Feather Angle

[tg]

Can someone explain this to me;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsNwhHRSVrY

@ 7 mins and 30 secs. I can say that I have never felt a natural tendency to accomodate feather angle by raising my arm/hand up.

I figure I must have missed something here. In fact I paddle no feather (mainly; I might have sinned last weekend!) to cut the twist out.

I'm befuddled. Is this a natural action.

Tim

[davebrads]

He is right to some extent. The motion of raising your top hand naturally imparts a twist to the paddle shaft, unless you compensate by bending your wrist. The amount of twist depends upon how high your paddling action is. So if you have a low paddling action the amount of twist is small, and as Derek says in the interview the Greenland paddle which has no feather was designed to be used very low indeed, and the foredecks of the Greenland boats were low which assisted that low action. However if you have a very high paddling action the amount of twist still doesn't get anywhere near 90 degrees as he claims. As a slalom paddler I have a reasonably high paddling action, and I reckon the amount of twist is near 45 degrees, which is why I use a 45 degree feather on my paddles.

[Derek Marshall]

Sprint and Marathon paddlers who are using Wing paddles also have a very high paddle stroke.
We set the feather angle between the blades to start paddlers at 70deg

[JohnA]

It's also why it's worth spending some time on forward stroke technique before lashing out on cranked paddles as the solution for wrist problems. If the stroke is optimised there is much less strain on the wrist.

[tg]

Many thanks guys.

So a v.high angle racing stroke induces the rotation in the paddle?

@Racers; how long can you sustain this stroke?

Is it just for sprints? Marathon?

BTW, I do use a greenland paddle to cover distances between 15 to 25 miles in a day, despite their inefficeiencies(!?).

I just dug my K.Wings out for a very brief blast across the harbour last week. Even with a 60degree feather I found I was 'twisting' (the bike throttle) very purposefully, I was taught that way. I would generally use zero feather and no twist. I started paddling over thirty years ago and have never heard of this technique until now. Then again I've never been a competetive paddler either.

Does Tim Brabant use this stroke? Olympic standard?

Tim

[geoffm]

how long can you sustain this stroke?

As long as you like. I recently paddled across Bass Strait between Tasmania and the Australian mainland covering 420 kms, all high angle. It is not a racing stroke, it is an efficient stroke. And yes, it also allows the paddle to rotate to match your feather. I use 45 degrees and I keep my wrists straight.

[tg]

@geoffm

Wings?

Tim

[Owen]

I use either a Lendal kinetic wing set at 216ish and 70 degrees or Nordkapps 220cm and again 70 degrees. Both paddles are cranked. Paddling action is slightly different with the wing but I don't move my wrists with either paddle. It's just a natural position to hold the shaft.

[tg]

back at geoffm,

As an aside;

I just looked at a map of the Bass Strait. That looks like a dandy of a paddle.
What was the longest crossing?

Tim

[tg]

Cheers Owen;

Will this learning curve never end?...!! :-{

Tim

[TechnoEngineer]

I found that video quite hard to watch. Am I the only person who thinks that Derek came across as rather, erm, conceited?

[Matt P]

That video has been discussed on here before - click me

I am still confused by feather angles / want to know what I am doing differently when I change the feather angle (assuming same paddle and same paddling angle)

I used 60 degrees for ages on my straight-shafted paddles (which are rarely used now), but I recently found out that I prefer 30 degrees on my cranked paddles

[geoffm]

I just looked at a map of the Bass Strait. That looks like a dandy of a paddle.
What was the longest crossing?

Hi Tim, it was an excellent paddle with three major crossings, 55kms, 45kms and 62 kms with tidal flows of up to 3 knots. You can read the blog about it at
http://kayakbassstrait.blogspot.com/
Eastern Bass Strait only has a depth of about 50m as well so it can kick up very quickly with bad weather.
I used a 210 Werner Cyprus crank paddle for the trip but I am in the process of evaluating a couple of wing paddles, a mid wing Epic and a Bracsa IV, both nice paddles.

Geoff

[tg]

Cheers Geoff.

[davebrads]

I used 60 degrees for ages on my straight-shafted paddles (which are rarely used now), but I recently found out that I prefer 30 degrees on my cranked paddles

For some reason cranked paddles seem to reduce the natural feather angle, but I can't get my head around why this is the case.

[tg]

.... so the higher the stroke angle the greater the feather? Makes sense to me when I consider the gp. DH refers to an Aleut paddle in the vid. and seems to imply they were originally featherd. Anyone know if this is the case? I kind of assumed Aleutian paddles were zero feather like gp.s.

Tim