Video: Speed & Angle for Eddy Turns in a White Water Canoe

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Speed and angle are two of the most important aspects of how to do an eddy turn in a solo white water canoe. Get tips on how to stop a canoe in rapids with an eddy turn in this free online white water canoeing maneuvers lesson on video.

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Video Transcript

So now that you know what a basic eddy turn looks like, we are going to break it down into its parts and the first part and probably one of the most important is the speed and angle that you entered the eddy with. If you come straight down on an eddy from upstream, you will usually blow right by it. On the other hand, if you come from too far across the current, it is hard to make it into the eddy and often you want get into the eddy as high up you would like to, so the idea is somewhere in between. If you think about the river as a clock face with 12:00 o'clock pointing straight upstream, we usually want to enter the eddy on this side of the river with about a 1:00 o'clock angle; maybe a 1:30 angle over here. Once you've got the angle, you drive in and try to hit the rock that forms the eddy. Most eddy's are formed by a well defined rock and you can see it from upstream. So if you shoot for trying to hit the rock, that is usually the idea location and what will happen is because the river is moving downstream so fast, you will end up below the rock even though you are aiming at it. The final piece of the puzzle is speed and you want to make sure you have a little bit of momentum coming into the eddy to break across the eddy line. Depending on how big the eddy is, how big the water is, how turbulent the eddy line is, you may need more speed to break across it if it is a real turbulent eddy line. In this case, it is a nice clearly defined eddy line and I am just going to come down about a 130 angle, drive across that eddy line and hopefully do a nice crisp eddy turn.

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Speed & Angle for Eddy Turns in a White Water Canoe

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