It was a busy week locked in with work, blackbirds, flatt land and small canals and with melancholic memories on tidal races, gannets, dolphins, cliffs and mountains - there was no time for kayaking left ;-).To get back to life: I woke up early this morning and headed for the boathouse of KV Wyrda. While Woerden was still asleep I took the K1 racer for a "Rondje Kamerik". It lacks the sensation of the sea, but I really do like solo fitness-paddling around Woerden, especially on Sunday-morning when the place is quit and motionless. Mostly life in Woerden at Sunday-morning doesn't start before the Church's-bells are sounding and people go to church (it's still a quit confessional area around here). But this morning when I returned from my paddle I was surprised by life at the boathouse. Paul, Guus, Annelieke and Jaap started for a paddle in the Green Heart of Holland. Would have liked to join, but (family-)duty called...
About my fitness-paddle: I was a bit disappointed I didn't manage to paddle "Rondje Kamerik" within the hour goal (it took 1.03 hours). I suppose the portages took to much time ;-). Besides that I had a lot of drag of water-plants sticking to the bow of the racer and (even worse) to the rudder. Plants sticking to the bow mostly fall off when I shortly decrease speed, but to get rid of plants hanging on the rudder the only solution is paddling some strokes backwards. I find this rather stupid, so sometimes I paddle on with the drag of the water-plants - perhaps good for training power (some guys use little balls for this purpose), but bad for speed.
Is there a trick? How do real racers deal with waterplants?
1 comment:
Hi Hans,
Yes, I like paddling a K1-racer to. Although this misses, as you quote, the sea-experience, your sea-paddlling is nevertheless included because you train your stability as well. It is a very good training method for your "heavy weather at sea"-competence.
About the plants, sticking at the bow, I advise you to, at full speed, dump the bow by bending your upperbody forward with force and in a cadence.
When the plants are not too big this is sufficient. The bigger plants you will have to reqognize and just steer past them or at least not hit them in the middle where they will bend around the bow.
The dumping mostly helps for smaller plants at the rudder. But for bigger ones here is also the motto "steering around".
And when nothing helps, there is indeed the necessity to paddle backwards or just to go on.
rgds
René
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