How to Correctly Paddle The Canoe for a BWCAW Adventure

A popular belief hold canoes to be unstable, but a canoe itself is very stable and will ride out the roughest water. Add some camping gear in the bilge and the canoe remains quite stable, or might even beome more so. Put a couple of people in the canoe, though, and the picture changes dramatically. A canoe with occupants can be easily upset, especially if the paddlers' behavior is less than wise.

One reason is that people greatly outweigh a canoe. Two paddlers typicallly weigh more than five times what their canoe does. They also have a much higher center of gravity. Think of yourself on the lowest rung of a ladder versus the highest. Only one thing changed: the height of the center of gravity.

People tip canoes over due to their weight and height. Thankfully, people can also keep canoes upright. The basic guidelines are: keep your weight balanced in the center of canoe; don't make rapid movements, especially to the side; and stay low in the canoe. If you ever want to stand up in a canoe, you shouid have a very good reason, because you will definitely be inviting a capsize.

Many people cause troubLe by how they launch (and land) a canoe. Do it with the canoe parallel to shore. Don't beach it bow-first like a bass boat or cabin cruiser. A canoe is not a big, wide boat. Nor does it have a prop in back that needs clearance. But you'll see people run a canoe into shore just like a motoboat, then exit by crawling up the center. This isn't kind to a canoe. It's also asking for a swim. With its (narrow) bow on shore, its (narrow) stern in the water, and its ( wide) amidship in mid-air, a canoe has about the stability of a quarter while balanced on edge.

The safe way is to enter and exit from the side with the canoe parallel to shore. To get in, crouch keeping your weight low, grasp the gunwales, and step into the center. To exit, do the reverse, stepping out toward shore.

Launch and land parallel to shore.

Life Jackets

Anyone who can't swim well must wear a Life Vest at all times

Hypothermia can exhaust you in five minutes.

Wear your Life Vest when canoeing on cold water.

Canoeing Safely on Large, Wind- Driven Waves:

It won't surprise you to learn that even 3" whitecaps are entirely safe if viewed from shore. And until you are a practiced paddler, shoer is exactly where to view them from.

The first rule of canoeing safety is to avoid conditions that you aren't sure that your can master. Canoeing isn't often dagerous, but to err on the side of safety and avoid a situation that is questionable is the wise choice.

You can minimize exposure to large waves by hugging the sheltered shore where waves have no opportunity to develop. While this may make you go farther than direct rotue, the paddling should also be easier.

If you must tackle large, wind-driven waves, go where the waves let you go most safely. This too, may mean taking a longer route.

Avoid large waves directly from the sides. These cause strong side-to-side rocking that you must react to quickly to maintain balance.

Waves from directly in front are better but cause strong fore-and aft rocking. Very large waves also may swamp the bow. Waves from the stern are less troublesome because you are traveling with them, which reduces their speed relative to you. (Be leery, however, of routing straight out from the lee shore with aa wind directly behind you because the waves will grow rapidly as you go out.)

You are safest with large waves coming from the quarters or the stern (dark areas on the schematic.)

The safest way to meet waves is from the quarters (meanining, at an angle). Quartering waves cause some rocking side-to-side and for-and-aft, but not a high degree of either.

When on waves, also keep the center of gravity low, and trim the canoe properly for the waves. To lower the center of grvity, place the heaviest gear low in the bilge. Lower your own center of gravity, too, by kneeling on the floor rather than sitting on the seats. (This is also a good, firm stance to paddle from.)

How To Control A Canoe

Canoes tend not to go straight. This is slightly troublesome, since going straight is the preferred route a great majority of the time.

In a tandem hull, the stern paddler has more leverage than the bow paddler does. So even if they paddle on opposing sides of the canoe, it drifts slightly away from the side on which the stern person is paddling (i.e., stern person is paddling on the right, canoe drifts left).

Solo canoes are similar but more extreme.

Since the solo paddler is near the pivot point of the hull, and because no one is paddling on the opposing side for balance, a solo canoe drifts strongly away from the paddling side.

How much a canoe drifts is governed by if the paddles are on the same or opposing sides of the hull.

This is also the case for a tandem hull if both people paddle on one side; instead of just drifting a little, the canoe drifts a lot.

In most cases, controlling a canoe is a matter of minimizing (not "elimiinating: but "minimizing") a canoes's natural drift in order to go straight, and of using drift in order to turn.

It's that simple! And while new paddlers are often frustrated because a canoe drifts, they're missing the point. A caone will drift - accept that fact, and don't fight it, learn to use it!

PADDLING TANDEM IS A TEAM EFFORT!

The magnitude of this point can't be overstated! People who are paddling tandem can not take independent, unexpected actions if they want to succceed in controlling a canoe.

And for people to work as a team, productive communication is required. The decisions about what to do must either be made jointly by communication, or they must be made by one person and communicated to the other.

As you can imagine, this may cause problems for certain pairs of people - specifically young siblings, but even a few adults. We won't elaborte, except to say that, occasionally, specific persons can't paddle well together since they can neither share authority nor delegate it.

A true inability to work together, however, is uncommon. Most people could coordinate fine, they simply aren't doing it...which might be because they didn't know they needed to.

With any paddling partner, you must decide together upon "the plan." A common plan, but not the only workable one, is for the better-and / or-stronger paddler to occupy the stern, to make the decisions, and to give needed instructions to the person in the bow, who does only what he / she has been told to do.

There are some reasons for the stern person to be in charge:
1.) The stern person can see the bow person, but not the reverse.
2.) The stern person can speak to bow person more easily than the opposite.
3.) The stern person, by virtue of having greater leverage, has more control over the canoe in typical situations.

The bow person has advantages, too, the main one being a better view. But if the bow person sees an obstacle he / she should first alert the stern person, rather than taking independedt, unexpected action to avoid the obstacle.

If having the stern person be in charge works for you, great. But if some other plan makes more sense in your case, that's fine, too. The details of your plan aren't so important as that your have a plan, and that your stick to it.

Just by deciding who's in charge, you'll make progress in gaining control of the canoe.

FOUR BASIC PADDLE STROKES:

In nearly all cases, you can control a canoe using just four paddle strokes. The are:
1.) Forward, 2.) Backward, 3.) Sweep, 4.) Draw.

And for people who perform their forward strokes well, they will only occasionally need to use the other three types of strokes.

And for people who perform their forward strokes well, they will only occasionally need to use the other three types of strokes. Performing forward strokes well means several things. The bow and stern persons should paddle in unison, performing strokes that are of the same duration and pacing. In other words, the paddlers shoud be synchronized.

Although short, fast strokes are more effective than long, slow ones, your can do as you like...provided both paddlers are together. People may have differing preferences about the paddling rhythm, but you must find one that is acceptable to you both. And you may need to vary it to speed up or slow down the canoe.

In addition to being in unison, you shoud nearly always paddle on opposing sides of the canoe. There are some exceptions to this, but only when you need to turn sharply. To go straight - which is usually the goal - the paddlers must be on opposing sides of the hull.

Finally, you should switch paddling sides often, which also means that you must swicth sides in unison. This won't happen by accident. You need to establish an oral signal, upon which both paddlers switch sides together. Some people say "hut" or 'hup," others say "switch." What the signal is doesn't matter, as long as you decide upon one.

Although some people think that switching sides is too much trouble to bother with, it is actually the most effective tactic available to control a canoe. Switching sides takes about as much time (and less effort) that performing one paddle stroke, so we don't understand how it constitutes being "too much trouble."

And to not use switching requires you to use some other control strategy, all of which are more work! By switching sides appropriattely, you can keep a canoe on course, avoiding the effort spent to recover after it has wandered.

HOW TO MAKE A CANOE GO STRAIGHT:

As we said, a tandem canoe tends to drift, even when both persons paddle on opposing sides. You seldom can eliminate this totally, but you usually can minimize it so much that the drift becomes virtually nonexistent.

Before explaining how, a word of advice: It's often helpful to have a reference, a target, by which to judge direction. In many cases-on a sizeable lake, for example - it's hard to tell if the canoe is going straight, dirifting a little, or a lot.. Pick a tree, rock, cabin, or whatever, to aim for. This alone will improve your success.

Be aware, also, that two factors influence how much your canoe tends to drift, and hence how much action you must take to control it. The two factors are: the design of the canoe, and the match-up of the paddlers.





If your paddlers vary greatly in strength, or in paddling skill, these too can influence the tracking. Putting a mcuh-stronger paddler in the stern will amplify the tendencey to away from the stern-paddling side.

But this "problem" may be an advantage in disguise. If putting the stronger paddler in the stern amplifies drift, then putting that person in the bow minimizes it. This is precisely what many amle-female or adult-child teams do in competition. Swapping the bow and stern roles usuallly is only partially effective, and it may cause other problems, but it's worth trying in order to learn the outcome.

Normally, though, to keep the canoe on course you will paddle on opposing sides and you will switch sides periodically. To make this work, the key is knowing when to switch!

Here's the answer, and it's a simple one: switch paddling sides before the canoe drifts perceptibly. In other words - anticipate!

A canoe always tends to drift away from the stern-paddling side. But - here's the crucial point - it takes time for drift to develop. The canoe will go straight briefly, then will begin to drift, and then the drift will grow!

If you switch paddling sides early enough, the drift never has time to begin, and it won't grow out of control. Viola! You go nearly straight!

If you try this on the water, and it doesn't work as well as you hoped, we can predict the problem: You aren't switching often enough.

How often must you do it? We can't state the answer as a number of strokes. It differs with the canoe, the paddlers, and sometimes the conditioons   You must discover the frequency by experiment. If you are veering badly, you must switch more. If you are having no problems, you can try less to see what happens.

Once you are familiar with a certain canoe and partner, you will know from experience how often to switch. Some pairs then set a standard - every ten strokes, for example - to avoid announcing each switch; they both do it every ten strokes. If a change is needed, it can be announced by calling a new number, or by calling for switching to be suspended.

HOW TO MAKE A CANOE TURN:

Many times, to make a canoe turn is a piece of cake. Since a canoe always tends to drift, you can often "make" it turn merely by letting it drift. Select the paddling side(s)) to favor a lefthand or righthand drift as needed, then don't switch paddling sides until the turn is done.

When turning, you may need to control how sharply the canoe turns, and you will need to make it stop turning eventually.

To sharpen a turn, you can take several steps. Before usuing any of them, however, know that your turn will sharpen naturally, even if you do nothing. T

If you want to turn left, for example, the bow person paddles on the left side, the stern person on the right. This sets up the canoe to drift left, but it doesn't start immediately.

PADDLE TECHNIQUE

PORTAGING