How to do a Stern Draw Kayaking Stroke

Video Transcript

"The stern draw is another method to turn your boat and try to figure out what angle you want you boat pointed. Sometimes people think of it as the last half of the full sweep. So I'm going to do it towards the stern of my boat since it's called a stern draw. I wind up my torso so it's facing my work, I place the paddle in behind my hip kind of about 45 degrees to the back of the boat and I'm going to draw the boat to the paddle. You can see it really pulls the stern, the back of the boat around to my paddle. I can use this stroke really effectively in a couple maneuvers in the river which we'll show you later. So take a look at the ferry section and also switching edges. But I'm going to paddle out away from you so you can see one and I'm going to paddle back. Here it goes! So I'm paddling forward and I want to switch directions and I can paddle forward. So you can see that I'm paddling in a circle but I want to go in that direction. So I reach out, do a stern draw and look. I'm going to come on back to you so you can actually see what it looks like. Again, placing my paddle out by my hip, by my back of my boat, pull it towards me and turn. The stern draw is really effective when we get a moving current. It's tough to see out here in the flat water but it really is effective when we move on moving water."