At 7:44 PM -0700 5/22/01, Harvey Golden wrote: > >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. > >I'm certain I'm not the only one who has noticed this fact. Furthermore, a >buoyant paddle of the same weight as a non-buoyant paddle will feel lighter >when being paddled: As soon as you immerse a blade, the buoyancy is making >the paddle lighter. At the end of the stroke, the buoyancy lifts the blade >out-- puts a little spring-in-the-step as it were. So many people remark >about how heavy carved wooden paddles are-- without sticking them in the >water. (It does call to mind the slightly-modified old question: "Which is >heavier, a pound of graphite/whatsit composite, or a pound of cedar?" >There's weight and then there's buoyancy.) As you point out, for flotation it is the density of the material that counts so a featherweight carbon fiber paddle may be less buoyant than a substantially heavier wooden paddle. However a foam core paddle may be less dense than a wood paddle of the same weight and thus more buoyant. And any two wood paddles made of the same material that weight the same will have the same buoyancy and counter intuitively a heavier paddle of the same wood will be more buoyant. -- Nick Schade Guillemot Kayaks 824 Thompson St Glastonbury, CT 06033 (860) 659-8847 *************************************************************************** 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 - 06:04:06 PDT
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