Posts Tagged ‘edging’

Spin it on, don’t stop. Take it back to the top. ‘Cos I gotwhole lotta love for you I wanna spin it on. Spin it on! – P. McCartney

I’ve heard many stories of folks padding straight out into a lake on a windy day and not being able to turn around and get back into shore. This is because the wind rarely seems to be “going our way”. It’s always coming at us at some crazy angle and pushing us exactly where we don’t want to go. When facing directly into the wind it can exact equal pressure on both sides of our boat and esentially “trap” us facing right into the wind. It’s really not all that unusual for new paddlers to get caught in this “fly-trap” and soon find themselves being towed back into shore which can really be embarassing to say the least. But let’s be real, controlling your boat in wind and waves is difficult at any level. I can remember situations myself where I thought I was going to be stuck facing out to sea forever. I knew the wind would NEVER let up and just hold me prisoner forever. 50 years later, there I’d be with my long beard dragging in the water behind me . . .

For the sake of this little primer we are not going to go into edging to keep your kayak on course, or turning “on-the-move”. I’m also not going throw big waves into the equation for the moment either. What I do want to cover are some basic ideas that will help us to turn back to shore when facing into a headwind and hopefully keep us out of the “fly-trap”.

This whole turning in wind thing is really simple in concept. Notice I said “in concept”, in practice it can be a real pain in the arse! But let’s keep this happy and sunny! Basically what we want to do is use the wind to turn the boat. I’m sure you’ve noticed that often the wind wants to turn your boat anyway. So we want to use that to our advantage.

But before we even get out on the water we want to take a moment to talk a bit about a thing we call “trim”. If you have not heard that before, it’s basically referring to how we have the weight distributed in our boat from front to back. If our boat is out of balance, say we put all our gear in the front hatch and left the back hatch empty, (assuming we have a front and back hatch) our kayak would be wildly “out of trim”. All that extra weight in the front will act as an anchor and our boat will do unusual things in wind and waves. In fact it would make it a real pain to turn your boat when facing into the wind. Always remember to think about trim when you load your boat. You don’t want to discover that mistake when you are out in the middle of a lake struggling in rough conditions.

So Tip #1 is, Balance the weight in your boat. Heaviest stuff close to the center cockpit as possible. If the weight in your kayak is not equally distributed, the wind will most effect the lighter end of the boat and least effect the heavy end. So trimming out your boat will allow you to better control your kayak. (Extra Credit: How would trim effect how your boat handles in waves?)

Have you inferred the solution to turning in wind yet? If so, just skip my silly blog and go paint your mail box. You know it needs it!!

Anyway, we now know that the wind will push on the lighter end of our boat. Why? Well there are two reasons. One is that the lighter end is often sticking up further and makes a better sail. The other reason and maybe the more important of the two, is that less of the boat is in the water. So it’s much easier for wind to push that end. Conversely we know that the heavier end will be anchored deeper in the water and less effected by the wind. (Water, being denser than air will always win that battle) So in order to turn the boat in wind we want to anchor one end in the water, allowing the wind to push the other end of our boat around the anchor point. Just like a door on a hinge. Follow?

Let’s say my boat is facing into a bit of a wind and I want to turn to the right. What I’m going to do is lean back significantly to put more weight to the rear of my boat. This is my anchor. Then I will sweep on the left side of the boat, thus giving the wind more of my bow to grab. The wind will then begin to push on the bow and as I continue my sweep, the wind will assist me in turning the boat. In moments I can be turned around and facing the other direction. Pretty simple concept huh?

But now that I’ve turned 180 degrees the wind is now at my back. How to I turn back around to face into the wind again? If I just kept doing the same thing (leaning back and sweeping) I would stop turning and most likely go forward. (Extra credit: why is that?) With the wind at my back I have to change my anchor point. I will need to lean forward digging the nose into the water and allowing the rear of the boat to rise up and catch the wind. Now as I continue my sweep the wind will push on the stern and assist me to turn back up into the wind. As you can guess the wind is hardly ever right at your nose or at your back. But the concept is the same. Anchor one end by leaning forward or back, then sweep away from the wind and let the wind help you turn your boat. Once your comfortable with that you can begin to edge your boat as well. Hopefully you have already practiced this on flat water.

Now there about 100,000 provisos and quid-pro-quos to this subject. Boat design, paddle length, wind strengh, wave conditions. . . The intent again is to just introduce the idea and allow you to explore from there. But this a good place to start. Don’t go out to practice this is a screaming gale! Find a day when you have just enough wind to be irritating for you, and see if you can’t get the upper hand. As you practice, pay attention to wind direction and speed as neither is completely constant and even minor changes may effect your efforts.

As you know we all have our own little methods. Personally when I’m in any kind of rougher conditions I pay attention to getting my paddle as low as I can as I sweep. This will keep the wind from grabbing my paddle and forces a wider sweep. Also probably because I play around with Greenland paddles, I’ve broken a cardinal rule and will slide my hands along the paddle shaft and extend the paddle out much further which gives me a stronger sweep that requires less strokes to turn the kayak. Remember, you need to do what works for you and everything I said here could be complete hogwash!

Here is some more info that you may find useful;

http://www.nswseakayaker.asn.au/mag/43/brozecomment.html