- Joined
- Jul 6, 2021
- Messages
- 643
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- 559
I gave it a shot going upstream through a stretch of shallows, including ascending, or at least attempting to ascend, one rocky riffle.
The push poles seemed to be a good length, but a couple things were quickly apparent. Macfarlane’s Lutra or Sylva are 30” wide at gunwales and the soloized Explorer is considerably beamier. Even with arms held wide I needed to plant the push poles angled further out /O\ than close to the hull nearer vertical, and was unable to put much upper body into it; like arm paddling a canoe it was quickly tiring.
Kneeling vs seated made little difference, other than to make my knees hurt when kneeling and having a little better pole angle when seated with more elevation.
No doubt my lack of technique was a factor, but I don’t think it works very well with a wider canoe. YMMV, I was spent after struggling for 50 yards upstream, mostly in slow moving shallows.
I’ll continue to bring a single short push pole on every trip, for the occasional shallows push off, hiking staff, spare tarp pole and tee-grip grabber assist, but in that simplified guise will most often bring one of the longer 5’ push poles, which makes a better hiking staff or auxiliary tarp pole.
FWIW I did use softwood dowels for a couple of the shortie poles; in limited use it made no difference. For a single multi-use 5’ pole hardwood may have advantages.
The push poles seemed to be a good length, but a couple things were quickly apparent. Macfarlane’s Lutra or Sylva are 30” wide at gunwales and the soloized Explorer is considerably beamier. Even with arms held wide I needed to plant the push poles angled further out /O\ than close to the hull nearer vertical, and was unable to put much upper body into it; like arm paddling a canoe it was quickly tiring.
Kneeling vs seated made little difference, other than to make my knees hurt when kneeling and having a little better pole angle when seated with more elevation.
No doubt my lack of technique was a factor, but I don’t think it works very well with a wider canoe. YMMV, I was spent after struggling for 50 yards upstream, mostly in slow moving shallows.
I’ll continue to bring a single short push pole on every trip, for the occasional shallows push off, hiking staff, spare tarp pole and tee-grip grabber assist, but in that simplified guise will most often bring one of the longer 5’ push poles, which makes a better hiking staff or auxiliary tarp pole.
FWIW I did use softwood dowels for a couple of the shortie poles; in limited use it made no difference. For a single multi-use 5’ pole hardwood may have advantages.