The extended lower arm also catches my eye. As paddle enters water, the arm is not just straight. There is hunger in that reach. Joints of elbow, shoulder, and wrist almost appear to separate bone from bone in a grasp for another inch of water. It is just that difference that will win the race. It’s reaching not only from the shoulder. The body reaches too, from the hips, with the upper torso rotated.
Then the caterpillar power-wave. The strongest paddlers finish with the top hand still shoulder high, and driving straight forward in a salute to the finish line. Lower elbow bends, pointed straight astern, to power the blade out of the water still perfectly parallel with the keel.
From the back of a 6-person team, you see torsos leaning out on both sides, like a colorful, muscled fan. The lower shoulder stays out there, joined by the top hand to make the paddle shaft vertical through the stroke.
The 6th person steers, as there is no other steering mechanism. Some steer with power strokes. Some pry. I saw one team with an exceptionally large steersman enjoying his ride while occasionally dipping in a rudder stroke here and there. Perhaps an outrigger version of weight training.
I know that when I kayak long distances and begin to tire, the finer awareness of direction begins to suffer. Subtle strategies for taking best advantage of conditions give way to slogging. Stubbornness takes over from technique. The brain is the first to go, while the body can continue on autopilot for a long time. In the 6-person outrigger, the steering brain is literally separate from the power body. I can see advantages in this. In competition I’d think you want a lightweight one with enough strength and experience to give the power bodies a course to their advantage.
I haven’t watched solo outrigger paddlers with such raw interest, mostly out of shyness. Do they get their shoulder out over the water on the side opposite the outrigger? It must shift back on the recovery part of the stroke at least.
Today I got my chance to try. In my sea kayak, playing on the shoulder of a reef break full of Tahitians enjoying their Saturday, I met a couple outrigger paddlers. One eventually offered to trade boats for a try, in the calmer water. No matter that we hardly had a few words in common. We had paddles in common, and sign language.
I demonstrated a kayak roll. He pointed to his green outrigger and shook his head. I promised to try not to flip it. Fine when you’re paddling on the left, the side with the nearly weightless outrigger. Twice on the right, at the end of a stroke, the outrigger lifted from the water. Twice an instinctive low brace and a shift of the hips brought it back into submission.
He said I was doing well. “Good! Maitai roa!” He had to work to keep up in my Romany. His learning curve was equally fun to watch. From twitchy hips to playing with edges in 10 minutes. Straight arms were a natural. Rotation initially less so, but his pace got to be more of a challenge to match once his rotation became fluid, about 15 minutes. The Romany had a distinct lift to the bow as he tried to exceed hull speed. Velocity really is a key ingredient to paddling around here.
