O P E N C A N O E t e C h N i Q u e
look, point, shoot.
Photo scott MacgRegoR
Maril
yn Scriver
G u l l R i v e R
Open Canoe
Slalom Race
September Solo // Tandem
12 and 13, 2009
Men’s
Women’s
At the Gull River
Wild Water Preserve,
Juniors
Minden, Ontario
sanctioned by
information:
WHIteWAter
scriver@magma.ca
ONtArIO
lateral thinkinG
POINT AND GO WITH CrOss-CurreNt MOMeNtuM
WHEN YOU FIRST START PADDLING it’s great fun Timing is a key issue when developing lateral
and recklessly easy to blast straight downstream. momentum. Once your canoe is pointed at a des-
That’s okay until you need to avoid obstacles or tination like an eddy, green tongue or slalom gate,
go somewhere other than directly to the bottom you need to ensure that your speed matches the
of the rapids. Three or four hundred pounds of angle and distance to your target.
paddlers and canoe barrelling downstream has a Let’s look at a midstream eddy behind an ex-
lot of momentum, making your straight-shot more posed rock as an example. The water acceler-
Jon Voight in Runaway Train than Bill Mason in ates around the rock that forms the eddy, so you
Waterwalker. may need to increase your momentum as you ap-
One of the Golden Rules of paddling is to point proach. Conversely, if you build momentum too
your boat where you want to go. It seems obvi- far upstream, have too open of an angle or you’re
ous and you have no doubt heard it before, but simply moving too fast across the current, you
learning to travel laterally across rapids is a mind- may come in too high. This could result in pinning
bender for the newly initiated and a concept that against the rocks or ricocheting off and sliding
should be frequently revisited and practiced by down the eddy with zero directional momentum.
paddlers of all levels. Pointing your boat where In these cases, ease your lateral momentum by
you want to go and travelling laterally allows you to relaxing your stroke rate or pause and wait for
move around the river for cleaner, drier lines and is the eddy to come to you. Keeping your eyes on
the only way to access mid-rapid eddies. the eddy and being aware of distance versus
Your first goal should be setting your angle cross-current and downstream vectors will help
across the current in one stroke. However, radi- you judge when to back off and when to pour on
cally changing your boat’s angle—for example, the power.
from pointing downstream to pointing across the Advanced solo and tandem boaters may also
current—does not alone change your direction of use a trough or foam pile of a standing or crash-
travel. Imagine standing on a moving sidewalk, ing wave to funnel their boats into an adjacent
looking straight ahead. You can turn your body to eddy. To try this, develop some cross-current
face left or right but you are still moving forward. momentum and fall sideways into the wave.
To move laterally you need to step in that direc- Make sure you drop into the trough flat rather
tion. Pointing your boat in one stroke allows you to than with the customary downstream tilt to pre-
immediately start building momentum in the new vent the wave from dumping in your boat. Ride
direction. This does not mean that you need to the wave’s trough or tube like an on ramp into the
start paddling at warp speed, but you should at eddy, or use the power of the wave to kill your
least be ready to start moving your boat in the new downstream momentum, allowing you to move
direction—across the river. across into the eddy. —Beth Kennedy
www.rapidmag.com 1
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