C-Forum

Pointers? How the heck do you carve to your offside? I'm starting to think entering from my offside is easier b/c then I can carve back to my onside.

Tips on spins or cartwheels? I think I'll be able to loop before I can spin to my offside!

Hopefully I'll get some good pics at Hole in the Wall this afternoon. Might have to go back to Riggins Saturday for Race Creek. Never thought I'd turn into a park and play fiend...I need to go creekin befoe I get scared to push myself.

You can use your grip hand as a rudder for carving to your offside. More than creating a rudder it gets your body into the right position to carve in that direction while also creating a bit of a brace. The other thing to think about is not leaning to your paddle side. Having, and still, paddling with some folks that aren't quite comfortable surfing yet, I notice that they are always leaning to their paddle side--this causes them to have a hard time initiating a carve to their non paddle side and causes them to carve of the wae to the paddle side, also try to not stare at your bow while surfing, look to the side and find where you are on the wave or hole, this will loosen you and your boat up, making spinning and carving easier. As for spinning its important to bring your head all the way around, your body will follow. Also when spinning try not to drag your paddle in an attempt to get more leverage, this will pull you off the wave, your bidy will, should, go where your head leads. In the short boats you can sometimes bring the paddle all the way around the bow while it is still in the water to help finish of the last part of the spin, ending in a cross stroke- maybe hard to visualize.? As for cartwheels, you will probably be able to loop before wheeling, mainly because cartwheels require quite a bit of balance. Which boat have you been paddling most, the EZ or Crazy? Sounds like you are really getting into the playboating? If you get to Missoula we could head down to Brennans Wave, I would like to try the Crazy 88. Hopefully some of this might help!.?
Good Luck Gabe,
B

Lean in the offside direction. Keep the paddle on the onside. You'll carve. When you want to stop, stop leaning and shift your weight either to the center or the onside.
Bill

Both responses are correct...depending on what you are paddling. There are variations galore depending on your craft. The biggest difference is going to be between a planing vs displacement hull. In this case, Esquif canoes fall into the displacement category. Unless you are on something of the size and speed of the Ottawa, the boat is going to behave much more like a displacement hull on a wave.

Offside carving....A natural progression from front surfing where you will be correcting on & offside changes in direction. Just start with a fairly shallow angle using an on side stern rudder...Ensure the blade is down in the water and learn to feel the support you can get from it as you turn to the offside...you should soon start to gain confidence and you maybe surprised how hard you can carve !! It may take a bit of getting used to but its worth it...

Got some longer rides in last night. Felt relaxed and had some very controlled front surfs. Had great side surfs on both sides. I tried my offside roll a few times and get most of the way up - I need some more practice. I think I'm starting to understand the backdeck, too. Just need to make it thtough another hour at work and I can be surfing again!

There is a full article on offside balance while carving on my blog
http://c1freestyle.blogspot.com/2008/04 ... lance.html

Responses seem to say that to make your boat carve a certain direction, you tilt your hull that direction and engage the edge on the side you want to go to you (the same "downstream lean" you'd use peeling into a current).

I've also been told that to carve (or to make a really abrupt eddy turn) you can engage the counter-intuitive chine to get the boat to "bite".


Oops, I'm not sure which side is your onside, let's say right...

You get on a wave from river right (surfer's left), and you're immediately carving (jet ferrying) across the wave, and you want to kill that momentum to stay on the wave and carve back to your left (your offside), . . . then you'll be able to use your stronger onside pry/rudder to control a carve back to your right and really establish the surf.

Killing that first jet ferry can be especially hard. Most front surfs are lost when we get into a hard carve to our onside and can't kill it with a stern draw (relatively weaker than than the pry/rudder).

So, given that scenario - carving right (to your onside) and wanting to carve back to your left/offside... what should you generally do with tilt & stroke?

Which chine should engage - dip your left edge to go left, or dip your right edge to go left?

And there's options for strokes too: onside stern draw I'm assumin is way most common/recommended), offside T-grip rudder for C-1s, offside stern pry, offside bow duffek,...?

Thanks for asking. I too look forward to more info...

PY.

T-grip rudder rules... on bigger waves the water is usually really fast so your hand gets enough support.

What about the boat tilt? Do you always engage the chine of the side you want to carve towards (e.g. left to go left), or are there times when it's an advantage to engage the outside edge (e.g. drop the right edge to turn & carve left)?

PY.

A good friend of mine paddles a slalom C-1 and is by far the best front surfer that I've ever seen. He does a fantastic job using his T-grip as a rudder. On the other hand, I paddle an OC-1 and my arms aren't long enough to reach the water. To carve to the off side I usually have good luck by leaning so far to my on side that the gunwale is almost touching the water. This makes the bow turn to my off side. I don't know if this will work in a C-1.

Jim

wetnobby wrote:Offside carving....A natural progression from front surfing where you will be correcting on & offside changes in direction. Just start with a fairly shallow angle using an on side stern rudder...Ensure the blade is down in the water and learn to feel the support you can get from it as you turn to the offside...you should soon start to gain confidence and you maybe surprised how hard you can carve !! It may take a bit of getting used to but its worth it...

Yarnellboat - that's what <b>wetnobby</b> was so eloquently saying -
can also be done on a sliding high brace, with hands held low - 'in the box' (less than shoulder height)

I think it's instructive to look at what you're paddling when reading through the responses - all of them are dead-on, but some will only work for certain craft (at least with my skill level ). In LOOOONG boats (ok, not necessarily a "long boat" as "Long Boatin'" would have us believe) such as my slalom boat, Viper C1, etc... carving by dropping the front chine of the opposite side you want to go works well. Shorter boats, not so much (for me anyway), as I tend to pearl off. On shorter boats, as you can easily get the bow chines out of the water, it seems to work better using your stern chines to carve, which are therefore the opposite of your front chines (think of the boat SHAPE here).

And I concur that a T-grip rudder is the easiest, and I've found works well when applied early enough even on slower waves.