Standup Zone Forum
Stand Up Paddle => Technique => Topic started by: supnewguy on December 06, 2012, 10:56:32 AM
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Do you weight the side you are paddling on or the opposite side? I have had very experienced racers give me conflicting advice. On this forum there are conflicting posts as to which side to lean.
Even when I am careful to keep the paddle vertical, and stack my shoulders, it doesn't matter whether I lean on the paddle side, the opposite side, or keep the board leveled, I can't seem to go more than 6 strokes before my board starts turning. So is it the paddle side or the opposite side? Thank you for your help.
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i lean on the rail that i paddle on but also i will paddle a J or C stroke if i want to keep it on one side longer. im on a 6'8" board and usually i can get 3 stroke before it start turning. But if i add in j/c stroke, i can get 6-8 strokes before it turns. Really practice on getting the paddle vertical, and really lean or put your weight on to the paddle. maybe have someone video tape you paddling straight at them, so you can see how vertical your paddle stroke.
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Yeah, I wondered that too. It would make sense that you'd weight the side you're paddling on--the same way you weight the rail on the side you want to turn toward when you're surfing. But it's not always clear. I do wonder if I'm altering things a bit due to the fact that I'm paddling and stacking shoulders.
So I guess I'm not the best person to answer, but I will say if you're getting 6 strokes a side as a "new guy" you're not doing all that bad. Interested in what others think.
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Thanks Ucycle and Bulky for the input.
Not really a new guy anymore, but was when I signed up for an account two years ago. I sup surf and race on a regular basis now. As for my racing, my inability to keep the board straight and need to frequently change sides slows me down. I don't understand how some of the experienced paddlers can paddle up to 20 strokes straight on the same side and only need to switch sides to give their muscles a break. I used to think that leaning on the paddle side was the coventional wisdom.
However, I attended a recent race clinic where the instructor recommended leaning on the opposite side. I searched posts on here and found conflicting advice as well. Really curious to hear what side other members lean on.
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That does makes sense. At displacement speeds that the board tends to follow outline, but at planning speeds, the board wants to follow the rocker.
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There's an ancient Ponobill clip (I think it's him) somewhere about paddling straight...he's in a drysuit on a lake. It's very instructive.
It's not uncommon for big boards to steer "opposite rail", especially if you're standing forward. Good shoulder stack & keeping paddle vertical is critical and a light weighting of the opposite rail might also help, depending on the board. My 2 14s, my 17 and my 12 all steer opposite rail when I'm standing middle or forward and at normal paddle speeds.
Might be helpful to get someone to video your stroke so you can see what you're really doing - what you think you're doing and what you are doing might be different.
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Try Larry Cain's advice for "Steering Without Changing Sides" from September on his blog:
http://www.larrycain.ca/blog.html (http://www.larrycain.ca/blog.html)
From his advice:
Steering without changing sides all comes down to two things:
1. Getting over the water right at the catch
2. Using your blade to pull the board towards the paddle not only in a forward direction but slightly to the side as well
If you are on a race board then there is a third thing to add:
3. Leaning the board
He explains why you should lean on a displacement board to the opposite side of the paddle. 1 and 2 above are at least as important.
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At the speeds even a race SUP goes, it would be better to put weight on the opposite side and let the outline do its job.
When I was slalom racing on a sailboard and needed to get upwind a bit, I would always tip the board away from the wind and use the outline to help. This worked better in lighter winds.
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Planing and displacement hulls behave differently. When on my raceboards I will footsteer by leaning on the left rail if I want to veer right and ok the right rail if I want to go left. On a planing board I will lean on the side I wish to turn, left for left and right for right.
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You didn't mention your board type, so perhaps an adjustment to the size or type of fin you are using would help.
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What XLR8 said.
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Larry Cain's advice is excellent. I wasn't able to paddle straight (on a race board) until I watched his video and worked on turning the board toward the side I'm paddling on. Even though I had been trying to keep my paddle vertical, I discovered the following:
- while I was getting my top hand over the rail, my bottom hand was out to far, making the paddle too far from the board and not vertical
- I wasn't concentrating on keeping the paddle vertical for the whole stroke
- paddling this way is hard and takes different muscles, so it is tough to break my bad habits, especially when I'm tired (my husband strained a muscle)
- a cross-wind in the wrong direction can totally frustrate and sabotage my attempts at paddling straight on one side
- Larry's advice on turning the paddle in toward your board a little really works!
So far, I haven't noticed a big difference from weighting the rail, but I may not be doing it well or consistently.
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In particular with raceboards I find you get different footsteering results with different nose/bottom/rail profiles. For me, a board with a flatter bottom, hard rails and a wide flat tail doesn't footsteer nearly as well as a board with a narrower entry, round bottom and rails that stay soft through the tail. An exception is the 404 monster (it was an older model that I paddled). That board was pretty responsive.
With the Barks I found opening the paddle blade with a minor corrective stroke to be more effective than footsteering. The M&M footsteers pretty nicely. And maybe its because I spent more time on it than anything else, but my BlkBox 14 race has responded to footsteering better than anything I've paddled. But it's an extreme version of the design qualities I mention (see photo below of the board in the shaping bay).
The best applications for footsteering, I've found, are #1: in the draft (and it took me awhile to choose to draft) and #2 while riding moderate swell. I think some boards are just not suited to include footsteering in your bag of tricks.
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Larry is a master of stroke technique. Using his method, you can eventually paddle continuously on one side while going straight. You can even make the board turn towards the side you're paddling on if you really want to.
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I paddle a Fanatic Fly Race 14 open ocean version, the one with the bigger nose and some rocker to it. I have been working with a local paddle coach, who has worked with Larry Cain and teaches pretty much the exact same principles. However, for the life of me, I cannot correct my yawing...it's a LOT better once we figured out how I nee to stroke as per my body shape/ height and physical limitations, such as my right shoulder suffered a 3rd degree separation about 20 years ago and surgery to fix it wasn't covered in my insurance.
Now that I have some real power in my stroke, I am facing my two challenges...the yawing, and the ability to only paddle on my left side for short periods of time before my right shoulder just gives out. Normally, not the worst thing to deal with unless I have to paddle across open water with wind and swell hitting me on my right side. The constant left side paddling, plus the stress of stroke trying to keep the board somewhat straight with all the pressure coming from the right side as kept me out of a few races. Not that I'm in the running for placing in races, but I do enjoy racing and at least paddling a strong, consistant race that I feel happy with my results. So, the last few races I've had to wait until race day to go out and test the conditions before I sign up. If I don't race, then I just board caddy for my fiancee and support the rest of my paddle club.
My paddle coach has suggested putting in one of the ventral fin setups that Larry Allison promotes. He says that since I can go with two smaller fins then for little less drag, and some help keeping the board straight that it might help with some of the stress on my right shoulder. Has anyone here ever paddled a board with a ventral fin set up?
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Although I haven't tried it yet, I think a ventral fin setup would make it a lot easier to maintain tracking. It just makes sense from a physics perspective. However, if you're out in downwind conditions where you may be planing down a bump, the front fin will probably catch and cause problems. Of course, surfing is out of he question.
In non-planing flat water conditions, it should help tracking a lot. The idea of going with a smaller rear fin (in conjunction with the front fin) also makes sense to reduce drag.
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I'm in south Florida, so there really isn't much downwinding that I know of. Well, okay...you can do a long run with the wind at your back, but our waves here really aren't waves....more like wind driven slop! The nice about the ventral fin set up from Larry Allison is that there is a plug for the ventral box, so if you don't need the fin, there is a piece that screws in to plug it...for as well as you can plug a fin box anyway.
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If you are paddling a shorter, well rockered surf shape, you can counter the yawing by burying the paddle-side rail in the water. I "discovered" this a Summer ago when out on a Naish Mana 10' soft-top when going around a small island. The curve of the board on edge turns it that direction, and I was even able to paddle in a straight line while padlling on the upwind side in a stiff breeze, which was a major "ah-ha" moment for me.
This came in real handy last Spring when I was on Maui, and had rented one of the same boards. The wind blew offshore in Ma'alaea the whole time I was there, and doing this was the only way I was able to get out and cruise back and forth along the shoreline without getting blown out to sea, and not having to stroke on the leeward side only.
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Weeble, you can easily experiment with an extra small fin anywhere on the board. You can make up something like this in a few minutes. I cut this one from a section of vinyl gutter and bent the angles with a heat gun. Just run a piece of packing tape through the middle for attachment. You can even put it at an angle and paddle on one side only.
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The nice about the ventral fin set up from Larry Allison is that there is a plug for the ventral box, so if you don't need the fin, there is a piece that screws in to plug it...for as well as you can plug a fin box anyway.
For that reason, in your situation it almost makes trying it a no-brainer. Or, what about getting a fin made with a custom toe angle? (Like Jim Terrell's Futures, Race- fin, primarily for one sided paddling.)
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Weeble, you can easily experiment with an extra small fin anywhere on the board. You can make up something like this in a few minutes. I cut this one from a section of vinyl gutter and bent the angles with a heat gun. Just run a piece of packing tape through the middle for attachment. You can even put it at an angle and paddle on one side only.
The guys over at Quickblade were experimenting with building fins that had a slight toe in or out (like a surfboard) for long distance paddling against a cross current, so you wouldn't have to do so much adjusting. Rad idea, don't know what ever happened with it.
I find that while paddling on a Competitor (Bark 12'6), I put the weight of my hips opposite the side I'm paddling to maintain straightness, than, as has been said already, use my submerged blade angle to guide me.
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I think that leaning on a rail to turn is a bit overrated, but there may be a different reason to weight the paddle-side rail, at least during the power phase of your stroke – you will go faster.
OK, I’m still working on this theory, but the paddle stroke mostly creates an angular force (torque) with a lesser linear (forward) component. You know this if you’ve tried to paddle without a fin. (Yes, the fin resists angular movement, and the boat takes the path of least resistance, but the fin must still exert that angular force on the water.)
Everyone also knows that torque is proportional to the length of the lever on which the force is exerted. On a SUP, that lever length is the distance from the middle of the board to the rail where force is applied with the paddle. The middle of the board is used because it’s the center of mass. But if you shift your weight onto the paddle-side rail while you are also putting weight on the paddle, you will shift the center of mass toward the rail. That shortens the “lever” through which torque is applied and proportionately decreases the angular force component of the stroke.
This theory also supports paddling as far in front as possible for more complicated reasons – that the force is not applied exactly perpendicular to the axis of rotation. You can see it all intuitively by imagining that you could stand completely on one rail and paddle straight out in front, thereby making the boat travel perfectly straight.
I was watching Danny Ching’s instructional video, and even while paddling casually on flat water, he nearly sinks the rail of his 404 during the stroke.
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In my experience the more in front of the center point of the board you stand the more it will "opposite edge steer" IE weighting the opposite rail than the paddleside rail. The more on the tail you are (which usually requires speed and or to be gliding or planning) the opposite is true and weighting the paddle side on the back half of the board or the tail will turn you like a snowboard or skateboard. This is very exaggerated on race boards with more of a Displacement hull and or hard rails.
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Although I haven't tried it yet, I think a ventral fin setup would make it a lot easier to maintain tracking.
It does.
However, if you're out in downwind conditions where you may be planing down a bump, the front fin will probably catch and cause problems.
Interestingly that doesn't seem to be the case, at least in my experiments with them, provided the ventral is forward enough and isn't deeper than about 3-3.5". With weight back on a decent runner they seem to get out of the way enough to not cause problems.
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What type of board do you have? Every board is different.
this technique works not only from dipping your rail, but also standing in the right spot, which we also call a sweet spot.
If u have a lot of rocker, it's harder to dip a rail and your sweet spot is smaller or harder to find. sweet spot. If you have a 14' race board you should have little rocker and that type of board has a straighter outline thus it's easier to go straight. for the most part.
Quick Answer - Dip the rail on the side you're paddling. There are more advanced techniques where dipping the opposite side you're paddling on works as well, but focus on simple today.
Then.. Adjust your trim (where u stand on the board). Step back a bit on your board, try dipping the rail and paddling to find your sweet spot. If that doesn't work, move back or forward to continue to find that spot. everyone' spot is different depending on body wt, board type, etc.
another method of going straight - j stroke. start your stroke with the blade away from the nose (so for example 1' left of the nose) then pull in to align with the rail to your feet. do on both sides, with practice is works good but can be exhausting. cheers