RE: [Paddlewise] Longer paddles for rougher waters

From: Paul Hayward <pdh_at_mmcl.co.nz>
Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2010 15:21:58 -0800
Paul said:
>> One vivid GP memory is sitting under a tall bluff and waiting out some
>> Wind 'dumps' that came down and hissed across the otherwise flat water

Matt said:
> Paul seems to be saying he was keeping his bow pointed toward the cliffs
and
> I'm taking it to mean that that was also primarily the direction the gusts
> were coming from (am I correct in that assumption?). 

Natasha & I had been paddling (in singles) with strongish off-shore winds
all day and had been very conscious that prudence dictated using the land to
shelter us. Openings in the shore (rivers & harbours) were crossed with
energy and concentration - after assessing the current wind strength. We had
no desire to wind up 'all at sea' ;-)

So, we both had an immediate reaction - when struck by these sudden gusting
wind dumps - to keep head-on to the shore and resist being pushed away from
it. I guess it just followed on from our thinking all day.

The actual wind dumps seemed to come down from the cliffs above and were
quite uncharacteristic of the day's wind pattern - which was a steady
westerly (we were heading north on the east coast of the Coromandel
Peninsula). 

I must also blush and admit that my memory has played me false. The wind
conditions were as described, but Natasha just came and looked over my
shoulder and said I was talking cr#p - we were both still using Euro blades.
I wouldn't have believed it was 7 years ago... but we just looked up the
photos of that trip and, as usual, she was right ;-)

So we survived it with Euro blades and not even our early Mk 1 GPs, much
less our Mk 2 (few inches longer) ones.

She commented that her memory was of bending completely forward, doing a
constant brace with paddle dug in on either side to retard being blown
backward. 

Best Regards	
Paul Hayward, Auckland, New Zealand
(Temporarily in Alaska)
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Received on Tue Jul 20 2010 - 18:05:45 PDT

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