Re: [Paddlewise] Greenland vs Euro paddles

From: John Fereira <jaf30_at_cornell.edu>
Date: Wed, 08 Sep 2004 08:07:25 -0400
At 03:43 PM 9/7/2004 -0400, Nick Schade wrote:
>A better analogy may be a propeller instead of a glider wing, but I still 
>don't see it working as the Greenland stroke is described. With a prop, 
>the blades are foil sections which produce thrust through lift.

When describing how a paddle can produces lift, in the context of using the 
paddle when sculling for support or for a low/high brace turn, the analogy 
that I usually use is remembering what happens when you put your hand out 
the window of a moving vehicle.  Holding your hand with your fingers 
pointing forward it's easy to feel the effect of raising or lowering your 
fingers.  With just a very small raise of the fingers your hand and arm 
will move up.  Raising the fingers more causes the hand not only to move 
up, but to move backwards as well.  Lower your fingers and the hand dives.

Translating that to the paddle, such that the angle of the paddle blade has 
the leading edge slightly higher than the trailing edge, and the paddle 
will produce lift, and thus support, for a sculling brace or high/low brace 
turn.

Greg Stamer also presented an interesting idea when I did a training 
session with him a couple of years ago.  He was talking about the exit 
portion of the stroke when using a GP.  As a demonstration we stuck the 
paddle in next to our hip with the paddle at about a 30 degree angle. Then, 
rather than pulling back with the paddle we just lifted straight 
up.  Although nobody was setting any speed records it was clear that 
lifting the paddle straight up with the paddle angled was producing some 
forward momentum
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Received on Wed Sep 08 2004 - 05:05:35 PDT

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