Showing posts with label solo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label solo. Show all posts
Thursday, 12 February 2015
Sitting Solo in the Stern
Paddling a tandem canoe solo is basic stuff, but there are those who do it wrong.Take a look at the photo on the cover of The Wilderness Paddler's Handbook, by Alan S. Kesselheim, and notice how much of the boat's bow is out of the water. Now, in perfectly calm conditions, with no wind, and when you're not concerned about making time, this is okay. You'll note that it's sunset in the photo, and it's a common thing, at the end of a day of canoeing and after supper has been cleaned up, to hop in the stern by oneself and paddle idly in front of the campsite, enjoying the stillness at day's end.
But throw a bit of wind into the mix, and this scenario becomes untenable. Unless you're heading dead downwind, the bow's high profile, and its lack of underwater profile to provide resistance, cause problems. Any wind will take that high, exposed bow and swing it downwind. In light to moderate winds, you'll paddle like crazy just to stay on course. In heavier winds, it becomes impossible.
I recently watched an unsavvy paddler try this on a nearby pond on a stiff, gusty day. He was seated in the stern of a large, heavy, square-stern canoe, paddling like crazy to head more or less upwind. The wind would blow his bow away, and this big fellow would paddle like mad to bring it back. He looked to be a lot stronger than me, and he actually managed to swing the bow into the eye of the wind -- oops, just a couple of degrees too far, where the wind would catch the bow's other side and swing it downwind in the other direction. The paddler would switch paddling sides, paddle like mad, bring the bow back into the wind, lose it in the other direction ... over and over. It was exhausting just to watch, and he made absolutely no forward progress -- just spent all that effort trying to get the boat pointed in the right direction.
In light to moderate winds, the easy solution is the sit on the bow seat, facing the stern. Because the bow seat is much further from the bow than the stern seat is from the stern (to make room for the bow paddler's legs), this places it quite a bit closer to the boat's centerpoint. By orienting yourself this way, you'll have fairly good control, with your paddle not too far behind the boat's pivot point.
In stiffer wind, forgo the seat, move to the fore-and-aft center of the canoe, and kneel. Spread your legs and get one knee into the bilge (where the bottom curves up into the side of the hull), and lean the boat toward that side. This will position your paddle opposite the boat's natural pivot point, and allow you to hold the paddle nearly vertical with the blade as close as possible to the boat's longitudinal centerline, so that your forward stroke will produce mostly forward, and not turning, motion.
Now, about that book cover: Kesselheim's book is really quite good and useful. (I put it up there with Canoeing Wild Rivers by Cliff Jacobson [which, I believe, is now titled Expedition Canoeing], and The Complete Wilderness Paddler, by James West Davidson & John Rugge.) But when I worked as an editor for the book's publisher, Ragged Mountain Press (an imprint of McGraw-Hill), I received a proposal for a book to teach the rock-bottom basics of canoeing. It wasn't a strong proposal, and I rejected it. The prospective author responded by citing the cover of The Wilderness Paddler's Handbook as evidence that our existing canoeing books were no good. He evidently didn't understand that the folks who design book jackets aren't the same folks as the ones who write or edit the books.
And he also didn't realize that every rule has its exception. If there's any doubt that sitting in the stern with your bow up in the air is sometimes acceptable, ask Winslow Homer. It's hard to credit that the authentic-looking outdoorsman in his painting doesn't know what he's doing, even with his bow way up in the air.
(Homer painting available at AllPosters.com)
Saturday, 8 March 2014
Building a solo sailing dinghy
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Thursday, 5 January 2012
Maple Sparrow Solo
Given my happiness with the Walnut Solo Kingfisher blade made back in September of '07, I wanted to make another. I scored a fantastic figured maple board (11ft) that I had cut into halves. The width of the board (4.5 inches) was perfect for this solo paddle design. For the grip, I wanted to try a different style...a circular spoon grip. Marking out, sawing the blank, and dressing the blade went by without a hitch. By now, my routine for setting up blanks is pretty quick.
Winter was in the air, so working on the balcony became steadily impractical. So I resorted to using my newly constructed shaving horse set up in the condo locker room for the bulk of the shaving. A drop sheet and quick sweeping contains all the shavings. Given that this was maple (quite dense and heavy), the blade was purposely thinned less than 3/8th inch (the common thickness for blades).
The spoon grip was kind of my own experiment. Circular grips are documented in Adney's Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America, particular with Eastern Cree paddles (a design I intend to carve after I get more lumber stock). Apparently this circular shape allows for multiple grip positions without really changing your hold...sounded good for solo style paddling with underwater recovery strokes. Rather that have a complete circular shape, I opted for more of a teardrop shape with the intentions of scooping out the palm region with a spooning knife. The initial carving out looks really rough and ragged but with enough effort (and a whole load of sanding) I was quite happy with the results.For the artwork, I chose an image of a Song Sparrow (Melospiza melodia) - a rather drab looking, brown spotted bird that has a melodic buzzing song. It looks like most sparrows but can be differentiate with a noticeable large brown spot on its breast. The narrow blade width of the paddle was quite suited to this smaller image and given that I intented to make this my main solo blade, I wanted to minimize burning on the whole blade in case I weakened the already thinned out maple blade.
Sparrow image sketched onto blade
Sparrow closeup
Spoon grip with native Sparrow image
Whole paddle posing with winter sunshine
Thursday, 17 June 2010
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Sunday, 11 April 2010
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