Canoe/Tent partners

[Buffalo Skipper]

I am looking for some ideas on how other troops pair their boating partners when canoeing. Do you put an older more experienced scout with a younger scout? Do you keep all partners in patrol groups? Do your canoe partners also share a tent?

[scoutingagain]

I don't know that there are right or wrong answers. Here's what we have done in the past.

 

1. Do you put older more experienced scout with a younger scout?

Yes. On the water safety is highest priority. Pair up to facillitate highest level of on the water safety and performance.

 

2. Because of 1 above, partrol groups are not necessarily kept together, mainly because we have mostly age based patrols.(Not that I like that, but that the way it is.)

 

3. No, Canoe partners do not necessarliy mean tent partners. When camping ashore we try to maintain patrols.

 

SA

 

[GernBlansten]

NTiers: the boys broke into teams of three for tenting and shared a common gear pack. That didn't change for the whole trek. The tent assignment had nothing to do with canoe assignments.

At the beginning of the trek, the most experienced paddlers took the stern with the less experienced swapping between paddling and duffing. Each day they would mix it up between canoes. For that day, they stayed in the canoe they started in because they would get a system for the portages. The first portage of the day always took longer as each figured out their role. By mid trek, most had paddled in all positions.

By the end of the trek, every scout had paddled every position, carried every piece of gear. Some carried the canoes more than others but only due to the fact they were bigger and taller.

[Buffalo Skipper]

Great info! Thanks. Next question, and this applies to non canoeing campouts as well. Assuming that patrols work out tent-partners, can/do patrols switch partners on a whim? Ours want to do this every night (and I don't like it, but I am not sure what to do about it without stepping in).

 

We have a fairly young troop, with mostly small scouts (6th and 7th graders). We will have a .2 mile portage on our next trip, and several experienced adults have expressed concerns to me about handling this. It just so happens that the portage will be with the overnight. We will have council owned 15' and 17' aluminum canoes.

 

Our warm-up trip last weekend went well (mostly 7th graders). It was on a swift river (3-4 mph current with no white water) which was afoul with hurricane debris from 4 years ago. We only had to pull canoes once (not a real portage), and in spite of many obstacles and obstructions, we had no capsizes. Beautiful river--almost no people, no development and NO garbage; truly pristine. Our next river will be longer but with no obstructions and with prepared, state park run primitive campsites, also with little development outside of one town it runs through.

[GKlose]

Buff' -- on an Allagash trek (Maine National High Adventure Area), years ago, we had several portages, one of which was very long. As I recall, something close to 5 miles. It was to happen the start of the next morning, but our camp was on the "near side" of the portage. When we rolled into camp the afternoon before, our guide took the 5 strongest guys and did the canoe portage (six canoes). I was with the leftovers and my job was to get the camp set up and dinner started. The next morning, we humped everything else.

 

We were all very thankful we didn't have to hump canoes and packs the next morning. I wasn't ever very good at balancing a canoe, but on a couple portages, I remember wearing two packs -- smaller one on the front, and a larger one on the back.

 

Our canoe groupings were different than tent groupings, but everything stayed the same over the course of the trek.

 

Guy

[eisely]

I agree with the other responses. Pairing up paddling partners has nothing to do with who shares a tent with whom. Basic safety is pairing up stronger more experienced paddlers with less strong and less experienced paddlers.

 

This can sometimes create problems with the trim of the canoes when loaded. Typically the senior paddler is in the stern. If that person is an adult or an older scout, the weight difference between the bow and stern paddlers can be 100 lbs or more. Since the stern paddler is closer to the stern than the bow paddler is to the bow, the effect of this weight difference is further accentuated. You can end up with the canoe trimmed noticeably down by the stern. Sometimes that does not matter, or even possibly be preferable. However I try to emphasize putting as much of the heavier gear forward of the mid ship thwart to try to offset this weight difference as much as possible.(This message has been edited by eisely)

[Knot Head]

Same as the above. We pair experience with lack thereof to get safe pairs in a canoe.

 

We let the patrol leader work out the tent assignments. Adults only get involved if the PL and then SPL can't get it worked out. If the PL & SPL agree to let them switch partners each night that is up to them.

 

[mmhardy]

Let me ask my son who is a Charlie Guide at NTier right now. He just finished his 6th trek and can offer current insight. He is on base today so may be able to reply b4 his next assignment.

[Eagle92]

In the 2 fifty milers I did via canoe I always had the weakest member of the expedition, and in both cases they were not my tentmate. One was a BSA trip to Canada and I tented with a friend from my home troop who was also on the trip. The second time was training for a "hoods in da woods" program, and my canoe partner was female, so it was definately out of the question.

[John-in-KC]

Long, long ago my Explorer post did a holiday weekend trip on the lower Colorado River. We put in at Needles, CA, overnighted on a sandbar by the Santa Fe railroad trestle at Topock, and we came out I think at Road's End Camp on the California side.

 

For that trip, we were all relatively new to canoeing; we did the ARC Basic Canoeing course at Marina Del Rey to put us on the commong grid.

 

The trip was co-ed; there was a GSUSA group of teens who were part of the trip.

 

All of us had Swimming and Lifesaving MBs (while there were no Eagles among us, all the boys were experienced Scouts), the girls had similar basic skills.

 

For boating pairs, we buddied off naturally, with the adults rotating through boats at each break, so there was some shifting.

 

I still remember how dead the water was on Lake Havasu, after having had a current for most of the float. I thought being a 400 freestyle swimmer caused me to have good arms. Wrongo.

[Chief Decorah]

Buffalo Skipper,

 

To answer your question about groups switching tent partners "on a whim", I don't see that as a problem. I would keep a watchful eye to make sure there isn't someone getting slighted by the constant switching, but all-in-all, I believe it builds patrol or crew comaradarie and you have a stronger group.

 

If they'd rather pick tent partners and stick with them for the trip, that's obviously fine, too.(This message has been edited by Chief Decorah)

[asm 411]

When we were at Tinnerman Canoe Base in the beginning of the month some of the Scouts switched up canoe partners while others did not. Everyone kept the same tent partner for the week. The Scouts did not really seem to care much in either case.

 

I would let Scouts sort it out. If you notice that one canoe is always way ahead and another always way behind I would work through the SPL or PL and have the fast canoe teach the slow canoe how to paddle correctly.

 

As for tenting don't spend another second thinking about, the Scouts can certainly handle that on their own.

[mmhardy]

Here is a response from from a Northern Tier Guide.

 

I would put an experienced with an inexperienced, this way the experienced can A-Steer and have the newb power or B-depending on how many are in the canoe possibly duff and explain how to steer and give some hands on instruction

 

I would not put newbs with newbs, if they don't understand what they are doing they are often slow, tippy, "mile hogs... Read More" (in otherwords they are adding miles because the cant stay straight and thus zig-zag) and get tired more quickly because they are exerting the same amount of energy to get half the result (because of the lack of experience)

 

When it comes to being able to canoe well the front person needs to have a good technique and power. The Rear person needs to know how to steer, just keep the boat straight WITHOUT RUDDER (rudder is not steering). When it pairing people up, however, it is better to have someone who is experienced in steering as opposed to the power. You may go slower but you'll go straight, which in the long run means faster.

[Mooseman]

In my experience I would also try to put parents and their scouts in separate canes, at least for the first two days. This alleviates tensions when people have not paddled much.

 

I would also suggest switching canoe partners around on longer trips (more than 3 days). one canoe will always lag and it will create bad feelings between canoes if you don't switch things up.

[asm 411]

I think the lagging canoe and bad feelings thing depends on the crew. During the trip I mentioned above two Scouts were typically lagging pretty far behind initially. Everyday the others gave helpful advice/instruction on how to do things a better. By the end of the week our overall speed was much quicker than when started and the group paddled in a tighter group. The guys who were the laggers ended up doing fine. Of course I could see how with a different group things could go as you described.