lesson from Wesley Echols and got to try a range of blades, from untwisted, more forgiving paddles such as Stellar mid-wing to some high-twist paddles he races with. In general, I found higher-twist blades much more finicky, prone to stall and more demanding of all stroke aspects. Presumably, these demands are paid of by higher levels of performance, but I couldn't quite fathom the associated hydrodynamics.

There are a couple coupled issues here that I’ve become quite interested in: Let’s start with the concept of work. It is defined as force times distance. So let’s consider a kayak that moves 1m forward during a stroke, and a paddle which because of slippage, moves 2 m backwards during that same time. (I know, bad paddle.) So the amount of work the paddler does during the stroke is F (force being applied to the paddle) x 2m. During that same time, the work done propelling the boat is F x 1m. So the paddler uses 2F (units of force are nt-m or ft-lbs). 1F goes into propelling the boat and the other 1F goes into water turbulence and such, associated with paddle slippage. Clearly, the more paddle slippage occurs during a stroke, less of the paddler’s energy is being applied to forward motion. So now let’s get a huge paddle that might slip only 10 cm during a stroke, and we get 1*F/(1.1*F) or ~90% paddle efficiency, clearly belter than the 50% with the hugely-slipping blade. So why don’t we all use zero-slippage blades? 100% efficient, right? Well, that has to do with a concept called impedance, or roughly, how hard a paddle is to pull against. Our hugely-slipping paddle from the first example most likely doesn’t offer much resistance to the paddler, and is ‘easy’ to paddle. The paddle with less slippage might feel harder , or it ‘impedes’ us more as we try to pull against it. My arms (in particular elbow tendons) have a definite impedance preference. Starting with too large a blade early in the season is a good way to head into tendinitis. So this would suggest that a maximum blade size derives from the paddlers conditioning and indeed, I found that kinesiology is very much concerned about load impedances on various athletic ventures. That’s the reason why blades over, say 750 cm^2 are generally not available to the general public. So far, I’ve ignored blade shape and the concept of lift. One (simple) way to look at it is to try to minimize the amount of disturbance the blade leaves in the water. Recall that 50% efficient blade and think of all the churning it must have left in the water, compared to the 90% efficient one. Half of paddler’s energy went into the water by churning and eddy-making. The idea behind a wing blade is to minimize the amount of residual vorticity in the water by generating lift instead of drag. As I look at my paddle stroke, I notice that my Ikelos leaves behind two prominent vortices (whirlpools) at each stroke. (In hydrodynamics, those are called a leading and tailing vortex.) My stellar wing only leaves behind ONE vortex, the tailing vortex. This post is likely not the place for a thorough explanation of why, but the wing blade increases efficiency by leaving less vorticity in the water by providing lift in addition to drag as it moves through the water. Phew; this got a little longer than I’d intended it to, and I’d be glad to continue the discussion. I’ve recently become involved in paddle design from a kinesiological standpoint and am quite amazed by the sophistication of methods used to optimize paddlers for specific athletes. There’s a lot of very interesint hydrodynamics involved in the process. Finally, I've been astounded at the Greenland paddle's ability to generate lift with a very small size. It seems the paddler has an option to adjust impedances over a wide range by slightly modifying their stroke. I find this absolutely fascinating and need to spend much more time with one on the water.

Anybody remember 'Woodsman's Fly Dope'? I think that was organic, too. You could also patch canoes with it.

Booy, have to dredge pretty far - Canoeing: trying to access good trout fishing spots on Cetina river in the 60's, then AMC WW school in the 70's, then a couple long-haul trips, then mom in the bow, two pamper-campers in the middle, and dad in the stern on lots of 1-2 week treks,... Kayaking; got tired begging for rides to bonefish flats at AUTEC, then a couple Andros circumnavs, then Greg Paquin...

Hmm... now I found this: http://www.adventurousexperiences.com/symposium.aspx and of course it's the same weekend. has anybody been to the Isle of Man symposium?

Mel put the slide show on FB, as 'Kayaking Northern Labrador'. We'll be presenting it again at AMC, Joy Street, Boston, in a few months.

FWIW, the 'food tent' is there to give a bear a primary target other than bodies in sleeping bags. It doubled as a changing area, and was intended as a cook tent, but we were never actually forced to cook in it, although we did shelter from a thunderstorm in it once. We had one 'bearproof' food container, intended to give us a minimal food supply in the event of loosing all the rest. IMHO, the 'bearproof' container looked like a bear chewy toy, but fortunately never got tested. Bugs weren't much of an issue. Most of the days, I didn't bother apply insect repellent, and only wore a headnet on 2-3 occasions. Melissa was apparently a little more delicious, though.

FWIW, in advance of tonight's talk, I'm attaching our trip float plan and my detailed food and gear lists. We'll discuss these topics, of course, but the lists are a bit more detailed than those in the slide show. Josko_gearlist.pdf float_plan.pdf Josko-foodlist.pdf

Thinking of going to the Bay of Fundy Symposium, now there's a ferry from Portland. Anybody go last year and how was it? Is anybody planning on going this year?

Now, THERE's a use for a paddle float. Do you think you cold carry enough compressed helium to lift the paddler to safety?

I'm glad to see a paddle float is not on there.

Mmm, barbecue! Would anybody care to pick a time, either pre or post talk, to grab a bite? I'll be driving up from Newport, RI, and hope to slide in before the rush hour traffic.

Hey, what do you folks normally do for dinner before or after these presentations? Could anybody suggest a nearby place for dinner, either before or after the meeting?

Rick, I agree and think the paddle float is really not worth carrying for an intermediate or better kayaker. I haven't seen anything in the discussion above to change my mind. It is useful, at some level, but IMHO not sufficiently useful to justify its' weight and volume.

I think it's all about hand-friendliness, ability to float, nice tangling properties low volume and low drag in water. In theory, one could tow with 200# fishing-line spectra fiber. It would be tiny, a tangled mess, and would slice through arms and kayaks equally easily, with the facility of a bandsaw blade.