If a group gets caught out by a change in weather conditions and faces a stiff headwind on a return , the ability to draft will help get everyone safely home .
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example , you can play with stroke length and cadence rate to see how they affect how the board behaves in the draft .
It offers a direct opportunity to compare the effectiveness of your stroke with others . Before I got into racing , my coach insisted on our group paddling extensively in the draft . I learned a lot about technique in these sessions . I got to observe better paddlers at close quarters . I realised how my positioning and timing differed from theirs . I could see first-hand how much power they were generating per stroke and how they used their bodies differently from me . It was a great route to self-awareness and a stimulus for self-improvement .
The drafting tech nique
I called this the art of drafting . And it is an art . It ’ s not something that can be executed perfectly in a matter of hours . You develop an intuition for it .
Simply put , you aim to keep your board ’ s nose approximately two feet from the back of the board in front . I say approximately because this distance depends on the wake you observe from the board in front and the type of board you are on . Technically , you are trying to ‘ mount ’ the little wave that comes off the back of the board in front .
This little wave varies depending on the tail shape of the board in front . Square tails are generally easier to draft than pin tails
If a group gets caught out by a change in weather conditions and faces a stiff headwind on a return , the ability to draft will help get everyone safely home .