How do you ferry glide? Is it like when u stop by putting the paddle on the left or the right of the back of the boat and it wold slow u down is that ferry gliding . Cheers

Ferry gliding is used for paddling perpendicular to the flow; for example to get to the opposite bank or a feature in the middle of the river. It involves pointing your boat upsteam and paddling with an aggressive upstream edge.

If you're on river right and want to get to the left bank, take directly upstream to be 12 o'clock on a clock face and point your boat at maybe 1 or 2 o'clock (dependent on how strong the flow is) and paddle in that direction with your left edge raised. You'll end up putting in more/more powerful strokes on your right-hand side to compensate for the flow pushing the left-hand side of your boat. In a strong flow you probably won't be able to paddle perfectly perpendicularly, so you'll need to be upstream of the point you want to end up at.

What you're talking about sounds like a stern rudder.

jayson200 wrote:

How do you ferry glide? Is it like when u stop by putting the paddle on the left or the right of the back of the boat and it wold slow u down is that ferry gliding . Cheers

Nope. Check this out. Should give you a better idea on what a ferry glide is.

www.unsponsored.co.uk/skills/river/ferry%20glide.htm

kernel wrote:

What you're talking about sounds like a stern rudder.

Sounds a bit more like a hanging draw.

It's really simple if there's a flow and you need to get from one side of the river to the other, paddling straight arcross would just push you downstream so you have to aim up stream at about a 15 degree angle, edge down stream and paddle forwards.

Ash.

look/turn your head in the direction of where you are aiming at aswell it always helps you get there easier

jayson200 wrote:

How do you ferry glide? Is it like when u stop by putting the paddle on the left or the right of the back of the boat and it wold slow u down is that ferry gliding . Cheers

To add something new no one has mentioned yet, good form. To be efficient, especially when fighting the current, you can get tired and/or inefficient which will cause you to loose an up-hill battle so here is how to be efficient with you strokes.

#1 Your power should come from your core.
I see paddlers of all levels overuse their arms when paddling. Power should primarily come from rotation at the trunk; this helps generate more torque with less effort. Maintain the shape of a box with the paddle and arms out in front and at shoulder level. Do not rock back and forth to generate power. Often paddlers will rock their trunk back and forth while trying to generate a burst of speed, doing this creates turbulence around hull and therefore wastes energy. Torso ROTATION allows a paddler to reach farther forward during the catch phase of the forward stroke. Indirectly, correct paddling form may help prevent shoulder injury such as strains, sprains, dislocations, and subluxation. When the torso is not properly engaged to generate power, the arms do more work and become fatigued at a faster rate. This fatigue (especially of the Rotator Cuff musculature) may contribute to shoulder instability and therfore injury.

So... to make a long story longer, use your core and stay between 10:30 and 1:30 with your ferry angle and you're not just good, you're GOLDEN!


Saddle-Up!
Whitewaterules

Well if you're not using trunk rotation you really should learn to paddle a little more efficiently.

Trunk Rotation is key. Using your legs in a cycling motion also helps but the question was 'How do you ferry glide?' Not 'How do you paddle efficiently?'

Ash

Ashley wrote:

Well if you're not using trunk rotation you really should learn to paddle a little more efficiently.

Trunk Rotation is key. Using your legs in a cycling motion also helps but the question was 'How do you ferry glide?' Not 'How do you paddle efficiently?'

Ash

Well when you ferry, if the current is strong, your strokes must be efficient in order to loose as little ground as possible. So this is how it relates.