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Sea Kayaks Techniques Bulletin Board
Re: Greenland paddle
Posted By: Kris Buttermore In Response To: greenland paddle (LeeG)
Date: Thursday, 29 June 2006, at 11:37 a.m.
If your paddle is well carved and sized - your grip* should pretty much automatically take care of the cant too.
For me it's a natural thing - requiring no real conscious effort and certainly no calculations. I do vary the cant angle, but reflexively and on the fly. It's not something I add or manipulate consciously. Similar to how I might alter a stroke with a slight hint of scull or brace as needed. The cant/scull/brace components within the forward stroke are often quite subtle things and imperceptible to others (and even to me as I am not doing it any more consciously that I would be of making small balance adjustments while riding a bike).
* Grip - Thumb and forefinger around loom - rest of fingers out on blade root. The fattest part/larger side of the oval of the blade root fitting into your palm. Your hand will be fairly open/relaxed and mostly on one side (vs. edge) of the paddle - with fingers wrapping over. With neutral wrists, this grip naturally has the paddle canted. The cant is designed in - not added on by the user (who does add some variability to the mix).
I find it awkward to try to hold a Greenland paddle with blades perpendicular as it would put the shoulder/narrower edge of root oval into my palm more.
With that grip as your baseline, just paddle. Feel what the paddle wants to do - and let it.
If you want speed/efficiency consider using GPS to verify speed - as there are stroke variations that feel much easier that you'd swear have you going slower but don't - and others that feel like you're working more but are getting nothing for the added effort (true with any kind of paddle).
Keeping neutral (straight) wrists is important to avoid RSIs. Cranking them over or back may be OK and even be needed for blade control with sculls/braces/rolls - but for forward paddling keep things neutral/aligned/relaxed.
I like shouldered paddles for actually paddling anywhere as I know my hands are right where I want them, but I also favor VERY soft/subtle shoulders. The Superior carbon is a good example - the shoulders on my own paddles are softer than that. If you do any distance hard shoulders can hurt/blister/and can mess with intuitive and comfortable stroke mechanics.
How the root/shoulder shape fits your hand is at least as important as the overall sizing - yet it is rarely discussed as there's no dimensional guideline. Everyone differs.
I see a lot of paddles that seem very square shouldered to me and I don't get it. Nothing on my hand is square, or at steep angles, or comfortable when faced with a hard edge. For rolling it doesn't matter so much if the shoulders are chunky (and since some G-stylers roll a lot more than they paddle this could explain why they haven't found need to carve those shoulders down), or if there are shoulders at all (one of my storm paddles is unshouldered - and the shorter storms are awesome for rolling).
Another common tip/trick: Listen for any gurgling/grating/scratching noises coming through the paddle (little entrained air bubbles). GPs are famous for giving this acoustic feedback to new users. Refine you stroke until these go away. Same goes for any "kerplunk" at the catch. If this won't go away with technique you may want to think about thinning your edges around the end - and maybe even altering the tip shape. Seals have good ears, and paddles designed to hunt them were refined over time to be as silent as possible. The side benefit for us now is this also make for an efficient paddle.
Keep in mind too that these paddles (at least the Grrenland paddle forms that have become popular here) were developed to propel relatively narrow and low volume craft. The narrower the better as far as stroke mechanics goes. This is something GPs have in common with wing paddles. Sure they'll work on wider hulls, but there are diminishing returns.
How wide a hull is too wide? Depends on the paddler/paddle - but there is likely some correlation between shoulder width and kayak beam for good stroke mechanics (size the loom to fit your grip, size you qajaq to be that width or less). I'm slightly wider up top than my sea kayak (21" beam) and a GP (I like 21" looms +/-) works well with it. My SOF is a bit over 2" narrower (18 7/8") - and GP works great with it (I should note that these are also both swedeform, so are even narrower up front than the max beam number would indicate). With either boat when my hands are in place on the paddle - and the paddle in my lap - my hands (and arms) are more over the water than the deck. With the SOF thay are all the way over. Result being I'm not forced to reach around the boat as I paddle. That little difference lets me get a better catch, my hand crossing/punching over has more effect, I can keep the paddle more vertical through the stroke (and closer to the keel), and work the crunch more effectively. Things I didn't know I was missing before. Now I know why my GP kept nagging at me to build it a proper qajaq!
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