John Winters wrote: >Has anyone done any experiments on the ideal angle? I mention this because >tank and wind tunnel tests have shown that the greatest leeway occurs at an >angle of thirty degrees to the flow. In other words, one could be heading >upstream but the net effect would not only keep one out in the channel >longer but would make a person work much harder to get to the destination. >I wonder if there may not be better approaches. For instance, paddling up >stream along shore where currents may be less or even going in the >favourable direction and then sprinting across the heavy current. Gronseth pointed out (in his basic 5 day kayaking course) that the cosine of 60 degrees is 0.5 (adjacent angle divided by the hypotenuse), thus if you have to ferry at an angle 60 degrees, you have to paddle twice the distance.... which takes twice the time. Angles greater than 60 degrees, the rate of change in ferry distance increases exponentially. The Cos of 30 degrees is 0.86, therefore if you ferried at a 30 degree angle, your increase in distance would only be 14% greater. In summary, if you have to paddle at a ferry angle greater than 60 degrees, the effort and time spent might not be worth it. Robert *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ ***************************************************************************Received on Wed Aug 12 1998 - 09:24:42 PDT
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