Draw Stroke

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Key Points Posture (Upright and Faces Work) Vertical Paddle Angle Both Hands Over Water In Water Recovery (Top Thumb Points Away) Heel (Boat Dependent) The Boat Moves Evenly Abeam

There are four main methods of moving a boat sideways: the draw, sculling draw, draw on the move and the hanging draw.
The draw stroke is the one to use for making the kayak move laterally. Without it, moving your boat sideways (say you want to get closer to another boat to whisper sweet nothings in his or her ear) becomes a matter of doing all kinds of sweep strokes, forward and backward strokes to try to jockey into position. Looks kind of silly and unprofessional. With a nice draw stroke you can really impress others and look cool at the same time.

Let’s start by defining a couple of terms: A dynamic stroke is where the kayaker moves the paddle to make the kayak go through the water and a static stroke is where the paddle is just placed in the water and held there while the movement of the boat (while at speed) does the turning action. There are different dynamic draw strokes that you can use, any one of which will do just fine.
Out of water recovery
In the water recovery
Sculling draw

There is also a static draw stroke (hanging draw) which is applied when your kayak is in motion. This moves the boat on a 45 degree angle and takes a lot of practice to perform it effectively. This will not be covered in this article.

The idea behind the draw stroke as well as every other stroke, is to imagine the blade being placed in molasses or thick mud. Do not think of pulling the paddle toward you. Plant the paddle in this ‘mud’ and lever your kayak towards it.

Out of water recovery
Starting Position. The blade is placed fully into the water, out from the boat but in the vicinity of the hips, Keep the power face in and the lower arm fully extended. The body is straight with the torso twisted toward the ‘draw’ side. The upper forearm is held in a comfortable position next to the forehead and over the opposite gunwale (right arm over left gunwale for example) and should form a ‘window’ to look out of.

Keeping the upper hand from moving, pull or ‘draw’ the boat towards the paddle using only the lower arm. The lower elbow should be kept close to the body. Once the shaft is next to the hull, slice the blade toward the stern and raise it out of the water. Place it away from the boat again in the starting position and repeat the process. If you pull directly toward you, the boat moves sideways but if you pull slightly toward the bow or stern, it is possible to sideslip the kayak.

In the water recovery
Another way to perform this magic is to keep the blade in the water for the duration. The starting position is the same, however, after the kayak is drawn next to the paddle you rotate the blade 90 degrees so that the blade is perpendicular to the kayak Now you can push the paddle out from the boat again, rotate 90 degrees and repeat the movement. If you fail to turn the blade on the recovery, you will probably capsize and this may be a part of the learning process for you. Remember, whether you do something correctly or do it all wrong, you learn something either way.

See sculling draw, draw on the move and the hanging draw.