C-Forum

The first time I got in a OC-1 was 13 months ago so I'm still learning. I finally got a cross forward stroke that I can depend on but it exposed another problem I can't seem to correct. Now that I can get some power with my cross forward stroke I get stuck in an offside carve that is uncontrollable. I can't over power it or stroke further from the boat to open up the circle. The uncontrollable carve would occasionally happen when I was learning to carve under power on my on-side but I can't remember how I cured the problem. Someone told me that practicing figure 8s on flat water would help and they may be right. I can do slow figure 8s and have no problem with the onside/offside offside/onside transitions at low speed but loose control leaving my offside if I speed things up. I'm guessing preventing this from happening in the first place with better edge control is more important than how to break out of the carve without killing momentum. I was hoping the the Sweet-Skills videos would be of some help but Kelvin seems to be a little behind schedule. Any suggestions on what to concentrate on to fix this problem would be appreciated.

Use your chines

The boat carves because of a nice bow wave that forms on the side of the hull that is on the outside of turn and it pushes or directs the bow through the turn. The faster the boat goes and the more turning momentum, the bigger the bow wave. On your onside, it's usually not a problem. It's a lot easier to overpower this effect... it can be stronger, longer, faster, and with a more angled paddle shaft then you can manage on your offside.

There's not really much point in fighting, as I m sure that you've discovered. The best thing to do (imo) is to be conservative when you start the boat carving to your offside so you don't have this problem to begin with. You should get a feel for it. If you screw up and it starts to happen, throw in a quick pry. It'll kill a bit of speed, releasing your bow and straighten you out.

It probably depends on the design of the boat as to what to do, but what I've found that works for me in short plastic boats like the prelude or ledge is to flatten the boat out (no lean) and do a strong offside sweep. That's usually enough to get the boat carving the other direction.

Common problem and it does happen more easily in some boats than in others. A cross forward sweep is not an easy stroke to execute, but it will help. But once the stern breaks loose and starts skidding out, that stroke won't arrest it either.

When you cross over to your offside circle, you might try bringing your cross forward out away from the boat a bit, and putting a little cross forward sweep into it to discourage the stern from skidding out.

If you let the hull flatten out you loose the carve and spin out in this case holding your tilt is vital. Work with boat tilt as well as stroke features such as stroke timing & pace or cadence, paddle position, and paddle angle.

Beeing very proactive is key here, as you learn to detect slight angle loss you can correct it quick with minimal effort with either cross-sweep or offside stern draw while flattening the boat to reduce the carving effect. Cross-sweep feels akward at first but deserves some practice as it's the best stroke here. Offside stern draw feels even more weird and is effective enough. The idea here is that switching to your onside and doing a stern pry would be equivalent stroke (to the offside stern draw) but the time you take to switch and reach the stern your carve has gone much bigger, then you need to pry so much you kill all speed you had.

The cross-bow sweep is hard to practice because you need to feel at ease leaning on your offside and putting more weight on your paddle reaching further. Like here:





The cross-bow stern draw is something else to practice, also useful to keep your angle when eddying out hitting the eddyline if you want to ferry or surf the feature that's there instead of being pushed by the current like in a normal peel-out move.

Couple thoughts:
Look to see how the blade is tracking along the length of the boat as you are taking strokes...is it along the surface of the boat (curvature of the gunwales) or parallel to the center line?
Look to see how the blade face is placed as it tracks through your stroke?
Are you cab forward and rotating your torso to get the most from the stroke?
Are you rotating your hips to set the boat edges (might need less or more per a particular side of the boat)? Love the photos that really shows the hip / torso placement and rotational aspect!

A cross-forward sweep can hold your angle to point but if you re already starting to skid you re not going to overpower it and you might just hurt yourself trying. Maybe it's different in a C1. If you do a pry you will dump some speed but if you skidding around out of control, you re losing you speed anyway.

What boat are you paddling?

Oh and one point I might add... Again key here is to detect the loss of angle before it gets out of control and correct it quickly with the faster stroke you can use. And that's valid for onside or offside. In that optic one important point (that would eventually help with so many other things) is to keep your eyes looking forward as you stroke, to see where you going and how the boat reacts at every stroke.

When you look stuff like this http://www.cboats.net/technique/ (on point 9) it does sounds like a very technical/ specific detail for slalom fraction-of-a-second concerned boaters. And we all have a tendency to look down as we concentrate on the stroke and giving strenght to it. But fighting this reflex is very rewarding.

Even just looking up between each stoke isn't cutting it, really. You then get a serie of still pictures, which doesn't help as much as a video does for catching the subtilities in the movement that is going on, and again once you realize it it's too late.

Figure 8 isn't relevant for offside sweep so try it in a straight line, always looking upfront, developing muscle memory for the stroke while seeing how the boat reacts to everyone of them, and all the rest of the how-to should come with practice as you'll be teaching yourself there... If that makes sense.

...keep your eyes looking forward as you stroke...

...have to strongly here... look to where you want to go not to where you don't want to go. That tends to help in making the required suttle changes in everything else to keep you on track!

"Figure 8 isn't relevant for offside sweep "

I dunno, man, when I watch Dickert doing fig 8s in "Drill Time, although it's not actually mentioned in the voice-over, it sure looks like he's doing a bit of an offside sweep to initiate the transition from offside to onside carve (one of many pearls tucked away in this video). I way improved control of my offside carving by doing lots of fig 8s on flat water. Great drill, well worth the time.

Speaking of Wayne it would behoove you to get a copy of 'Drill Time' as well as 'Solo Playboating' from Kent Ford at performancevideo.com

Also locate yourself a copy of the book 'Thrill of the Paddle'

Hans Vidkjer wrote:"Figure 8 isn't relevant for offside sweep "

I dunno, man, when I watch Dickert doing fig 8s in "Drill Time, although it's not actually mentioned in the voice-over, it sure looks like he's doing a bit of an offside sweep to initiate the transition from offside to onside carve (one of many pearls tucked away in this video). I way improved control of my offside carving by doing lots of fig 8s on flat water. Great drill, well worth the time.

Ah! good point. As you're say'n it i'm just realizing I'm doing the same, and that sweep also makes (switching to either side) transferring your body weight more smooth, as you use it to push on your sweep...

Maybe one should just never discredit any drill at all as a lot of them helps in so many ways.

I started this thread before going to work hoping to get a few suggestions by this evening. WOW Glad to see I'm not the only one who has had to deal with this problem and I hope others will also benefit from these ideas.

Cross forward sweeps or offside stern draws haven't been mastered yet but the part about paying attention to angle so a correction can be thrown in early sounds right. I constantly adjust lean on my onside without thinking about it but still are going through a progression of conscious steps on my offside. The hip rotation suggestion may also come into play because I'm not sure if I that's happening on my offside. Also paying attention to were you are looking will have to be checked and probably addressed.

I do have the Drill Time video and it has been an enormous help getting me started in the right direction. So much to try and learn before the water gets hard but I love every minute of it. . .

Thanks to everyone who offered help.