I was just rereading my copy of "The Functional Side Of Freestyle Canoeing." It is the first time I've read it since I've been working on carving with my stern, and it confirmed that bow pinning and stern carving rely on the same techniques of using your hull to control your boat. There are at least two main differences. The most obvious is trim. To pin your bow you need to pitch your weight forward and get bow heavy. To carve with the stern, the opposite is true.
The other big difference is the way the boat carves the turn. When bow pinning, the stern turns around the bow by skidding around it. When I carve with my stern, it follows the bow in a linear fashion and doesn't skid. With bow pinning you can probably turn sharper, and with stern carving I think I get less resistance to forward momentum. I've seen a lot written about bow pinning, but haven't seen anything about carving with the stern. I highly doubt I'm the first person doing this. Is it possible that it is called something else and I just haven't come across it yet.
The other big difference is the way the boat carves the turn. When bow pinning, the stern turns around the bow by skidding around it. When I carve with my stern, it follows the bow in a linear fashion and doesn't skid. With bow pinning you can probably turn sharper, and with stern carving I think I get less resistance to forward momentum. I've seen a lot written about bow pinning, but haven't seen anything about carving with the stern. I highly doubt I'm the first person doing this. Is it possible that it is called something else and I just haven't come across it yet.
