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Don't be afraid to cross-pollinate
by Elmore Holmes
March, 2005
Since I began writing this column almost two
years ago, I have on several occasions referred to the many different disciplines
that fall into the category of paddling. Some of these disciplines
bear virtually no resemblance to one another, save for the fact that their
participants all hold paddles in their hands. Flatwater sprint doesn't
look much like whitewater rodeo. Whitewater slalom doesn't look much
like coastal touring. Outrigger canoeing doesn't look much like river
canoeing. Freestyle canoeing looks more like synchronized swimming
than like any other paddling discipline.
One theme I find myself repeating from time
to time is that all these paddlers are a lot more alike than they are different,
and that there's no reason they shouldn't cooperate.
The most obvious thing paddlers can accomplish
by working together is bargaining power regarding issues of public policy:
environmental issues, issues of access to rivers and coastline, safety
issues. I've touched on this power of cooperation in the past and
I hope to write more about it in the future. |
Elmore's columns appear monthly at the
Outdoors, Inc.,website:
www.outdoorsinc.com |
But this month I'd like us paddlers to look inward.
One of the best ways we can improve our own paddling skills, and thus advance
the sport on a technical level, is to allow ourselves to learn from paddlers
who are not like us.
One can learn new things about his own paddling
discipline by observing the techniques of others. I believe that
the whitewater slalom racer who thinks open-water touring has nothing to
do with him is doing himself a disservice in the long run, as is the flatwater
sprint racer who thinks he has nothing to learn from, say, whitewater rodeo
enthusiasts.
This past month I traveled to the Florida
Keys to do some ocean racing followed by some scenic touring. While
there, I encountered something that every paddler encounters, whether he
wants to or not: waves.
Waves can either help the paddler or hinder
the paddler, depending on the circumstances. An open-water racer
paddling in a following sea can surf waves and save precious energy in
a long race, but controlling the boat in these conditions can be tricky.
That same racer paddling against the waves faces an energy-depleting predicament.
A slalom racer can use a wave for a quick ride across the river from one
gate to the next, but would rather avoid a momentum-stopping wave-in-the-chest
while paddling downstream. Wildwater racers also must dodge waves
to keep their boats gliding atop the water. Whitewater rodeo competitors
relish waves and their sticky cousins, holes. Freestyle canoeists
prefer glassy-smooth water, free of the slightest wave, while performing
their muscle-burning routines. And then there's the sheer fun of
waves--surfing them, getting splashed by them, bouncing up and down as
they pass underneath.
On a river, waves are formed by the energy
of the water as it rushes from a steeper, faster part of the stream into
a calm pool. Here, the waves stay in one place while the water moves.
On a lake or the ocean, waves are generated
by the wind and by large motorized craft. The water is more or less
stationary and the waves move across the surface.
On big rivers like the Mississippi, I have
found a combination of moving water and moving waves when large towboats
traveling upstream trail enormous wakes behind them.
Regardless of where you find waves, the techniques
for dealing with them are basically the same.
To surf any wave, a paddler must position
the midsection of his boat on the face of the wave (that's the upstream
face on a river wave, or the leading face on a lake or ocean wave) and
the bow of his boat in the trough. The paddler's feet should be "downhill"
from his butt. This way, gravity holds the boat down in the trough
of the wave, while the wave's face propels the boat forward (on a lake
or the ocean) or keeps the boat from being washed downstream (on a river).
To keep a boat moving over oncoming waves,
the paddler should time his strokes for maximum propulsion and minimum
disruption. Typically, by placing each stroke on the back side of
a wave (that's the downstream side for a river wave, the trailing side
for a lake/ocean wave), a paddler can propel his boat at the moment that
it has minimum resistance because all but its midsection is out of the
water. Furthermore, on a river the current flow is fastest on the
back (downstream) side of a wave. Also, at this moment the boat is
going downhill.
You know what? Reading a bunch of my
dry text is not the best way to learn about paddling in waves. Diagrams
and video, followed by hours of practice on the water, are much better.
And so, I'll recommend a couple of resources that I've found useful over
the years.
I encourage flatwater and open water paddlers
to check out these videos: Breakthru, an instructional video produced by
former U.S. Team slalom and wildwater racer Kent Ford; and Fast and Clean,
a documentary of the 1979 whitewater slalom world championships.
Both productions include footage of whitewater boaters playing in waves.
Whitewater enthusiasts can learn a thing or
two from one of the top ocean racers of all time, South African Oscar Chalupsky.
Chalupsky offers advice on riding ocean swells at the website of Epic Kayaks,
the company he co-owns with former U.S. flatwater Olympian Greg Barton:
http://www.epickayaks.com/newsletter/archives/october.htm
Waves are but one example of the challenges
that face paddlers of all kinds. So let's stick together as paddlers
to figure out these puzzles, and don't forget that all paddlers share one
common goal: getting the most from the water pressure that resists their
paddle blades.
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