Re: [Paddlewise] Clarification

On Sep 9, 2004, at 7:49 PM, John Winters wrote:

> If my understanding of the stroke makes sense the paddle travels in an 
> arc. The blade hits the water well away from the hull and slices down 
> towards the hull. If the paddl blade travels in an arc I can see that 
> it might travel normal to the boat's course. I could have this wrong 
> so maybe some one who is an expert at this kind of thing can correct 
> me.

Try as I might, asking people who have studied the Greenland style 
stroke in-depth, I have not seen a description which indicates much 
"normal" blade travel. There does seem to be some travel in towards the 
boat, but in this case the leading edge of the paddle is towards the 
back. The travel in towards the boat seems to be a result of the 
canting of the blade causing lift towards the boat. Lift may be 
present, but not so that it produces forward thrust.

However, the descriptions I have seen do make a point of saying that 
the last half of the stroke is where most of the power is produced. 
This suggests to me that if the same "cant" angle is held that the 
direction of flow over the paddle may reverse and there may be some 
forward-thrusting-lift as the paddle moves away from the boat again. I 
have not been able to confirm this.

Harvey Golden will be at Mystic Seaport tomorrow, maybe I'll get a 
chance to learn some more.

Nick Schade

Guillemot Kayaks
824 Thompson St
Glastonbury, CT 06033
USA
Ph/Fx: (860) 659-8847
http://www.guillemot-kayaks.com/
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