RE: [Paddlewise] bracing and power

Richard, thank you for bringing this new electronic paddle to my attention. It
appears to be nearly exactly how I envisioned it needed to be with strain
gauges out near each blade on the shaft and three rotational accelerometers to
position its orientation exactly in space at all times. The rotation sensors I
felt would be a needed to prove the paddle was being used in a consistent
manner during trials of different boats. I've already e-mailed Chris at Sea
Kayaker the link in the hopes that they can get one to review ASAP. My hope is
that the force data from one can be combined with data from a knotmeter or GPS
in order to generate a drag curve for a test kayaks over a range of speeds
from slow to sprinting (by a strong paddler). It may take a strong consistent
paddler to get repeatable results or maybe we will find many paddlers who will
get the same results for the amount of horizontal energy put into the water
with the paddle. This paddle seems to be able to calculate horizontally
directed energy itself because of the rotational sensors. Hopefully that may
mean many paddlers could get the same drag result for a given kayak.



Because several factors such as yaw due to the paddle's side to side force
application and how that combines with the hulls shape (that aren't tested by
towing tanks) could be taken into account there is the hope on my part that
the drag on a kayak in real world applications could be used to compare kayaks
in a way that, hopefully, can be more accurate than has been able to be done
in the past even using a towing tank.



I also hope this paddle could be a tool instructors can use to improve the
forward paddling efficiency of their students. Hopefully one day, the price
will come down as more are sold and development costs are amortized, so that a
serious paddler will be able to own or at least rent one for long enough to
optimize their paddling efficiency.  By that time the paddle may be developed
to the extent it can give the paddler biofeedback instantly when they are
paddling in an optimally efficient way and they can learn to stay in the zone
using that feedback.



There might be a way to extend the length of such a paddle (maybe a joint in
the middle where sections could be added or by using replaceable blades) where
we could end the power half of the paddling effiency argument.

> From: culpeper_at_tbaytel.net
> To: marinerkayaks_at_msn.com; paddlewise_at_paddlewise.net
> Subject: RE: [Paddlewise] bracing and power
> Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2010 21:01:34 -0400
>
> http://www.merlingear.com/dataproducts.htm
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