Basics and Beyond: Going Straight

April-May 2001

This is an article from WaveLength Magazine, available in print in North America and globally on the web.
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by Dan Henderson

By Paddling with your rudder up, you learn the full effects of your paddle and body position. Photo by Jim Demler

Sea kayaks are wonderful vehicles to carry you to special places, to wonder at wildlife and beautiful scenery. One of the great aspects of these little boats is that most people can jump into them and paddle with little instruction. But as your interest level develops and you want to spend more time sea kayaking, it's worth the time and effort to learn what makes the boat go most effectively and efficiently
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One of the first things to consider as you learn about paddling is what contributes to the boat going straight. How you sit in a sea kayak and what you do with your paddle, as well as equipment and weather, contribute to getting the sea kayak to go straight. Let's take a look at the first two considerations under calm conditions.

Most paddling schools will start you off learning in a single sea kayak. This is because you then develop your own sense of stability without compensating for what a partner is doing. Also, the lessons of what you do with your paddle and how that affects boat movement are much more explicit in a single sea kayak. The single is generally shorter and you sit in the center, so what you do with your paddle has a more immediate and clear effect on how your boat responds.

SIT IN THE MIDDLE

Leaning helps turn your kayak, especially if it has no rudder.

When you sit in a sea kayak, you want to sit in the middle-right along the centerline. Keep in mind that what you feel is not necessarily how things really are. We all develop our kinesthetic senses based on our experiences. Physical stimulus is very specific to specific circumstances, so what you feel is not necessarily what you get! Until you have that specific experience and can relate it to reality, the signals your body sends to your brain may not necessarily be correct. We also develop our bodies asymmetrically. Everyone has one dominant side that tends to develop to a higher degree that the other. So while things may feel the same, that is not necessarily the case, especially when trying new activities.

Many sea kayaks are designed to be steered (at least in part) by leaning. So if you tip the boat to one side, the bow carves a turn in the direction the boat is pointed and the stern slides to the other side. An easy way to think how this works is if you lift your knee on one side, raising that side, you will turn towards that side. If you are trying to go straight, you want to keep the boat level. If you find yourself always turning to one side, this may be at least part of the reason.

To help find your center in the kayak, learn to sit up tall in the boat with a few degrees of forward angle, so your back has a slight concave curve. This is the natural position for your back and will benefit your technique development by allowing more freedom for torso rotation-a technique that allows much more power, with relatively little effort, to be applied to each stroke. This sitting position allows you to better engage the small muscles that control your spine, as well as reduce fatigue-causing tension. Keeping your hips rolled behind you helps maintain this position. If your hips are rolled under you, resulting in a convex curve in your back, a great deal of tension on your spinal muscles is introduced. This can cause back strain. It also locks up your vertebrae and eliminates your ability to develop torso rotation. Avoid leaning back, as this adds lots of stress on your lower back muscles and reduces the ability of your spinal muscles to support your body position.

Another way to stay centered in the sea kayak is to make sure you put equal weight on your hips, and that they are square-one is not forward of the other. If one hip is forward, you tend to put unequal pressure on your hips, causing boat lean. In early stages of technical development, keeping your hips still while you paddle will also help with stability and staying centered in the kayak.

Avoid letting your hips swing to each side while you paddle-we call this 'hula hips!' Stay focused on sitting up tall and especially keep your side torso muscles firm and erect. Letting the side torso muscles on the paddling side collapse during the power phase of each stroke generally causes hula hips. Advanced paddling skills involve leg drive and pull, which moves the hips forward and backwards, but never side to side.

CHECK YOUR LEVEL

A very inexpensive aid to help you recognize lean is a line level, which is available at your local hardware store. A line level is a small tube, mostly filled with liquid. The air bubble inside the tube moves from side to side depending on how it's tilted. There are usually marks on the tube to help you see the center. Keeping the bubble in the middle indicates level.

To use the line level, tape it to the deck in front of your cockpit, across the centerline of your sea kayak. Make sure it's centered and level to begin with by setting this up while your kayak is sitting on a level surface. While paddling, keep an eye on your level and compare it to how your boat looks in the water, relative to the horizon and how your body feels. Eventually you will be able to recognize and feel the level position of your sea kayak.

Another great aid is to have someone else, perhaps an instructor with a trained eye, take a look at how you are sitting and how that orients your sea kayak in the water.

THE PADDLE STROKE

Now that your have a good position, let's take a look at what to do with the paddle.

Generally, when you take a stroke, you place the paddle in the water, and apply pressure to move the sea kayak past that point. The blade stays pretty much in the same place as the kayak travels forward.

When you take a forward stroke on one side, two things happen. The sea kayak moves forward and it also moves away from your paddling side. There are several things that determine how much you move forward and how much you move to the side with each stroke.

The further away from the side of the boat you paddle, the more it turns and the less it moves forward. The closer you paddle to the side of the boat, the more it moves forward and the less it turns away. To go straight, you want to keep things pretty symmetrical from side to side and close to the kayak.

Paddling so that the blade travels through an arc pattern-close to the boat in the front, moving away as you pull through the stroke and back to the boat to finish, has very strong steering effect away from that side. This is generally called a 'sweep stroke'. But if you want to go straight, again, keep the blade close to the kayak to avoid the arc pattern.

Also helpful in going straight is to keep the blade square or perpendicular to the centerline of the kayak. If you angle the blade you introduce sideways movement. If the edge of the blade closest to the kayak is in front of the outside edge, the boat will tend to travel towards the blade. If the inside edge is behind the outside edge, the boat will travel away from the blade. Keep track of these angles throughout the entire stroke.

Differences in body movement from one side to the other will introduce a power differential. Things like hand and elbow height, as well as shoulder movement, are all things to consider. And because we all are stronger on one side than the other, you may feel like you are putting equal power on both sides, but that may not be the case.

THE RUDDER

To develop a balance of power, it's best not to use a rudder. Movements in the rudder will diminish the cognitive connection between what you are doing with the paddle and how that affects boat movement. While rudders generally make steering easier, even when positioned straight they introduce lots of drag, which you must overcome with additional strength. The more you turn the rudder, the more drag is introduced. So having a symmetrical stroke, even if you plan to use the rudder regularly, will greatly increase your efficiency and reduce the power you need for each stroke. This will allow you to paddle longer distances with less fatigue

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

To begin this learning process, start off with very lightly powered strokes while striving to keep your body motion the same on each side. Barely touch the water with your paddle and keep your motions slow and relaxed. If you start to head off to the side, adjust your power, adding to the side you turn towards and reducing power on the other side until you are consistently going straight. Once you are comfortable with this exercise and you are going straight, you can begin to incrementally add power on both sides.

The earlier you make the course adjustment, the less change in direction you have to correct. Sea kayaks tend to gain momentum in a turn, so the more they turn, the more effort is needed to overcome the turning action. To learn this process, pick a point out in front of you and head for it. Keep the point and the bow of your sea kayak in line. As soon as the bow starts to fall off that point, even just a little bit, make a power correction. You can also make the correction by steering with your paddle (paddling wide), but if your are trying to develop symmetrical power, stay focused on the task at hand. Eventually you will be able to predict when you need to make adjustments and prevent course deviations.

Don't expect to learn this right away. Everyone learns at different rates,through different styles and to different degrees. Take the time you need to learn to keep your sea kayak going straight and be very patient with yourself. Learn to stay in the center of your sea kayak, sit up tall, keep equal weight on both hips and develop a symmetrical stroke. If you take the time you need to learn this well, your sea kayaking experience will be greatly enhanced.

An avid sea kayaker, Dan Henderson, president of Cascade Canoe & Kayak Centers, Inc. and Lead Instructor of the REI Paddling School in Washington State -the Official Paddling School for the West Coast Sea Kayak Symposium - is a past member and coach of the US National Canoe/Kayak Sprint Team. His writing includes the original USA Canoe/Kayak Coaching Manual and many canoe/kayak technical and training articles. ©
Cascade Canoe & Kayak Center
Renton, WA. Ph: 425-637-8838
Email: danh@canoe-kayak.com