[Paddlewise] concept of the anti-edge

I'm back on the list after a several month absence, and after 1-day of 
lurking, it is rather amusing to see that things are more normal now than 
before I left... Doug Lloyd conjures up another story from his seemingly 
infinite store of rough water adventures, and then spends the next few 
emails defending his lack of need to defend. Matt Broze posts all at once, 
several entertaining and informative stories from his perch on the 
mountaintop (like the guru in the good ol B.C. cartoons). And of course, 
there is the Flame War... although in Paddlewise's case, flame war is not 
quite the most apt descriptive term, because it always seems to be the 
result of mostly well-meaning people getting in each other's way to do 
good. There's nothing wrong with that, and it tells me that this list is 
still quite vibrant. I don't know if this link has been spread around these 
waters, but the "Netizen's Guide to Flame Warriors" is really funny 
(http://www.winternet.com/%7Emikelr/flame01.html), and no doubt has direct 
application to some of the people on this list.


So I left Paddlewise by default when my University account expired (the 
main drawback to graduating). And now I have a masters in geology that is 
not being used, although there is an interesting connection between my 
research on the long-term stability of frozen ground in Antarctica and the 
recent discovery of water-like erosion features on Mars. We don't know 
whether these erosion and depositional features formed in the last 5 years 
or the last 5 million years, but we would sure like to know. One of the 
images shows a depositional fan lying intact on top of polygonal patterned 
ground, which according to my research has a distinct churning effect on 
the ground surface. In Antarctica, the surface is refreshed by the mixing 
action about once every 10,000 years, and we could calculate the time scale 
on mars with more computer modeling. But that would be a lot of time not 
spent paddling, so I'll let someone else take it on, although it is nice to 
know that your research was relevant. Lately, I've been keeping quite busy 
working on my environmental education website (link at end), and thinking 
about how to teach kayaking. I'll leave with a little nugget of wisdom...

The concept of the Anti-edge:
Stability in rough water comes more from the ability to hold your boat flat 
than it does from actively edging to one side or the other. If you can edge 
your boat steadily (no wobbling at all), then you can also conversely 
prevent your boat from being edged by waves or rough water.  Extreme 
stability and comfort in rough water is the result. This is a trick I use 
all the time in big rapids on the river. It was very enlightening once I 
had this inspiration, and I've noticed that when hitting the really big 
rough stuff, all I have to do is throw in a slight edge into it, and my 
boat bobs right around. All it takes for you to do this is to have a little 
paradigm shift of where stability comes from. You are responsible for 
holding your boat steady. Unfortunately, this trick doesn't work well if 
you are not outfitted well in your boat and if your boat has very high 
primary stability (like some folding boats and doubles).

It's strange that even though the rivers are still running in seattle, I've 
started to think more about sea kayaking lately, including resubscribing to 
PW.

Cheers,
Kevin

Kevin Whilden
President, Your Planet Earth LLC
http://www.yourplanetearth.org
"Where the science meets the sentiment"
(206) 788-0281


***************************************************************************
PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not
to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission
Submissions:     PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net
Subscriptions:   PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net
Website:         http://www.paddlewise.net/
***************************************************************************