Paddle Math
Published November 26, 2008 | 
Ok, here’s a quiz. You’re going to do a paddling trip of about 700 miles (1127km)
1. How many paddling miles a day do you think is a good average?
2. How many hours a day should you paddle?
3. How many days off do you need?
4. How long will it take?
Yeah I know there are lots of factors involved but what I’m looking for is sort of an arbitrary “perfect weather, no currents, everything goes right” plan. I’m interested in hearing your thoughts.
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17 Responses to Paddle Math
1. 30 miles a day.
2. 8 to 10 hours.
3. 1 in 10.
4. 25 days.
I did 560 is 13 or 14 once. So, 25 is plenty. Especially with good weather.
I’m a ‘smell the roses’ paddler, so I’d research all the ‘sights’ I’d want to see along the way and figure out how much time I wanted to spend in each place. Then I’d figure out the paddling time from each ‘sight’ to ‘sight’ based on about a 30 km (20 mile) average and come up with the total paddling days required. Finally, I’d adjust the total of these two types of days by the actual amount of time available to me. In fact, I no longer bother to work out how long a trip ought to take, I just leave and let nature be my guide…
Hmmm…
Well, lets say a guy averages 3mph over the course of a paddling day including breaks, photography, lunch, etc. Then, if you spent 8 hours traveling, you would make 24 miles a day.
Now, I kinda feel like 24 miles is a pretty long flatwater day (I can already feel that knot forming in my back). Anyway, say you make 24 a day, plugging away at a moderate pace, day after day. Then you’re looking at about 29 paddling days to cover the mileage.
When Stan and I did the Unalaska trip, we figured that we could paddle 20 a day, and then we figured in about 30 percent extra to cover weather days. We actually came up short. Weather days slowed our average daily pace to 10 miles a day. We had some high mileage days, but we spent a lot of time on the beach waiting for the headwinds to drop.
For a theoretical 700-mile trip, I would probably kick in at least an extra 20-30 percent travel time to cover rest days and weather, even if I didn’t expect things to be nasty. That would give you one or two rest days a week. If the weather was going to be bad, I’d probably think about edging above the 30 percent mark. If you kick in an extra 30 percent you end up with 37 or 38 days for the trip.
I don’t know what other folks think about for mileages, I might be a little on the low side, but even these numbers don’t leave a ton of time to stop an smell the flowers…
B
Great comments! That’s exactly what I was hoping we could discuss. I know people look at mileage differently. My thought is that if you first get a grip on what distance you can theoretically cover, then you can start adding in all the “smell the roses” days in between both on and off the water.
What I can say after after 10 trips, each between one week on complete autonomy to 21 days of food ans 25 liters of water… I kind of really don’t like behing on land. When I see water I have to be on. So I like to be at least 10 hours on water and I take no rest day. Only 4 days out of the water between Montréal to Labrador because of winds. I think you really have to be comfortable in the cockpit. Personnaly I don’t like to divide it into days or miles or whatever. When the sea is OK I’m on for a long time. If I’m alone, and if the weather is ok, 50 km is satisfying when I’m alone. I’m not the fastest, but I’m the one who don’t want to get out of the water, so eating up miles comes naturally. I really prefer my greenland paddle, it’s a powerfull paddle when you know how to use it, it’s not tiring, and never had a physical problem using it. I was lucky to had a female partner who felt exactly the same. With a group, it’s completely different… thanks for your website, I visit it so often.
I’m not really interested in going fast. I want to see things, talk to people, explore here and there, so I’d say
1. 20 miles
2. 6-8 hours including a lunch break
3. 1 in 7
4. the math says 40 days
I would probably often aim at more than 20 miles each day. It’s supposed to be an average, so I’ll have to do more to compensate for rest and weather days.
In practice it will depend a lot on the actual conditions. The above is more or less what I did in Sardinia when I paddled alone, even if I didn’t aim for it. I had plenty of time so I would just set a primary and a secondary goal for each days paddling and see where I ended. Sometimes I would do short days to explore something, and sometimes longer days, for example to turn a corner before an unfavourable wind would set in, or to pass a military shooting range on a Sunday.
Well,that’s no fun. . . how ya gonna enjoy ducking bullets??
On big trips (like this last summer – http://southwestseakayaking.co.uk/2008/08/27/john-ogroats/ ) I work on a minimum of six hours’ paddling a day if the weather is fine – that means of course, the duration of one ‘tide’.
I do about 4mph so this usually adds up to about 25 miles a day.
If the tides are good or I’m in the swing of things after a couple of weeks on the go, it could reach c35 miles. But I try to avoid exceeding this 6 hour period, and then only by 2 hours at the absolute most, and only then if conditions are really good or I’m really enjoying myself; the point is that I want to be fresh to paddle the next day, and the next, and the next …
Mark R
1. 25 miles a day
2. 8-10 hours
3. 1 off for every 2 on
4. A month and a half.
You guys are giving me the itch! I’m not a globe trotter, so I’m stuck watching my lakes freeze over in Michigan…at least I have the rivers I guess, but I’d prefer the islands. I’m an eternal pessimist, so I don’t plan with ideals in mind. The geography usually governs my miles per day and the weather governs my time on and off, with the exception of must-see land based sights. When I plan out routes, I budget 25 miles max; if it’s a slug fest out there, that could be a full day by itself (if I expect 2mph progress or less, I’m heading back or not out in the first place). I budget 8-10 hours per day of paddling including meals, breaks and sight seeing. That leaves me 8 to sleep and 6-8 to setup, tear down, and live it up. The 1 off per 2 on thing seems a bit lazy, but it’s kept me out of trouble with the wife and boss in the past, so I’m sticking to it. I wish I could get away for a month and a half expedition, but I guess it’s just not going to be high on the priority list for me. If I can get a week long fix every now and then, I think I’ll keep my sanity.
40 days sounds about right for that length of trip, I am with Mark R on this one, 6 hours paddling time, or 8 hours broken into 2 distinct 4 hour shifts when weather and will coincide.
thinking of going around Vancouver Island are you?
I’m going to have to go with 40 days … you need time to look around a bit, and allow for some time to heal when you have a couple bad days.
To add a bit to my post. It assumes conditioning and training before the trip to be in peak shape before hitting the water. Even with that taken into account, it’s probably not a bad idea to take the first week a little easy and then start boosting the miles towards the end of the trip.
It’s so hard to plan something like this for me unless I know who I’m going with. If I’m solo, I get so bored hanging out in camp, that I paddle pretty late into the day. If I’m planning on getting photos, I know I need to be on shore two hours before sunset to set-up camp, eat and get into place for the golden hour. Some of the people I paddle with really like to take their time, hang out in camp, and kick back. If I’m with people like that, I’d drop the mileage down to 17 per day. There person I like paddling with the most loves to paddle as long as we can during the day, so he and I tend to average high number of miles.
Weather is the biggest concern though. I know you want the “perfect weather” guess, but the location is going to add in a certain amount of wind days. And that’s gonna be a bit of guess work.
Where ya going?
Well, I can’t say yet. LOL! I’m not sure actually. I had 4 destinations on a short list, and two are just not doable right now (too far, too costly). So unless something else comes up I am deciding between two very different locations. I have a couple months to really make a decision so I’m going to just read a lot, keep doing research and figure out what feels right for next year.
Actually the main reason to ask the question was that I was talking to a friend who is also a coach about distances, etc., and it seemed like a good thing to get some opinions on. Especially since lots of people who stop by here have never done a trip of any length before and are maybe wondering these same things.
Bryan, the bit about conditioning and training is an important point for sure. I agree that the first few days have to be fairly easy then you can extend the days as your conditioning improves. You’re right too that you can’t really “Plan” until you know who you’re paddling with (unless you go solo). All you can do is get a very loose estimate so you have some idea how much time you’ll need off work!
Derrick, the military shooting range in question is at the SW corner of Sardinia, at Capo Teulada. The exercise schedules are published in the harbour offices in the region, so I had to check there, which I happened to do on a Saturday, and they would shoot the following Monday-Friday from 8AM to 8PM each day, forcing me to do a 50km stretch on Sunday in F4-5 winds, lest I’d be grounded for a week.
1. 20-25 NM per day is a nice expedition pace (You can average lower – early in the trip or on worse weather days, and on the really good weather days you can push well above this average. Much more than 20-25 NM/day and I find my calorie intake, hence the food I have to carry, increases dramatically.)
2. 8-10 with breaks – drink every 15 minutes, snack every 2 hours. Stop and get out of your boat for a lunch break – if possible. If you are going for a really long day, a longer afternoon break is a good motivator.
3. Plan on 5 or 6 days off for weather…plan in more if you have the time.
4. 35 days (35 days is what I planned for my circumnavigation of Vancouver, I ended up doing it in less days becuase I ended not taking any days off – my boss at the time told me I would be fired if I didn’t get back in time. If you don’t have that pressure, it would be nice to add 5-10 more days making it 40-50 days.)
Thanks Derrick great questions! What Leon said above makes sense to me – this is what we averaged around Haida Gwaii and Iceland. SF
Hey guys, nice to hear from you! (yeah would’nt it be nice if we didn’t have pressures to get back!)
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