The PaddlerUK magazine July 2015 issue 3 | Page 16

ThePaddler 16
Spinning around…

When discussing open canoeing, I often hear
that one of the barriers to this discipline is
how hard people find canoes to manoeuvre.
Well there are a few things we can do to make
it all a lot easier for ourselves. If we continue
our breakdown of the inside pivot turn then
there are a number of options:

We can heel (or edge) our boat towards the
side we’’re paddling on. This changes the shape
of the boat in the water and makes it much
easier to turn. The more we heel the boat over,
the easier the boat will turn.

We can also change our position in the boat,
or trim, for the desired outcome. The more
stern heavy we are for the inside pivot turn the
tighter we will turn, or spin on the spot. The
more neutral to bow heavy we are the wider
our turns will be and the further the boat will
travel backwards with each stroke

Paul Bull
Paul is an enthusiastic full time UKCC Level 3 Coach
who’s passionate about helping people to develop
and enjoy kayaking and canoeing whether thats
more advanced skills on the more technical or
bigger volume rivers of the UK and Europe or grass
root sessions nearer to home. A