Ski Tilt Relative to Sea Surface

I realised the other day I had developed a bias in my stroke and was paddling my ski with a few degrees of tilt away from the vertical favouring the left side. As I set about identifying the source of the error (was it a non-symmetric paddle stroke, seating position or leg action) I started to wonder what the ideal angle of the ski relative to the water surface should be at the start of the stroke and at the end of a stroke.

I’ve seen some paddlers start a right stroke with their ski tilted right, and others start a right stroke with the ski tilted left. Have a look at a front on picture of a kayak or ski race.

I’m assuming the ideal answer is to keep the ski as close to upright as possible throughout the stroke and consequently minimise drag by limiting hull contact with the water.

However in practice I presume there is likely to be a natural roll of the ski through a number of degrees, with the ski tilted to the stroke side at the end of a stroke (leg pressure decreasing), the ski moving towards upright during the recovery phase (leg pressure neutral), and the ski tilting slightly to the stroke side from the catch onwards (leg pressure increasing).

Given the mid-winter lack of activity I thought some paddle guru might have the answers. Otherwise I will need to do some sea trials on this which may incidentally see me trialling the 180 degree tilt.

Surf skis longer length make them far less reactive than any paddling craft on flat water.
They can easily be kept upright without any appreciable tilt or paddling induced rocking motion.

If you are tilting one way, I would suspect a leg length discrepancy or a bit of scoliosis in the back.

The upside of a tippy skinny rounded hull, is that it also doesn't follow the tilt of a wave as much as a wider flat bottomed vessel.

One of the reasons I still believe, that if you are going to end up on an elite ski, get one straight up, because they have a different dynamic to a wider flatter bottomed one; you might as well learn the dynamic from the beginning, instead of building up false confidence in a wide boat and then having to learn all over again in the elite boat.

But I'm not an expert or a guru, just someone with an inquisitive mind.

Rightarmbad wrote:

If you are tilting one way, I would suspect a leg length discrepancy or a bit of scoliosis in the back.

Not long ago someone pointed out to me that I was tipping slightly to the right when paddling, at the time I just put it down to poor technique and core.

I have been doing a lot of running and cycling recently and my hammies have been super tight, so when I jumped in my ski on Monday I was really feeling it, but strangley my right leg felt different.

I had adjusted the leg length on Saturday for someone else to paddle the ski and thought I must have put the footplate back into position without being lined up.

Upon checking the same number of holes was there but when I looked really close the actual whole sliding assembly on one side was sitting about 4mm further forward that the other....I know 4mm doesnt sound a lot but I could certainly feel it and it could be why I was tipping the ski on leg drive. I dont know if it has moved since I bought it and dont know how it's secured so will ask the Carbonology guys.

Rightarmbad wrote:

One of the reasons I still believe, that if you are going to end up on an elite ski, get one straight up, because they have a different dynamic to a wider flatter bottomed one; you might as well learn the dynamic from the beginning, instead of building up false confidence in a wide boat and then having to learn all over again in the elite boat.

Ahh this old chestnut I have to disagree, firstly while one may intend on ending up being on a elite level ski it comes back to the individuals level of fitness and amount of training they are prepared to do. How will they know they will eventually be able to paddle the ski, if they take your advice and cant they will lose money on the changeover to a more stable ski or just give up completely.

Look at me, I am mad keen but cant do any more than 2-3 seesions in the ski most weeks. I couldnt master a V10L in 9 months on top of 15 months in a V10 sport in downwind condtions. There are plenty of elite level skis being sold by people who just couldnt master them.

One of our locals who is just returning to the sport (he was a junior SLSC champ on a ski) bought a Think Uno and he spent a lot of time swimming on saturday in rather benign conditions while the rest of us were having a hoot surfing very clean swell rolling through near the coast. He is determined to master it, but at what cost of actually enjoying yourself.

Theres another guy in our group who after about 12 months of us telling him to, has decided to sell his V10L as he wouldnt follow us out of the estuary and into the ocean. Now he realises he's missing out on the fun and is swallowing his pride to get a more stable boat, he has been in the V10L over 2 years!

Thanks for the thoughts guys.

I suspect I'm clearing one hip a little less than the other through my leg drive, which is along the lines of some of your suggestions. I'll need another run or two to pin it down.

I won't head this more into the old chestnut of stability vs speed, nevertheless I personally like the challenge of improving a skill, so consider that working with a ski you can build your technique on is generally a good thing.

I'm still interested to know if there is any theory as to how the ski rotation from the vertical should work in the ideal stroke.

As an aside, rightarmbad, I would have bet a few dollars you would be championing paddling on the left side as a good idea?

AGA wrote:

I won't head this more into the old chestnut of stability vs speed, nevertheless I personally like the challenge of improving a skill, so consider that working with a ski you can build your technique on is generally a good thing.

Just call me thread hijacker

I just bought an old cheap K1 for the stability challenge you speak of and hope that I will show such improvement that I can start to lift my seat height in the Vault using padding. I am flying in my Vault now and think that the logical progression is to raise the seat height.

I am about to get a oregon scientific camera for my birthday and look forward to recording my technique for others to pull part

Believe it or not, it is normal to have a minor degree of assymtery between the two sides of the body.eg R handed people obvioulsy being dominant in terms of strength and fine motor control of the R arm etc. However the concept extends further- the two sides of the body don't mirror one another the other (the R side of your face does not mirror the L).

Relatively subtle differences will inevitably exist in stride and gait and shoulder rotation as well. And for those w crook shoulders- there has to be some compensation required of alternative muscles, the contralateral side and trunk rotation to keep the boat moving straight forward.

I used to lean to one side pretty bad and I eventually traced it to stroke asymmetry. I was drawing the blade close to the hull on the right, and letting it track out to the side on the left. Which made me lean left for various reasons that are hard to describe in a post. When I focus on keeping my bottom arm straight on the right during the power phase and letting the blade track out away from the hull, the lean goes away.

Boat tilt: I used to lean the ski towards my drive side during the power phase. So during a stroke on the right, the right side of the ski drops down toward the water. I did this because that's what it looked like the K1 guys were doing on youtube videos. In rough water however I was really unstable trying to maintain that rhythm. Basically, you're putting all your stability eggs in the same basket, because you're sitting on the secondary stability on the same side as your stroke. So if you're hitting a stroke on the right, and something kicks your ski over to the left, you have nothing at all to keep you from swimming besides a flailing brace stroke. An additional negative factor is that this pattern makes the ski yaw side to side like a snake slithering through the water since leaning right makes the hull turn left, and if you combine that with your stroke on the same side it really makes the nose of the ski skid from side to side.

So for the hell of it I switched my rhythm to the opposite pattern: Now I let my drive heel push the ski over onto the opposite edge, so at the end of a stroke on the right, the left side is down. This seems to have a few advantages. First, your catch is now hitting next to the low side of the cockpit which lets you get closer to centerline. As you drive with your heel and drop the opposite side, the ski wants to turn back toward your power side which feels really connected and solid. And most importantly, in rough water, you now have stability on both sides, between your stroke and the righting force of the hull. If you're hitting on the right, the ski is pressing against the secondary stability on the left, and it feels really centered, it just nestles down happily between the force of your stroke and the pressure against the hull on the opposite side.

In flat water I keep the boat pretty centered. In sloppy water I deliberately kick the hull from side to side so that I'm always using the secondary stability and therefore less vulnerable to unexpected forces. Downwind I tilt the boat however I need to help with the steering. If I need to go left, I tilt right and vice versa.

I also have found my ski leans to the left side considerably at some points. Some of this i find is due to tiredness.

After consulting with my coach he said it is most probably due to my left leg being weaker then my right and not being able to keep the ski upright when the paddle is going through the first part of the stroke where the most force should be exerted.

I ride a carbon fenn elite, but have only been riding for 6 months as im from a surf lifesaving background and paddled a spec ski.

i never noticed it in my spec ski, but this is probably due to the shape of the hull and reduced rocker.

To combat this lean to the left i think a pure technique session once a week should help accompanied with some gym work to make sure both sides are equally strong as if one side is stronger then this can also lead to injury!

It is striking that each person so far who has experienced a bit of non-symmetrical ski tilt has found the excess lean happening on the left side. Certainly suggests the lack of symmetry is a product of being stronger on the right side which would be natural for right handers and perhaps even lefties using right control paddles.

The comment on drawing the right arm in rather than letting it track out rings a bell for me, as I was getting a better result correcting for the same issue recently.

Patrick’s analysis on the ski tilt through the stroke opens up the key point of this thread. There are volumes written on the internet on the stability of various skis but very little on the technique of controlling stability through the stroke. You can put this down to human nature: the tendency to change the equipment rather than the harder task of mastering the technique.

Stability on a ski is largely about balancing the forces of the paddle stroke against the positioning of the ski and body. So I am fascinated to see for almost the first time some discussion on the technique of combining the two as successfully as possible.

Within the paddle stroke I believe there are “strong” positions for stability and “weak” positions. A stable paddler maximises the strong positions in the stroke and minimises the weak positions.

A “strong” position for example occurs at the catch phase, with the body weight slightly forward, maximum pressure running all the way from the heel of the driving leg to the bum in the seat, and a good resistance from the paddle with the wing fully immersed in the water and the arm pulling backwards.

In this “strong” position, almost any kind of sea can strike you, and the ski will (usually) hold a firm and stable line through.

A “weak” position occurs at the exit and in the recovery phase at the point where leg drive is transferring from one leg to the other (limited leg pressure) and the paddle is out of the water (no resistance). In a weak position the ski is more likely to be bounced around by the sea action.

Factors that minimise time spent in the weak positions includes maintaining a consistent stroke (especially as the conditions get rougher), ensuring the exit is early and ahead of the hips, and driving the paddle into the catch phase of the next stroke regardless of what the sea is throwing at you.

Patrick’s comments on the ski angle suggest he can accentuate that “strong” position for stability by angling the ski fractionally away from the drive side at each stroke, and that angling the ski towards the drive side at the catch may create a “weaker” position.

Interesting this left lean bit. My body is definately not symmetrical, in fact my right leg is much shorter than my left and my right leg (because of stainless implants)weighs much more than my left leg. For some reason I have also noticed a tendancy to lean left slightly. But what really puzzles me is this: because of my medical condition I can only re-mount from the right hand side of the ski and I virtually never go over (swim) on the right hand side! Almost without exception if I go for a swim it will be on the left hand side. Try as I may I can't work out why.

AGA-good points and I will add for consideration that the stabilizing effect of the "strong" catch IMHO also includes engaging the Abs and Quadratus Lumborum and Psoas to "side crunch" and connect through to hips to stabilize and control roll (tilt is not the correct term). although not as extreme in the extent of lateral flexion , this is the same action that results in "hipsnap" in a C to C roll (whitewater and sea kayakers should know this well !) Of course this all connects through to leg drive which is useless unless engaged thrpough the hips.IMHO leg drive is about putting the hips in a better rotated (as opposed to tilted) position to engage.

I headed out on the weekend to see how much roll occurs across the course of a normal stroke, and see where it was best to position the ski at the start of the stroke.

The conclusion: the amount of roll in most strokes was surprisingly small to the point of being negligible and keeping the ski as close to neutral as possible at the catch seemed to work well. (Conditions: sea swell / light wind chop / boat wake combo.)

So long as I could get to a solid position of stability at the catch, with the weight firmly on the drive side heel, and a good tension running from the heel to the bum in the seat, the ski could comfortably hold that line through the stroke with most of the force of the stroke working in line with the ski direction (rather than too much force going side to side).

I won’t rule out Patrick’s thought that allowing a degree or two away from the drive side at the start mightn’t add a touch more stability in messier conditions, (it would seem to create a bit of a brace on each side of the ski – the force of the ski to one side and the force of the paddle on the other), but I’m guessing the degree or two would have to be slight.

I’m putting the few degrees of tilt to one side I had experienced a week ago down to my reaction to the conditions. The prevailing wind for half a dozen sessions had been coming from my left, and I must have grooved my action accordingly and lightened up my right heel pressure relative to the left.

This weekend I strengthened up my right side pressure on my right strokes – both the right heel pressure and the pressure into the right side of the seat. By ensuring the leg to hip tension was the same on both a left and right stroke I was getting the hips clearing symmetrically on both sides and the boat position in the water was nicely neutral most of the time.

I'm about to get a new GPS/HR monitor gadget that has a bunch of other features included - such as accelerometers. This means that you can use it to measure cadence (apparently) by attaching it to your arm. But it will also measure tilt. So I should be able to share just how unstable I am and how much I roll the ski as I paddle.

Anyway, I'll be posting a piece at some point and will be sure to try out roll-measurement.