Long test of the Speeder this Saturday. The weather was really pleasant, Sunny but not too warm, the water temperature was cold but not so icy that it was too uncomfortable to dip the hands, ideal weather to take the boat on the 22 mile Shrewsbury to Telford run.
I really love paddling this boat at the moment. Within a few paddle strokes it is up to speed and then the boat just glides through the water. I encountered a couple of grade 2 sections which the boat just punched through, with the high neck on the cockpit rim there was no splash into the cockpit and as I haven’t got a spray deck that fits this boat yet this is a good thing. My left leg went to sleep after a couple of hours but no worse than I have encountered in other boats and I suspect with a bit of modification to the seat padding I will resolve that.
I alternated between just paddling and then paddling good quality, high arm body rotation strokes which, according to the internet, is the best for speed and endurance. The low maintenance paddling is how I have always paddled and I default to that style, it isn’t super fast but is comfortable and I can do this all day. The body rotation paddling is more powerful, using the strong core muscles to develop the power. In theory because more muscles are involved you can keep a high pace going for longer.
I was going to time myself on my stop watch to find out how much faster this boat was, however my stop watch stopped after 2 hours and 36 minutes for some reason so I don’t know exactly how long it took me to cover the distance. Because I didn’t make an exact note of when I set off I am unsure to the tune of plus or minus 30 minutes, best guess has me covering the 22 miles in three and a half hours. That is an average speed of 6.28mph (about 5.5 knots) and I was quite pleased with my effort. I then wondered how much faster the Speeder was compared to my Dagger RPM. When I first paddled the route in September 2007 it took me five and a half hours (I did take a packed lunch and stopped to do a photo shoot though). Over the course of 15 months I did the trip several times and eventually got a solo best of 4 hours 30 minutes. Paddling with company (my dad in his boat) and we managed 3 hours and 30 minutes.
This vexes me. The Pyranha Speeder is fast, there is no doubt about it. When I met a couple of guys in playboats paddling from Atcham to Ironbridge (about half my journey) we exchanged a few boater pleasantries, and then I left them for dead. So why could I only match my best time in the RPM?
I have thought long and hard about why I have been unable to smash my best time with the Speeder, which I thought I would do, and I have lots of theories that in part may all be contributing.
Firstly when looking into hull speed I read an article about kayaks in particular which showed the drag over speed graphs of several kayaks. There was a mix of boats in there from stubby little recreation tourers up to sleek ocean going sea kayaks. Up to about 4 knots all of the boats had a similar drag rate and only above that speed was it noticeable how the sleeker hulls offered less drag. So I suppose if I was only fit enough to supply a paddling cadence that nudged the 4 knot band, it wouldn’t matter what boat I was paddling.
Secondly I was listening to an audio book on my iPod and for long stretches of the river I was caught up in the book and not focusing on driving the boat forward as effectively as I could. I am pretty certain that I spent longer just pootling along enjoying myself than I would have with thumping music to power me onward.
It also seems that without the peer pressure/support of another paddler accompanying me I kind of drift off into my steady paddling routine which has me just cruising along at a less than rapid pace.
What to do? Well first of all I need to improve my technique some more, as it stands at the moment I have achy muscles around my back and sides, these are the core muscles that I was engaging and they haven’t really been subjected to that sort of effort before. I also need to keep my focus, maybe I need some kind of prompt like a stop watch to get me back up and paddling hard every few minutes.
Boat is on the car for an after work paddle this Tuesday. Planning on spending some quality time working on my technique with some interval training.
Tuesday, 18 May 2010
Friday, 14 May 2010
Short run in the Speeder.
Pyranha Speeder talk again. This is going to become quite a dull blog soon because I plan on two short runs in the boat each week and one long run on the weekend. I am aware that my plans and my actions don’t often tie up but last night I was out in the boat and I am really looking forward to a Saturday long run from Shrewsbury to Telford.
Last nights run was a blast from Ironbridge up to Buildwas after work. I was on the water for about 50 minutes and I covered about 4 miles. (An average speed of 4.8mph). The run was spent mostly trying to tune my paddling technique, trying to work out what it was about my posture or paddling style that was causing the boat to veer. I didn’t get to the bottom of the problem as such but while I was concentrating on my stroke I was headed in the right direction and when I got distracted by something, (usually a swarm of flies. Oh how I had forgotten about the spring time swarms of flies that hover over the water at canoeist height.) I would start to veer all over the shop.
I was also trying to enact the correct technique for paddling at speed, upright paddle entry, twisting with the waist. All of this is something I have read online or watched on youtube and this is the first boat I am getting a chance to make it work for me. It would probably be more productive if I had my technique fine tuned by a club with instructors but I’m not a member of a club so the internet will be my tutor.
Long run on Saturday morning and I will get a better feel for how fast I could average over a longer distance. I might even start doing the calculations to work out what sort of time I would finish the DW if I was to take part at this moment in time.
Last nights run was a blast from Ironbridge up to Buildwas after work. I was on the water for about 50 minutes and I covered about 4 miles. (An average speed of 4.8mph). The run was spent mostly trying to tune my paddling technique, trying to work out what it was about my posture or paddling style that was causing the boat to veer. I didn’t get to the bottom of the problem as such but while I was concentrating on my stroke I was headed in the right direction and when I got distracted by something, (usually a swarm of flies. Oh how I had forgotten about the spring time swarms of flies that hover over the water at canoeist height.) I would start to veer all over the shop.
I was also trying to enact the correct technique for paddling at speed, upright paddle entry, twisting with the waist. All of this is something I have read online or watched on youtube and this is the first boat I am getting a chance to make it work for me. It would probably be more productive if I had my technique fine tuned by a club with instructors but I’m not a member of a club so the internet will be my tutor.
Long run on Saturday morning and I will get a better feel for how fast I could average over a longer distance. I might even start doing the calculations to work out what sort of time I would finish the DW if I was to take part at this moment in time.
Wednesday, 12 May 2010
Testing the boat.
Sorry, no updates for a little while, my computer time has been more occupied with speech writing but that doesn’t mean that I haven’t been out there doing my thing.
I’ve had a couple of games of squash since last time, I am getting better at the game now and am able to hold my end up in some of the longer rallies with my dad. This is good as I am working harder and finishing games feeling more tired. Bad news is that my left knee is giving me some gyp with some of the rapid direction changes needed in the game.
I have also been out running a couple of times, nothing serious as I’m not going to start building for the Great North for a few months yet but enough to keep the muscles where they are. I have got a lower left leg problem that might be linked to the dodgy knee and is keeping me awake at night. It sort of gives me a pulsing dull ache. Internet diagnosis is inconclusive so I might have to go back to my doctor if it persists.
What I really want to talk about today is the Pyranha Speeder though. I have taken the boat out a couple of times since collecting it a couple of weeks ago. The first proper run out with the boat was with my dad partly because I might have needed fishing out of the river. I have read all over the internet that this boat is tippy but I just didn’t find this to be true, it was fantastically stable as long as it was given a little bit of respect (one wobbly moment when I was faffing about was all it took to remind me). My dad’s boat, an old Dancer style plastic boat has always been much faster than my Dagger RPM, the longer hull saw to that, but it was never going to be a match for the 4.5 metres of the Speeder. The waterline and the knife like prow ensured that this boat cut through the water rather than bobbing on the surface of it and I while my dad was having to constantly drag his boat over the water I was able to rest between paddle strokes as the boat sliced through it. We had a leisurely paddle and by the time I was done I was looking forward to a longer run.
Second run of the Speeder was to explore some of its potential on my own. I got on the Severn at Shrewsbury and headed upstream for a while to get warmed up and then pointed myself downstream for a blast. Being four and a half metres long this boat is not particularly manoeuvrable, you can initiate turns with a lean and many directional strokes, I did manage to turn around in the width of the river and I am able to turn while stationary but it takes a very long time and a lot of effort. After saying that you would expect that boat to keep a straight and true course but it didn’t, it wasn’t that it was all over the place but it would just veer off a bit. I suspect that it has a lot to do with my centre of gravity in the boat and that I was sitting crooked in the cockpit but either way, I found myself having to correct every other stroke. Practice will iron out this problem I think.
I did a couple of timed runs as well just to see how fast I was able to zoom in the boat. Unfortunately I don’t exactly know how far I paddled because google maps doesn’t do route maps on rivers. So what I have done is laid on a piece of string on the computer monitor and worked out how far I went using the map scale. It isn’t very accurate though and I could have paddled anywhere between a mile and 7 miles… I am going to go with my best guestimate of two miles in each direction for the timed runs.
Down stream with the flow of the Severn from Welsh bridge to the railway bridge took me 20 minutes. That is a (convenient) average speed of about 6 miles an hour. The return journey took me just 21 minutes. Considering that I was more fatigued and more importantly going against the flow I was surprised to add only one minute onto the time. It just goes to show how well the boat cuts through the water. A longer timed run this coming weekend is planned to find out more.
There were many other boats out there on the water and as I am want to do, I raced all of them.
Two man inflatable kayak was easy pickings (in fact the boat was so cumbersome and wallowy it wasn’t a race at all. It was like blasting a Ferrari past a Transit van)
A two man canoe was also dispatched with relative ease.
A four man rowing scull was harder work but the crew were novices and needed to stop for a pep talk every now and then so I had them.
A one man racing scull was raced and I nearly caught him. True he kept briefly stopping to adjust something on his oars but when he was under power he didn’t pull out much of a lead.
A pro two man scull nearly decapitated me, we were all heading the same way, I was looking in the direction I was going but these stupid rowers look backwards so neither of us knew about the impending collision as they reversed (at speed) towards me. I got the feeling something was up and glanced over my shoulder (I don’t know why as I had my iPod on so I didn’t hear them), their bow was less than a metre away from my stern. I tried to change course and accelerated hard and somehow the boats didn’t touch (they would have been swimming if we had), but their ruddy oars are about 5 metres long. I saw the blades slip out of the water, turn at right angles so the sharp bit was pointing at me and then swing in my direction. It was now I realised that I was real and potentially in bloody trouble so yelled something, I would like to think it was something manly and commanding but I have a suspicion that it was girly and ignominious, either way I didn’t die and they didn’t sink.
Two, one man, glass racing kayaks put to the water and they were beautiful. They took off effortlessly and were uncatchable and made me suddenly feel like I was in that wallowing inflatable kayak not the Speeder. I wish I had more confidence to be able to take on a boat like that but I now know from experience that the wobbly racers are not much fun in the hands of a novice like me.
So that’s me for today. The weather looks great for the weekend so I think there might be a long run in the Speeder planned.
I’ve had a couple of games of squash since last time, I am getting better at the game now and am able to hold my end up in some of the longer rallies with my dad. This is good as I am working harder and finishing games feeling more tired. Bad news is that my left knee is giving me some gyp with some of the rapid direction changes needed in the game.
I have also been out running a couple of times, nothing serious as I’m not going to start building for the Great North for a few months yet but enough to keep the muscles where they are. I have got a lower left leg problem that might be linked to the dodgy knee and is keeping me awake at night. It sort of gives me a pulsing dull ache. Internet diagnosis is inconclusive so I might have to go back to my doctor if it persists.
What I really want to talk about today is the Pyranha Speeder though. I have taken the boat out a couple of times since collecting it a couple of weeks ago. The first proper run out with the boat was with my dad partly because I might have needed fishing out of the river. I have read all over the internet that this boat is tippy but I just didn’t find this to be true, it was fantastically stable as long as it was given a little bit of respect (one wobbly moment when I was faffing about was all it took to remind me). My dad’s boat, an old Dancer style plastic boat has always been much faster than my Dagger RPM, the longer hull saw to that, but it was never going to be a match for the 4.5 metres of the Speeder. The waterline and the knife like prow ensured that this boat cut through the water rather than bobbing on the surface of it and I while my dad was having to constantly drag his boat over the water I was able to rest between paddle strokes as the boat sliced through it. We had a leisurely paddle and by the time I was done I was looking forward to a longer run.
Second run of the Speeder was to explore some of its potential on my own. I got on the Severn at Shrewsbury and headed upstream for a while to get warmed up and then pointed myself downstream for a blast. Being four and a half metres long this boat is not particularly manoeuvrable, you can initiate turns with a lean and many directional strokes, I did manage to turn around in the width of the river and I am able to turn while stationary but it takes a very long time and a lot of effort. After saying that you would expect that boat to keep a straight and true course but it didn’t, it wasn’t that it was all over the place but it would just veer off a bit. I suspect that it has a lot to do with my centre of gravity in the boat and that I was sitting crooked in the cockpit but either way, I found myself having to correct every other stroke. Practice will iron out this problem I think.
I did a couple of timed runs as well just to see how fast I was able to zoom in the boat. Unfortunately I don’t exactly know how far I paddled because google maps doesn’t do route maps on rivers. So what I have done is laid on a piece of string on the computer monitor and worked out how far I went using the map scale. It isn’t very accurate though and I could have paddled anywhere between a mile and 7 miles… I am going to go with my best guestimate of two miles in each direction for the timed runs.
Down stream with the flow of the Severn from Welsh bridge to the railway bridge took me 20 minutes. That is a (convenient) average speed of about 6 miles an hour. The return journey took me just 21 minutes. Considering that I was more fatigued and more importantly going against the flow I was surprised to add only one minute onto the time. It just goes to show how well the boat cuts through the water. A longer timed run this coming weekend is planned to find out more.
There were many other boats out there on the water and as I am want to do, I raced all of them.
Two man inflatable kayak was easy pickings (in fact the boat was so cumbersome and wallowy it wasn’t a race at all. It was like blasting a Ferrari past a Transit van)
A two man canoe was also dispatched with relative ease.
A four man rowing scull was harder work but the crew were novices and needed to stop for a pep talk every now and then so I had them.
A one man racing scull was raced and I nearly caught him. True he kept briefly stopping to adjust something on his oars but when he was under power he didn’t pull out much of a lead.
A pro two man scull nearly decapitated me, we were all heading the same way, I was looking in the direction I was going but these stupid rowers look backwards so neither of us knew about the impending collision as they reversed (at speed) towards me. I got the feeling something was up and glanced over my shoulder (I don’t know why as I had my iPod on so I didn’t hear them), their bow was less than a metre away from my stern. I tried to change course and accelerated hard and somehow the boats didn’t touch (they would have been swimming if we had), but their ruddy oars are about 5 metres long. I saw the blades slip out of the water, turn at right angles so the sharp bit was pointing at me and then swing in my direction. It was now I realised that I was real and potentially in bloody trouble so yelled something, I would like to think it was something manly and commanding but I have a suspicion that it was girly and ignominious, either way I didn’t die and they didn’t sink.
Two, one man, glass racing kayaks put to the water and they were beautiful. They took off effortlessly and were uncatchable and made me suddenly feel like I was in that wallowing inflatable kayak not the Speeder. I wish I had more confidence to be able to take on a boat like that but I now know from experience that the wobbly racers are not much fun in the hands of a novice like me.
So that’s me for today. The weather looks great for the weekend so I think there might be a long run in the Speeder planned.
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