Turtle,
Glenn,
Thanks for the detailed response. By "low seat", I meant sit-on-the-hull pack-boat style seating. "High seat" was for a standard canoe-style seat.
I found your recommendation to acquire a bent shaft paddle very intriguing. I've read that a bent shaft is more efficient going forward, but it's not as good for maneuvering. I was thinking I'd add a bent shaft later on along with one or more "animal tail" style paddles. Your recommendation to start off buying a bent shaft suggests there's more difference between a straight and bent shaft paddle than I imagined. I have also assumed that I need at least a modest amount of experience paddling in order to properly appreciate the different styles of paddles. As for not purchasing a double blade paddle right at the start, no worries there -- I suspect the boat and required accessories are going to consume all my available funds.
I have been reading the book Paddle Your Own Canoe by the McGuffins and it has provided good instructions for the basic strokes, but not the pitch stroke, palm-rolled Indian, or hit and switch. I haven't finished the book yet, so those may be buried somewhere near the back. But with regards to hit and switch, I have gotten the impression from the book that I should just stick with paddling on my strong side and cross-paddle as needed. I plan to evaluate that assumption after I've gotten a boat and can be out there, but there is the risk of unintentionally cementing a bad habit.
Jim, if you're going to get a pack canoe, which is nothing more than an undecked kayak, I'd just stick with the double blade and forget all about serious single blading.
However, if you're going to get a solo canoe, then you have to become serious about single blade technique.
In the broadest generality, there are two different single blade techniques: single-sided correction stroking and hit & switch stroking (aka sit 'n switch, Minnesota switch, North American touring technique). You can become proficient in either technique -- and each technique prefers a different type of hull and paddle -- or you can become proficient in both.
Before discussing the techniques, I'll comment on paddling straight and paddling with turning control.
99% of the time I paddle on lakes and slow rivers I'm paddling paddling straight ahead and don't care about turning control. In my opinion, the most efficient paddle for going straight is a 12 degree bent shaft paddle. And that's true whether I'm kneeling, which is 93% of the time, or sitting, which is 7% of the time. A skilled paddler can have sufficient turn control with a bent shaft on any flat or slow moving water. The only time I strongly prefer a straight shaft paddle is in very twisty streams, very swift rivers or definitely in whitewater, because turn control and sideslipping are equally as or more important than forward propulsion in those kinds of waters. I also go to a straight paddle for freestyle play and just for a change of pace. These comments all apply when I am using single-sided correction stroke paddling technique.
Other skilled single-sided correction stroke paddlers prefer straight shafts over bent shafts even on flat water. Sometimes they will argue that it's harder to correct yaw with a bent shaft than a straight shaft. I agree with that theoretically, but it makes no difference to me in practice. I have adapted my correction strokes so bent vs. straight shaft is immaterial for correction, and I'm convinced that bents are more efficient and less tiring for straight ahead paddling, which, as I said, is what I do 99% of the time.
When I am using hit & switch technique, I use bent paddles 100% of the time. And so does every CanAm canoe racer and outrigger canoe racer in the world.
Now, on to technique and the importance of cross strokes and ambidexterity:
Single-sided correction stroke technique.
You really must learn this for functional and aesthetic reasons because it's so elegant, whereas hit & switch paddling is repetitively boring albeit effective. While you will always have a dominant side, you must learn the cross-forward and cross-draw strokes; otherwise, you will never be truly effective in moving water, much less whitewater. However, you should also become competent, if not actually ambidextrous, paddling on your offside. For this is what you will do half the time in hit & switch paddling, and what you will do with any technique when you're paddling into quartering headwind coming from your on-side.
You can correct off-side bow yaw at any of the four stages of the forward stroke -- catch, pull, finish or recovery:
1. At the catch and initial pull with a slight bow draw ---> the C stroke
2. During the power phase pull with an angled blade ---> the pitch stroke
3. At the end of the power phase but before the recovery with an outward push-pry ---> the J stroke
4. During a partial in-water return on the recovery phase ---> the Canadian stroke (or top-loaded forward slice return)
5. During a full in-water return in which the paddle never goes into the air ---> the Indian stroke with palm roll
You can also palm roll the Canadian stroke, which is the most effortless and elegant of the correction strokes, in my opinion. I use a combination of C and Canadian as my regular forward correction stroke regardless of whether I'm using a bent or straight shaft paddle. Sometimes I throw in a little pitch during the power pull. It all blends together automatically and autonomically when you have enough single-sided experience.
My favorite video on single-sided correction strokes remains Bill Mason's classic
Basic Solo Canoeing, which unfortunately doesn't call out the C stroke initial bow draw by name. "C stroke", as a name, seems to have been coined in the 70's by Mike Galt or Pat Moore.
Hit & switch stroke technique.
This is what all rank novices will reflexively do in order to stop a canoe from yawing to the off-side. They will switch hands clumsily, usually with heavy and much too long straight paddles.
All top canoe racers use hit & switch because it eliminates the drag effect from using a correction stroke. All the strokes are purely forward power. The correction is effected by switching hands every three to eight strokes -- depending on hull shape and skill level -- with lightning quick paddle side changes, using short and very light bent shaft paddles. What takes time to learn is the paddle exchange technique and the comfort in paddling half the time on your off-side.
If you're really driven to be single blade expert, you can also practice cross-strokes from your off-side, and thus become truly ambidextrous like Nolan Whitesell.
There are many books and videos on hit & switch (= racing = marathon C1) technique. Here's just one at random:
In sum, I recommend learning both techniques. I really only use hit & switch when going into wind or when going upstream in a swift current. But these are important and trying times, and they are precisely the times when many canoeists with be tempted to use double blades.
If you have a long paddling career, you can cycle through dozens of paddles like many of us have. I've now boiled it all down to two paddles, both carbon ZRE's. At 5-9 in height, the one I use for 85% of my paddling -- which 93% of the time is on my knees -- is a 48.5" bent shaft with an asymmetical ZRE Power Curve face. The other is a 57" straight shaft symmetical-faced ZRE Flatwater paddle, which has a very hard to find symmetrical grip so I can palm roll it. 57" is really about two or three inches too long for vanilla flatwater forward paddling, but the extra length is useful for whitewater and other high turn-control situations.
I'm anti-animal tail paddle because I don't like their overall weight, their blade-heavy balance or their excessive leverage arc in the water. In fairness, plenty of accomplished flatwater correction stroke paddlers disagree. But no one can elegantly hit & switch at a high stroke rate with a long-bladed animal tail paddle, and in wind and upstream travel the animalists are good candidates for seduction by the paganism of the double blade.
