If you think you need a floral shirt, bleached hair and Californian accent to surf you are wrong. Surfable standing waves form whenever fast-flowing water meets a slower current on a river. When you position your canoe on the sweet spot of a wave the force of gravity pulling your canoe down the wave and the force of the water pushing your canoe back up the wave balance out. When that happens, all you have left to do is hang ten.
- Set up facing upstream beside the surfing wave and leave the eddy as if you are intending to ferry across the river.
- As gravity draws your bow into the trough the stern paddler should rudder to keep the canoe parallel to the current so the bow isn’t swept downstream. The bow paddler should provide power to keep the canoe from being pushed downstream.
- If you are in danger of sliding off the back of the wave, lean forward to increase the canoe’s speed down the wave. If the bow is diving too deeply into the trough, back off by weighting the back of the canoe.
- The stern paddler rudders to hold the canoe in the parallel surf position. The bow paddler uses forward strokes or draws to maintain position on the wave’s sweet spot and keep the bow upstream.
- When all forces acting on your canoe are balanced you can surf the wave effortlessly while the river roars by.
This article first appeared in the Early Summer 2007 issue of Canoeroots Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Canoeroots’ print and digital editions here.
