>I don't know about water compression and lift but >when making a forward stroke you are pulling yourself forward >_and_ downward. When your blade comes past your hip you start to >pull yourself downward _only_. Since that is not what you want when >your intention is to go forward, you could describe this as losing >efficiency Some of the popular techniques that I witnessed in Greenland, and was shown by Maligiaq Padilla, employ a very long stroke where the paddle exits well past the hip. Once variant is to develop a "kick" which is possible if the paddle is canted forward as it moves upward. Another method, illustrated in John Heath's Sea Kayaker article on Maligiaq's stroke (http://www.seakayakermag.com/june2000/JuneHeath2.htm), is to take a very long stroke, but instead of lifting the paddle upward, it is sliced edgewise through the water, moving forward to exit. Maligiaq reports that this has the added benefit of preventing the emerging (unfeathered) blade from being "slapped" and stopped by a breaking wave, as the blade is canted forward in almost a "feathered" fashion. I don't know how well these techniques apply to paddles other than Greenland "sticks". Greg Stamer http://www.magicnet.net/~gstamer/QK.html _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com *************************************************************************** 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 Thu Jun 14 2001 - 11:52:07 PDT
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