Bow Pivots - Solo Canoeing

A bow pivot is done keeping the bow stem close to a single spot and rotating the canoe around that point (the length of the canoe follows a radial line). These can be done as a pair or a group of paddlers forming a large pinwheel.

The clips below starts with an overview of a bow pivot (onside or offside), then there are two different perspectives of the strokes, and then another overall perspective but from the bow.

Onside bow pivot

You will find the canoe tends to move 'backward' when doing a bow pivot so each forward scull should almost be a forward stroke. The canoe is not really moving backward but trying to go in a straight line (sideways) and you need to counteract this tendency. I think about this as if you are swinging a rock around on a string - you need to pull the string or the rock flies off in a radial direction.

Offside Bow Pivot

Try breaking the process for learning a bow pivot into in three steps:

You will find the canoe tends to move 'backward' when doing a bow pivot so each forward scull should be almost a forward stroke. The canoe is not moving backward but trying to go in a straight line (sideways), you need to counteract this tendency. I think about this as if you are swinging a rock around on a string - you need to pull the string or the rock flies off in a radial direction.

Some Older Video Clips:

Alternative pivots - part of a canoe clinic
Circle pivots - offside bow pivot, outside pivot circle
Circle pivots - onside bow pivot, outside pivot circle
Bow Pivot - onside/draw


Back to Home Page
Back to my Canoe Instruction WWW page

September 20, 2019