Allan Bennett wrote:
In article 0vtlqb.ijg.ln@Eskdale, Jim Wallis
wrote:

There night be something in that, especially in the first few strokes from
stationery - but once a lift-generating stroke is employed (ie most strokes),
those principles become less relevant.

At least I don't feel quite so silly about getting assyms for surfing,
where "most strokes" (or at least the ones that really count) *are* the
first few from stationary!

One other point - whilst a lot of paddle manufacturers do just copy what
is trendy, most of the better ones do use trial and error to determine
what they consider to be good shapes.

sceptic mode

Yeah. Right.

\sceptic mode

They're quite possibly *trying*, but it's very difficult to get an
objective model of a paddler using the thing over a representative range
of conditions, especially away from the real top flight people as our
(probably much larger) personal idisosyncracies will, I'd think, have a
much bigger effect on what works best for us. I notice that amongst the
denizens of TSKC there's no real consensus of how big the effect of
changing blade size is (makes a big *perceived* difference to me, hardly
anything to others), whether cranks help (some wouldn't be without them,
some actively dislike them, I like them but am not really *that*
fussed), and so on.
People coming up with the Big New Thing may well be kidding themselves,
noticing an effect that has nothing directly to do with their idea, or
*really* having hit on something.

It's proving hard enough to understand things for the relatively
predictable world of sprint, it's no wonder it's much harder for
something with more of a mix of strokes on wildly different water
conditions.

Not a fan of trial and error

It's often the only way though :-( I don't think the folk who thought
of the Baidarka's construction had it all thought out in advance
according to known engineering principles on computer workstations...

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch University of Dundee
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Medical Physics, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/