[Paddlewise] Moving Water Around

Thanks to all for the bow rudder tips - this has been
an elusive one for me to get right (I always feel like
I'm about to fall out of the boat) and now have more
things to try.

And I certainly appreciate the Brozian Universe
theories, but I am disturbed with the concept of
moving water backwards as desirable.  Please be kind
to a very non-technical discussion.

Having learned to row and swim before encountering a
paddle, I learned the concept of 'anchoring' your
blade (oar, hand, whatever) and pulling your vessel
(boat, body, etc) past it.  Of course, it's not a
perfect world and your blade does move some backward -
and I am assuming here we have minimized all the
wasted sideways effort.  

The goal is to minimize the amount of water you move
and maximize the amount of vessel you move.  The
vessel offers less resistance to the force (vertical
brace?) than the water does, so you move forward more
than your blade moves back.  To optimize this ratio we
lengthen the vessel and/or increase the ability of the
blade to stay put in the water.  I've only used a wing
paddle a couple of times, but this is what I think
that design does.  Placed it in the water correctly,
it holds fast and allows you to put serious force into
moving the vessel.  

Of course, there's lots of reasons why we don't all
use a wing paddle or hatchet blade all the time that
don't have to do with efficiency of forward
acceleration.  But when I most desperately need to
catch someone or some thing, I visualize each blade as
immovable in the water for the duration of each
stroke.  If I've missed the point please let me know -
there's still a few 'things' I can't catch!


Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better
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