Difficulty getting Bell Yellowstone Solo to track straight

[TFin04]

Hello,

I'm a relatively new canoeist. I have experience with a big heavy Old Town Guide 147, and recently picked up a Bell Yellowstone Solo off Craigslist for a price I couldn't pass up.

I've been paddling the Yellowstone for a few days now and I'm having a very hard time making it go straight. I can heel over my Guide and paddle it "Canadian style" without much trouble, but I'm finding the Yellowstone pretty tippy for that. It does not seem to respond to a J Stroke very well, nor is it very consistent with sit and switch style paddling. It seems one stroke may spin me about 30 degrees, then at another time it will take me 5-6 strokes to correct my heading. I'm having a hard time figuring this boat out.

It has 2.5" rocker in front and 1.5" in rear. It's Royalex. I understand this is billed as mostly a river boat, but I was hoping to at least get it to cross a lake without so much frustration. I've only paddled it empty, and tried to trim forward and back and much as I could around the factory seat and thwarts, it didn't seem to make a difference. I'm wondering if a few 5gal bucket of water for weight might make a difference.

So, my questions are, is this boat just not designed to do what I want and I'm wasting my time, or do I need more practice in this thing? I was hoping the narrow solo boat would be faster than my Guide, but at the moment I feel like I could easily paddle the Guide in a straight line with far less effort.

Any advice is appreciated.

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

A skilled canoeist can make ANY canoe go straight as an arrow with a single sided correction stroke. That canoeist probably knows several different single-sided correction strokes and can blend them together via unconscious muscle memory.

Therefore, the blunt answer to your frustration is that you have seriously deficient single-sided correction stroke skills. It's not the boat.

But you're not alone. I started paddling at age 8 and didn't evolve an efficient and effortless correction stroke until I was 40. Of course, I never had instruction, never read a book, and this was all long before DVD's and the internet.

The quickest way to learn is from a personal instructor. There may be a paddling school, a paddling symposium, or a certified ACA instructor near you. It costs a little money, but will save years of self-instruction.

There are many instructional videos on DVD and even free on the internet. My favorite freebie is Bill Mason's classic Solo Basic video. But you can't get knowledgeable feedback from a video, or from us internet pixels, when you're thrashing about in a canoe all by yourself.

One thing you might try initially is to drag your paddle behind you after every forward stroke, like a rudder. Make sure the power face is facing away from the hull when you are doing this, in which case the thumb of your grip hand will be pointed down. You will go slowly but this will set the foundation for the J-type stroke. If your grip hand thumb is pointed up when you are rudder dragging, your paddle's power face will be facing at the hull and you will be doing the goon stroke. You don't want to do that. You can't evolve a J or it's more sophisticated variations from the goon.

The next thing you can try is to begin each stroke with a very slightly angled draw bow draw instead of a straight back pull. This subtle draw will pull your canoe toward your on-side as a sort of preemptive correction to the off-side yaw that your forward power stroke will produce. Then, your J rudder drag will correct the rest of the off-side yaw.

Later, you will stop dragging your paddle as a rudder and begin pushing away from the hull with it, which is the J stroke. The combination of a slightly angled bow draw at the beginning of the stroke plus the J pushaway at the end of the stroke is called the C stroke, because your paddle will sort of trace the letter C in the water.

The J is tiring. You eventually want to evolve into what Bill Mason calls the Canadian stroke in his video, and which many skilled canoeists use instead of the J.

 

[yellowcanoe]

The YS was designed for newer paddlers. It tracks way better than the WildFire it evolved from
It will track if you correct a few things. Without seeing you in person it's a guess
Most likely your paddle is following the curve of the gunwale. That is an automatic sweep that you have to do a hard j to fix. That's extra work undoing the yaw that got initiated by that sweep
If your stroke is too long it automatically turns into a sweep if you try to power past your hip. ThN you have do undo rhat
I'll bet that you are not following the imaginary keel line and staying parallel to that. Having a straight power stroke is harder in a flat solo than heeled over Canadian Style. Why? Cause your head is messing with you. This tiny boat wants to tip you say. No it doesn't. Get yourself more comfortable with it and start to paddle it like you did your old boat. If you keep your head inside the boundaries of the gunwales you are fine

Some folks use your YS for freestyle when they start but it's got a tendency to cTch that skegged stern (which is a design element to help tracking )

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

How timely. THIS ARTICLE on paddling straight by Cliff Jacobson, who paddles a Yellowstone, just arrived in my email.

I generally agree with everything he says except his claim that the Canadian stroke is most easily done with a narrow paddle and his claim that bent shaft paddles are best used for the pitch stroke. In my opinion, all flatwater forward strokes are most efficiently done with a paddle having a racing blade shape, and I am further of the opinion that all forward strokes can be done with a bent shaft -- eventually, with experience. Turning strokes and braces are a different matter.

 

[Guest]

I think they often teach solo canoeing strokes backwards. You should start by learning the most perfect foreword stroke that has the least turning effect and perfect that first. Often correction strokes are first taught to correct the flawed foreword stroke. I learned this at a freestyle symposium and have passed it on. The teacher taught us to evaluate our stroke by how far we could glide straight after making only a foreword stroke with no correction. A perfect foreword stroke has--a vertical paddle and goes straight at a right angle of the direction of travel as close to the boat as possible with no healing of the boat. I am still practicing--it's easy to get sloppy. Said another way--a small yaw needs a small correction.

 

[TFin04]

Thanks for all the input guys, lots to consider and practice.

 

[yellowcanoe]

Turtle. Unfortunately that's not how most people learn. It's tough to drill someone for three hours on one thing.
Irs bad enough when we tell them to do two hours of on water homework that day and they don't. It's a real gem when we find someone who wants to get it perfect before moving on

When learning the temptation is to go too fast and too hard. The j is best practiced very slowly making sure the blade is in the water . The temptation is to go too fast and never notice that the reason it's not working is none of the blade is in the water for correction

 

[Canotrouge]

One thing I would like to add in regards of what yellowcanoe said about "slow" is, sometime newish paddler tend to over correct or lack the anticipation. If you go slow, like real slow, that gives you time to think and react. So after each stroke, pause for a "second" see what the boat does and then adjust. In the sit and switch style, keep in mind that you have, like all of us a stronger side and that will make a difference as well as any difference in blade pitch from stroke to stroke can and will make a difference!

Like Glenn said it is not the boat. I paddled a lots of different boats in 40 years I've paddled and some of them 10' ww play boat and some 20 foot cruiser, some with no rocker to talk about and some (like the one in my profile picture) with heck of a lot of rocker and all of them can go straight, even the one with the most rocker can use a few forward stroke before a correction!

An other thing to keep in mind, is to look where you anatto go... Not at your paddle!!

 

[gumpus]

You just have a responsive canoe that obeys the paddle. I agree with everyone's comments. Remember "stacked hands"...meaning keep the paddle shaft vertical during the stroke to minimize the turning effect. Then you might try very short strokes up by your front thwart...practice tilting the blade so you gently pull the bow towards your paddle side as you initiate the stroke. 6 inch strokes. Once you can start the stroke that way it should be easier to complete a c stroke to keep the boat going straight.

 

[deerfly]

and if you have scratches on the bottom it will be harder to correct the yaw, but no one is sure how much harder, just harder... sorry I couldn't help myself

 

[gumpus]

and if you have scratches on the bottom it will be harder to correct the yaw, but no one is sure how much harder, just harder... sorry I couldn't help myself

OK deerfly, responsibility for scratch topic officially and happily transferred to you

 

[Guest]

ha, ha! To clarify moving the paddle straight back does not mean following the curve of the side of the canoe. paddle softer is also great advice. it is much harder to go straight when paddling harder.

 

[yellowcanoe]

OK deerfly, responsibility for scratch topic officially and happily transferred to you

He's just cruising to be the object of a flyswatter!

 

[Iskweo]

I use a lot of hit and switch when solo but it is not always evenly done side to side. 2 and 1, 3 and 1, 3and 2, what ever works. And yeah, slow down and get the hang of keeping the boat straight. If single siding then short strokes and drag the paddle to rudder if you need to. Not viciously from side to side, gently.

Slow it down and learn to be one with the canoe. My GF niece is like that...too hard in her strokes and wanders all over. The slightest bit of wind defeats her totally.

The only way is to paddle. Make some time for nice evening trips.

Christy

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

HERE is a list of all the ACA certified instructors in the USA, by state.

 

[cflcanoe]

Since you are new to a dedicated solo you are starting learning all over again. I am kind of wondering If you are paddling the Yellowstone by muscle memory or habit the same way you did the Old Town Guide 147. The corrective strokes should cause much larger reaction in the Yellowstone than the Old Town Guide 147.

Let me put it this way. Last Sunday we took the Bell Starfire out for a little spin. The first sharp turn into a side channel was eye opening. Half a corrective power stroke with a bent shaft in the stern with no help from the bow had us turned at speed at a ninety degree angle. To do this in a Mohawk Blazer takes the bow and stern working together in one stroke. The Bell Northstar two strokes form each the bow and stern. We known this turn very well. Wife stated that a new to canoeing person would hate the Starfire as they would have to fight to keep it straight. But we did it. How. Practice and experience in other tandems. When we were back at the launch she wanted to try freestlye tricks. I was not ready and comfortable yet to do that. Soon with practice we will be. Think of it this way the Guide is a large station wagon while the Yellowstone is a small sporty convertible. Stearing and breaks work the same but way more responsive in one than the other.

Is the Yellowstone set up for kneeling? Do you sit closer too the floor in the Guide? In a close cousin to your Yellowstone a Bell Wildfire dropping the seat 5/8" of an inch with spacers from its kneeling height makes a huge difference in the way the Wildfire feels when sitting. Most of the time the higher you sit the more twitchy the canoe feels.

 

[goonstroke]

One short bit to add to the firehose of advice: try to find a windless place to practice. The wind affects a solo canoe differently than a tandem paddled solo, and that can cause confusion and irreproducability.

 

[lowangle al]

I just took my Mohawk Solo 13 out for a short paddle after years of only paddling tandems and was surprised at how responsive it was and how my correction strokes had to be very subtle. As others have said you probably over corrected. For my formula to become an expert paddler and tripper all you need is three books, three videos and paddle 3000 miles. A shorter version would be three books, three videos, three lessons and paddle 300 miles. Keep in mind that you can become proficient in a couple days or even hours and have fun from the get go, but when you think you're good wait ten years and reevaluate.

 

[yellowcanoe]

Until someone makes Alexa useful videos and books don't give you feedback. Time and time again I have had students frustrated because they read books looked at videos thought they had it right and yet things weren't working. Five minutes with a coach instructor or better than you are paddler can be illuminating.
You have a squad of helpers here. Perhaps post a video

 

[Canotrouge]

The best advises here are from the people that told you to paddle. get out there and paddle, paddle some more. It can take years, even with a good coach to perfect just the forward stroke. Just go paddling!!