On Fri, 20 Aug 2004 21:37:23 GMT, John Fereira
wrote:

SNIP
I'm new to the sport and don't speak
from a lot of experience...but logic tells me that it could be an
explanation for steering problems. The other is that the strength of
the strokes is uneven. If you paddle hard on one side but not the
other, you slowly turn.

It might seem that way but the strength of the stroke usually doesn't affect
the direction of the kayak. Once you get up a bit of speed, unless you're
trying to maintain a sprint pace, you don't to continue to paddle hard to
keep up a decent hull speed. The difference in arm strength certainly
wouldn't make much difference since the amount of effort required from your
weakest arm is more than sufficient to keep up a good pace. What will
affect the direction to a much greater degree is the synchronicity of your
stroke. The strength of the stroke is only one aspect in achieving
identical strokes on the left and right side. There is also the length of
the stroke. For the strokes to be equal you need to put the blade in the
water the same distance from the bow on both sides and exit at the distance
as well. I'm betting that if you try paddling harder on one side that your
very likely keeping the paddle in the water longer on that side as well.
Secondly, there is the distance of the paddle away from the hull. If you've
practice a sweep stroke you'll find that it's much more effective if paddle
"draws a C" in the water so that the blade is a few feet from the boat when
it is perpendicular with the cockpit than if the blade stays close to the
boat throughout the stroke. It would seem obvious then, that if the stroke
on the right side of the boat is further away from the hull than the stroke
on the left side that you'll generate more turning motion from the stroke on
the right side. If you experiment with a sweep stroke a bit you'll find
that trying to turn the boat by pulling harder on the paddle doesn't
accomplish much and that a slow but complete sweep will turn the boat quite
nicely. Finally, the orientation of the blade will significantly impact the
power generated by the stroke and if the angle is not the same you'll
generate a much greater turning motion on one side. Typically this happens
when using a feathered paddle and failing to turn the top edge of the blade
toward you on the non-control hand side. When that happens the blade tends
to slice down and scoop water rather that push water toward the stern. That
would also tend to tilt the kayak to that side as you're bringing the paddle
the paddle out (try putting a paddle blade in the water perpendicular to the
boat and pulling it straight up and watch what happens).
snip

The paddle blade angle is one thought I hadn't had regarding our
situation in the original post. She is an inexperienced paddler and
I did give her a feathered paddle. I watched her at the beginninng
and she seemed to be using the feathered paddle properly but she may
have lost focus on that as the paddle went on. Since she continued
to turn in the unwanted direction even when paddling entirely on one
side of the boat, this couldn't account for the problem but it could
be an exacerbating factor. (I love big words. hope I spelled it
correctly)
As I posted elsewhere, I'm pretty sure at this point it was simply the
current pushing her boat from behind. The river is wide at that
point and there wasn't a lot of changing current factors such as you'd
find in a twisted creek, just a massive push of peak incoming tide.
I've never had anyone show me much about paddling and do most of what
I do intuitively so I haven't ever thought this stuff out before.