Re: [Paddlewise] West Greenland Hull Design

John Winters wrote:

> The practice of labelling anything with one or more of these
> characteristics as a "Greenland kayak" or "Greenland style" kayak
> exemplifies the triumph of advertising over reality.

I tend to think of the two significant variations as "British style"
(Greenland)  due to the popularity of the designs in Britain
and "Northwest Coast style" after the various types
produced in the Northwest coast of the US and Canada, such as
Current Designs, Seaward etc.   These are crude geographic
references and some would be quick to point out the many exceptions,
but they are just as accurate as attributing the designs to the Inuit,
Aleut or other northern first nations.  (Perhaps I should add a
"Winters style" for the low bow type like the Swift North Sea and
Eddyline Carbonlite 2000 ... only because John was the first
to explain the advantages of the style to me. :-)

Two sports I spend most time with these days, Nordic skiing and
kayaking both have real problems with nomenclature.  No one can
agree on the names of freestyle skiing techniques (offset, paddle dance,
uphill V2 etc all describe the same technique in different circles - the
Canadians, Europeans and Americans all have different terminology).
Similarly, I saw a "bow rudder" demonstrated last year, supposedly
"invented" by a Brit that looked suspiciously like a canoeist's bow
pry.  There are of course a gazillion rolling techniques that have
overlapping names.  I can't help but think we could standardize names
so that they are relatively accurate and have the same meaning to
all persons (but maybe that's just because I'm an engineer).






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