A lot of very good and very informed posts have been made on the subject of wing paddles, but I think there are still a few confusions. One is of coure the way the word "efficiency" is used to refer to biomechanical efficiency, actual effiency of the paddle (work in vs work out) and what some call "coupling". Rather than saying racers use wings because they're the most efficeint paddles, I would say that they use wings because they can generate the most thrust with them- though they probably have very high actual efficiency. But do they have high biomechanical efficency? I don't know. Yes, high aspect wings stall moe easily than low aspect ones. But this can be lessened by making the chord very thick, as is done on Greenland paddles. A good point that has been made is that different paddles work best in different settings. Wings are great for racing, but I'd never want to tour with one. They require very specific technique- and if you're not a super conditioned atlete, after four or five hours that technique isn't going to be perfect. The great advantage of the Greenland paddle, as you'd expect from something that evolved as it did, is that it is so very flexible and adaptable. You can use it over a wide range of angles of attack, with long and short strokes, at high and low angles and so forth. And used properly, with the canted stroke, I suspect the actual efficiency is very high. At least, I don't have trouble keeping up with my paddling friends ;-) -- mike ------------------------- Michael Edelman medelman_at_ameritech.net http://www.foldingkayaks.org http://www.findascope.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/ ***************************************************************************
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:33:34 PDT