Paddling A Straight Line Into A 10 MPH Crosswind

[Night Wing]

Since this summer has been brutally hot with very little wind to create surfable waves down at Surfside, I've been doing lots of flat water paddling on the largest private lake in our subdivision where I live where there has been zero wind in the early mornings from 6:30 am till 9:00 am.

I've been paddling my 11'1 One World and my 10'5" Duke. I've been concentrating on improving my paddling technique and form. With no wind, I can easily paddle a straight line, paddling only on my right side with the paddle length set at 67" along with different standing positions on both boards since they have more volume in them than what I weigh.

Tonight we're having a nice canadien cold front come through from the northwest with a 90% chance of heavy rain, but before that, the high temperature at my house today is going to be 89 degrees F. This morning the wind started stirring around 7:30 am and by 8:00 am, the wind was up around 10 mph from the southwest on the lake.

So I decided to be on the lake by 8:20 am to see if I could paddle a straight line with a 10 mph crosswind using my Duke. The Duke's specs are 10'5" x 32" x 4.5" @ 190 liters. Since I weigh 144 pounds right now, the Duke's width and liters would be a good test for this experiment. The fin configuration for this test was a 4 fin quad setup (Gerry Lopez GL2 Sup 5 Fin Set) with (2, 5.10" front) and (2, 4.34" rear) installed.

Since I am a lightweight, the Duke's 190 liters gives me a very large "sweet spot". So I stared with my usual sweet spot, modified surf stance and 67" paddle length.

I started paddling with the wind 90 degrees broadside to my left side with me paddling on my right side with no switch over to the left side. My paddle stroke starts about 45 degrees to the right rail on the pull of the stroke, and then curves parallel to the Duke with a slight angle on the paddle blade. The paddle blade comes out of the water just past the end of my right foot's heel.

Within 3 paddle strokes, my Duke was moving to the left. Bummer! So I thought lengthening the paddle from 67" to 69" would help. It did, but not enough. So I sat down on my board and started thinking while I was drifting along with the wind.

Since I'm light in weight compared to the liters of the Duke and with the Duke's large "sweet spot" with me paddling her, I decided to stand further back on my board while lengthening the paddle to 71" to keep the paddle blade into the water just a little longer on the stroke. This really made a big difference. I could paddle on my right side for around 6 paddle strokes before my Duke started to go left.

I knew I was close. I figured a combination of one more adjustment might be the ticket. So I moved my standing stance a little further back. This put my left foot's big toe parallel to the top of the Sup Grip handle while my right foot's big toe, in a modified surf stance, was 2.5" back from the the top of the Sup Grip handle.

I also lengthened the paddle to 73". On the pull of the stoke, I also changed the blade angle slightly as the blade came towards the right rail at a 45 degree angle until it started to go parallel to the right rail and came out of the water at the end of my right foot's heel.

This proved to be the right combination as I could paddle a straight line while paddling on my right side, without having to switch over to my left side. Needless to say, I was "giddy" with excitement to be able to paddle a straight line, paddling broadside to a 10 mph crosswind.

By the time I left the lake at 10:20 am, the wind speed had increased to 12 mph, but I could still paddle a straight line with the crosswind. My next experiment will be with my 11'1" One World.