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Dirk Barends
 
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Default What way to edge.

Now I'm confused. Doing my two star training we did a lot of edging, both on
calm water and for getting in and out of different flow rates, you lean left
you turn left - no problem.
I just watched a Kayaking DVD "Performance Sea Kayaking" in which they
covered edging to turn the boat. They all turned the OPPOSITE way to whci
they edged the boat!
Have I missed something?


Yes,
but the question is, do you want to have all the information there is
about leaning and edging/heeling when doing a two star training? Most
instructors don't want to make it more complicated than necessary,
I guess?

With canoeing one normally speaks about 'leaning',
and with kayaking one normally says 'edging' when you 'heel' a boat.
When I say 'leaning' I mean the action one has to do to make the boat
'heel', because you can also heel a canoe without leaning, for instance by
kneeling with two knees in the bilge. Furthermore you can make a difference
between a boat lean (a.k.a. J-lean) and a body lean (a.k.a. bell buoy
lean).

Which effect you get when you heel your boat, depends on the design of that
boat, which way/side you heel the boat and how much you lean the boat
and the way the boat is moving through the water.

Also you can heel the boat for different purposes.

* To give the boat a tendency to turn in a certain direction.
With forward speed most designs 'want' to go to the right with a heel to
the left and vice versa.
Some designs will do this the opposite way though! Can also be different on
the amount of heel.
Experimenting with your own boat is the only sure way to find that out.

* To make the boat more maneuverable.
The more you heel the boat, the more shape in the water of the boat changes
to a more maneuverable shape. Especially for straighter keeled boats this is
recommended by many people, but personally, I consider this only useful as a
fla****er technique. In waves and current I prefer a design that doesn't need
to be heeled to make a turn. I care more about stability then...

* For stability purposes.
For instance when encountering great differences in current,
one has to heel the boat downstream.
(Preferably not more than is really necessary.)
But also with hard side winds I heel a bit into the wind.

* To keep an open canoe 'possibly' dryer by heeling _temporarily_ away
from a wave. (Only recommended if you know when and how to do it!)

Although the text is in the dutch language, the pictures on:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~dbarends/hlln.html
may make some things I wrote here more clear?

Dirk Barends