Scull of the Day
February 24th, 2006 | 
Author: 
I’m going where the sun keeps shining
Thru’ the pouring rain,
Going where the weather suits my clothes,
Backing off of the North East wind,
Sailing on summer breeze
And skipping over the ocean like a stone. – nilsson
After all that rolling practice at the pool I took a bit of time to go back to basics and work on my draws a bit. I need the constant reminder just like everybody else to use my torso to scull and not my arms. I found that in the Whitewater kayak it was much more efficient to lean away from the direction you want to go, than leaning into you’re scull. You may remember that under the “Safe, Efficient, Effective” concept, that which way you lean is mostly a matter of preference but you will find as I did with the Pyranah, that one way does work better. In my seakayak I tend to lean into the scull to the chagrin of all the old schoolers who want to lament the lost efficiency as water is forced up over my deck. Well, yeah, a bit. But when I’m side-sculling I’m either going for a mars bar in someone else’s day hatch, in which case, efficiency to the point of aircraft design specs is just not important; or I’m in an emergency and dragging that bear with all my strength over less than a few feet and again it’s not enough time or distance to matter. I have not figured out why I’d be side-sculling far enough to worry too much about drag. But then, I’m no expert. What do I know??
Time for another JAWS script moment. . .
Brody: Lady would ya? The weak top boat’s gotta move out first. You have to move out or he can’t get out at all!
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Actually in a whitewater kayak, you don’t worry about which way to lean relative to the draw. You’re leaning in whatever direction which will not result in you catching an edge on the moving water and the draw is independant from that. I hardly ever use straight of sculling draws in whitewater as moving sideways in whitewater is either done with a hanging draw, a pivot turn and forward stroke, or ferrying (forward or backwards). Heck I probably do more draws in my whitewater boat in a single pool session than I do on the river all summer combined.
Yeah, I can imagine that. Heck I don’t do a draw in my sea boat very often either, but I always have to practice just so I can model it for classes without looking a total faker. . .