John, Matt and all. It seems to me that everyone ignores one thing when discussing this subject, and I'd like to hear what those with greater gray power than I have to say about it. All the discussions seem to assume that the power output is all going to drive the boat forward at a constant speed. However, the boat/paddler mass is alternately being accelerated by the paddle stroke and then decelerating between strokes. It seems that, given a large enough engine, a large-bite paddle can be pulled through the water quickly. But if power is limited, a smaller paddle allows higher reps, which minimizes the period of glide between strokes and therefore the subsequent loss of energy due to acceleration/deceleration. The closer together the strokes come, the less deceleration there is between strokes and (I assume) the more efficient the biomechanics / stroke / paddle combination becomes. You occasionally see extreme examples of this where a powerful paddler pulls a massive stroke and then pauses for a long glide before taking another huge pull on the water. The inefficiency of this style is pretty obvious as his boat lurches forward and then settles back down into the water. On the other hand, you see Greg Barton churning away with very high cadences and very short strokes, leaving the big-bite Neanderthal days behind. Can the efficiency gained by this factor partially explain the discrepancy which is bothering Matt? Quantitatively, how much difference does this pulse-drive factor make? Just wondering, Harold *************************************************************************** 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 Jul 25 2002 - 12:43:06 PDT
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:30:55 PDT