How do you turn a canoe?

Question

How do you turn a two passanger canoe. I have seen people do it both by stoking and by using the paddle as a rudder. Can anyone descibe how both are done. Please descride paddle position and stoking motion...

Answer 1

First of all, if you are the only one paddling in a canoe, if you just paddle on one side the canoe will turn to that side.  The force of the paddling is not in line with the canoe, it's off to the side, so it makes it turn by pulling it in that direction.

So if you're the only one paddling, you paddle a couple of strokes on one side and then a couple of strokes on the other side.  When you want to turn you just paddle on one side.

And there's another technique that's a little harder to explain, but it would be easy to show you if I had a paddle.  You can turn the paddle during the stroke to push it away from the canoe.  When you put the paddle in the water you start by pulling it back as normal, but at the end of the stroke you turn the paddle sideways and you push it away from the canoe just a bit.  This cancels out the pulling force with a pushing force, and allows you to steer the canoe while paddling on one side.  

When you need to turn sharper you paddle on one side or the other.

When two people are paddling, they paddle on opposite sides so the turning forces are balanced out.  The guy in the back does the steering by pushing his paddle sideways, one way or the other.  If they need to turn sharply they both paddle on the same side.

Answer 2

If you want to turn right, have the person in the rear of the canoe dip a paddle in the water on the right side, at an angle against the water.  They don't row it, just hold it through the turn.

Same thing on the left side if you want to turn left.

Answer 3

Canoes move very easily on the waters surface as they have no draft. If you paddle on one side but not the other, the canoe will move forward and turn opposite to the side your rowing on. If you just want to steer without paddling, use the oar like a rudder from either side of the canoe and stick it in the water blade up on edge and angled inboard to turn away from the canoe and outboard to turn to the canoe.