----- Original Message ----- From: "Harvey Golden" <qayaq_at_pacifier.com > The buoyancy of a traditional wooden kayak blade is readily felt when > rolling. Sure, one could likely roll with it if it were composite (or even > steel) , but when you roll with a wooden blade, you can really let the > buoyancy of the blade do most of the work, allowing for a graceful roll and > recovery. The buoyancy increases the ability to balance the kayak as well, > whether the paddle is static or sculling slowly. My tendency is to agree with you that a traditional wooden paddle (and I don't mean a Klepper paddle, though they date back 90 years and are therefore pretty "traditional" as well :-)) does help in a roll. It certainly helped me. But regarding the actual buoyancy of the paddle being a factor, all I can share is a confrontation that went on about 9 years ago. The woman who headed up TASK (or was to head it up soon after, I forget which), the trade association for sea kayaking, was interviewed or wrote something in ANorAK (our great east coast produced newsletter who Gabriel currently helps on) that touched on traditional paddles. She took a stab at explaining why they were easier to roll with. Among other thoughts she expressed was that the bouyancy helped in this. She was subsequently reamed in the pages of following issues of the publication by one of the better rollers with traditional paddles in the northeast. He absolutely refuted it. I too had thought that extra bouyancy was involved and so the strong statements to the contrary by a well-known traditional paddler really left an impression on me. I no longer dared put my foot in my mouth as she apparently had and state so. So, a question. Is it now safe to come out and say that the bouyancy in the traditional wood paddle helps in rolling? It is certainly an observable and logical truth in that wood is more bouyant than other materials used in paddle making especially when in a high aspect ratio configuration, i.e. thick in simplier words, and thus floats better. But John, who certainly has a more scientific bent than most of us (or is he bambozzling us with high fallutin terms and formulae? :-)), does not agree and can prove his point apparently. ralph diaz -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Ralph Diaz . . . Folding Kayaker newsletter PO Box 0754, New York, NY 10024 Tel: 212-724-5069; E-mail: rdiaz_at_ix.netcom.com "Where's your sea kayak?"----"It's in the bag." ----------------------------------------------------------------------- *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Wed May 23 2001 - 03:43:19 PDT
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