Canoe Trade Show Blog

 The Sweep Stroke
by Red Rock Store

This is the stroke I’m going to cal l# 2.5 with #1 being the J Stroke and #2 being the Draw Stroke.

This stroke is more helpful to the stern paddler if the bow paddler actually knows how to sweep right or sweep left. Critical to this stroke is the hand placement, namely how far you slide the paddle out for leverage and the depth of the paddle blade.

This stroke was impossible to photograph with my digital camera, but at least I can describe and show what it’s supposed to look like.

The end result of a Sweep Stroke is to push the bow away from the paddle and pull the stern towards the paddle. As you’ll see in the Sweep Stroke Paddling Instruction Pictures, I would be causing the stern of the canoe to be dragged towards the paddle.

As a stern paddler in a fierce wind, I would request a sweep left or sweep right from my bow paddler to force the bow the direction that I wanted to go. Also, in conjunction with my bow paddler who is sweeping on the the right, I would do a hard J Stroke on the left at the stern. This would cause the canoe to turn to the left quickly and with good power.

Because the Sweep Stroke only dunks half the paddle blade at an angle in the water and more or less “sweeps” with a large arc (accompanied by splashing sounds of water getting shoved out of the way of the paddle as it skims on top), the bow paddler may need to perform several fast sweeps. This is possible to do because the paddle is not deep in the water like with a regular stroke.

Learn the rest of the details and view the pictures on How to Paddle a Canoe - The Sweep Stroke