PeterO wrote: >>>>When Greg Barton and Oscar Chalupsky try to pull the flippered boat they use an unsynchronised stroke? So is speed of stroke really a workable strategy?<<<< I asked my informant about this when I first heard the story. He said that Greg and Oscar's strokes were in sync during the tug of war. My theory is that they would do better out of sync as then there wouldn't be that time when both paddles were completely out of the water when the flippers could gain some for ground for free. I think Nick made the best point that the flippers are more efficient at low speeds. I think one of the main reasons is that they never pierce the water's surface and therefore to not allow ventilation (the sucking of air down behind the blade when taking a stroke). this ventilation issue might also be relevant to the Euro/Greenland debate. because the blade does not ever get totally below the surface their is more likely to be ventilation allowing air the get behind it on a powerful stroke. This would hurt it the most during acceleration where nobody seems to disagree that the Greenland doesn't do as well as the Euro (and has been my experience as well). I have experimented with the elbows at the side rotate the torso Greenland stroke and my normal paddling stroke using a GPS and the same Euro paddle and have found that the High stroke is only about .2 mph faster than the low stroke. To me that is good news because the strokes are so different I can switch off and rest my muscles by switching strokes if I'm tiring. Matt Broze www.marinerkayaks.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/ ***************************************************************************
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