Re: [Paddlewise] Are seakayaks Seaworthy

I was quoted too in the article, and like John, I was quoted accurately,
but I disagree with the conclusion the author drew that longer paddles are
okay or even desireable because the Inuit used them.

There are good reasons for using longer paddles, including deeper and
wider kayaks. But the longer the paddle, the longer the lever you have to
work against and the less agile you can be with it. If you compare the
scene in Nanook of the North of Nanook using a long paddle to the montage
in Palo's Wedding of the heroine's brother using a Greenland paddle, you
see two very different styles, with Nanook's looking very awkward and the
Greenlander's looking very light and graceful. I think the former might be
okay on sheltered waters, but for turbulent seas I would prefer the
latter, as with a shorter paddle, and especially using the sliding stroke,
it is possible to react much more quickly to changing conditions than a
110-inch paddle would allow.

The author also says that umiaks were preferred over kayaks for long
journeys because of their wider beams. This is at best a misinterpretation
of the evidence. Umiaks in Greenland, at least, were typically crewed by
women, old men, and children, and were used on long journeys for their
cargo capacity, not just their wide beams. The men always accompanied the
umiaks in their kayaks, which made the same journeys as the umiaks. The
kayakers used the umiaks as mother ships for rest and nourishment on those
expeditions. In Watkins' Last Expedition, F. Spencer Chapman describes a
journey of a hundred miles or so with umiaks and kayaks in conditions so
bad that Chapman had to roll several times and was so stiff and tired at
the end that he had to be helped out of his kayak. The Inuit on the trip
were not in appreciably better shape.

Chuck Holst
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