Re: [Paddlewise] Paddling Formations

Hi Dana,

SK magazine had a article that suggested a formation called the "Windward 
Stager" 


           ^
           |        ^
           v        |        ^                                 
                    v        |        ^                             Wind 
direction if not head on or 
                             v        |                          <------------
                                      v                              directly 
behind.
           ^
           |        ^
           v        |        ^
                    v        |        ^
                             v        |
                                      v


The point was to never have to turn your head more than 90 deg to see the 
front of the next boat in line.  If you had too turn more than 90, then you 
called for the kayaks ahead to slow down (slow down not stop since only a 
small change is needed).  If you are using good torso rotation, you usually 
catch a glimpse of the trailing kayak on ever other stroke.  The width of 
separation has to be determined by the conditions.  The rougher the 
conditions the more room you have to allow for boat wandering in order to 
prevent collision.

The trailing boats were always on the windward side so that if you turned to 
look at a trailing boat you would be looking in the direction of on-comming 
waves in case some larger or breaking wave unexpectedly appeared.  

The formation also gives you not only forward/backward control but gives side 
to side control between the leader and the sweep.  If you have a small group 
or if spreading out is not a problem you can use just one line.  For larger 
groups (where you may want multiple leaders in case of separation) or where 
you need to maintain tighter formations  (near channels or boat lanes) the 
double line formation I drew above can be used.  

I have used this on a couple of trips where we were following poorly marked 
channels used by fishing boats.  It made it easy to paddle near the channel 
edge where we still had good water depth, but allowed the sweep to make sure 
that no one wandered out into the channel.  Usually they noticed right away 
if they were getting out of line.   You could actually carrry on 
conversations with both the persons in front and in back of you without too 
much effort  and you felt less isolated than the single file formations.

Your diamond formation could work in a very similar way.  The point to make 
is that the front of each trailing kayak should be kept about even with the 
cockpit of the kayak just ahead.  If you can get this thought into all the 
paddler's minds, I think you are more likely to get fast paddlers to slow 
down their pace rather than getting into the "paddle-stop for catch up - 
paddle" mode that many faster paddlers adopt.  Of course, the faster 
guys/gals sometimes get into a "paddle-paddle-leave them behind" mode and no 
formation can help that attitude.

Mark J. Arnold
MJAkayaker_at_aol.com
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