Video: Running Wave Trains in a White Water Canoe

Dealing with big waves can be a challenge when white water canoeing. Learn how to run a wave train in a canoe in this free online white water canoeing maneuvers lesson on video.

Video Transcript

Open canoes excel in smaller water, water where there is a fine intra quick water moves to make and not huge volume. In bigger volume it takes different skills to paddle open canoe and even in smaller volume rivers sometimes you get big waves, wave trains that challenge your ability to run the boat dry and to paddle without getting completely swung. A couple different strategies on wave trains on medium size wave trains you can often paddle mostly straight through them avoiding the big curling waves that tend to come into the boat. So again you can paddle most of the smoother waves, waves that are sort of crusting on a nice smooth decent. But when they are breaking at the top those are often are going to be the ones that are going to swamp you. Another thing about running wave trains is the angle of your boat is really critical the angle to your boat to the wave, so if you come straight through wave trains and try to be perpendicular in each wave that's the way your going to take on the most water often. One successful strategy can be aim at a wave and angle off toward the corner of it as you come down toward the wave. So if you have one particular wave your concerned about you can angle off to the corner of it and be running the wave at a more 45 degree angle than at a 90 degree angle to the wave itself. Sometimes you'll even be able to ride the crust to the wave and or the shoulder to the wave you can catch the shoulder kind of ride to the crust of the wave and avoid actually going straight into the crust of the wave. And that can be another successful strategy, another successful open boaters do on bigger water is they often lean there boat in such a way to keep water from coming in. Sometimes that means appearing to lean up stream or actually flattened the boat in the middle of the current and that could be the only strategy for preventing a big wave from coming in and swamping your boat. With air bags and most of the boats filled up with air bags in the successful roll you can paddle even really big water in open boat but you do have to be strategic how your run wave trains and learn the skills that are necessary for keeping you boat

Running Wave Trains in a White Water Canoe

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