I too have paddled that section of the Potomac dozens of times—it’s always been fairly straightforward. So, I’m curious to know what was going on. Discounting unidentified phenomena such as alien tractor beams, seems there’s only three reasons you’d be going upstream: 1. you were paddling upstream. You’re an experienced canoeist, so let’s rule that out. 2. The current carried you upstream. Collectively with your group, we’ve paddled this hundreds of times and only experienced downstream current, so this seems unlikely. 3. The wind was pushing you upstream. Surely, you would have noticed the wind if it changed direction on you. Mystified, I’m guessing it was 1, which we already ruled out. Did you try not paddling to see where your boat would go? Wind and waves… a lot going on. The Breaks just downstream—don’t want to end up there. And it happened to all the boats, right? Doesn’t seem like the tiny, low-sitting kayaks would be much affected by wind, taking me back to 2, the current. Okay, I’ve gone around in a circle and can make no sense of it. Please post if you figure anything out.
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Happy Mathematics Day! ❌📐♾️
Ever have a downriver wind push you up river?
- Thread starter alsg
- Start date
If the wind was downstream then the current was doing the pushing. Large eddys can easily push a boat upstream.
alsg,
All of your lines point downstream. Wind, current, and anything else happening like tides act like vectors. One of your lines are off. Rivers like the Potomac are highly turbulent. I paddled it as a kid. in the 1960s. The currents maybe generally downstream, but there are plenty of eddys and boils which can push you upstream. This is not mysterious at all.
All of your lines point downstream. Wind, current, and anything else happening like tides act like vectors. One of your lines are off. Rivers like the Potomac are highly turbulent. I paddled it as a kid. in the 1960s. The currents maybe generally downstream, but there are plenty of eddys and boils which can push you upstream. This is not mysterious at all.
I'm trying to relate this to the largest river I'm familiar with - the Snake here in Idaho. Does the Potomac have seasonal variations in the flow? Does the riverbed ever change? I have experienced current flowing "upstream" where it didn't before, and with no obvious eddy - but wind wasn't a factor. In those instances, it took some moments to realize what was going on - and then only because I was close enough to shore to detect the change of direction.
But I'm talking about a river that changes with the seasons, and the bottom has been known to move.
Hey - any submarines in the Potomac?
But I'm talking about a river that changes with the seasons, and the bottom has been known to move.
Hey - any submarines in the Potomac?
ppine: I've paddled that section of the Potomac dozens of times. Some of the paddlers I was with that day had paddled it for over thirty years and hundreds if not over 1000 times. Nobody had experienced anything like it before or since. It's not tidal at that area and there aren't any eddies in the area.
alsg,
No eddies you could see.
Steve in Idaho,
All rivers have flow that changes with the seasons in response to rain and snowmelt events. It is much more pronounced in the West. The bottom contours in rivers change a little, but in large flood events they get moved around a lot. Sometimes you can hear the boulders bouncing along the bottom. The Snake has some interesting turbulence, accentuated by river bends, hence the name. All of these factors create eddies.
I met a guy that famously paddled up the Colorado River from the Green River confluence to Moab, Utah. I asked him how he did it. "Eddy hopping" was his reply. The River has a lot of gradient in that stretch, only using eddies allowed them to make progress upriver.
No eddies you could see.
Steve in Idaho,
All rivers have flow that changes with the seasons in response to rain and snowmelt events. It is much more pronounced in the West. The bottom contours in rivers change a little, but in large flood events they get moved around a lot. Sometimes you can hear the boulders bouncing along the bottom. The Snake has some interesting turbulence, accentuated by river bends, hence the name. All of these factors create eddies.
I met a guy that famously paddled up the Colorado River from the Green River confluence to Moab, Utah. I asked him how he did it. "Eddy hopping" was his reply. The River has a lot of gradient in that stretch, only using eddies allowed them to make progress upriver.
Ok, ppine, have it your way. It was a magical, nearly river-wide (over 2000 feet across) eddy that neither I nor any of the other paddlers noticed that day or the combined thousands of other times this group of paddlers have crossed that river at exactly that spot.
Serious question - had there been an earthquake recently?
We had one here a few years ago that caused an entire historical sandy lakeshore to instantly sink out of sight permanently. If that had been part of a riverbed, it's easy to imagine that a new eddy could have emerged until material washed away.
Just thinking of possible causes that make sense.
Gradient-rapids waves, wind waves, or both?
It's a mystery, but there has to be a physics explanation.
Wind and waves are the only possible culprits if you weren't in any sort of giant eddy or water reversal, which is highly unlikely to impossible if numerous experienced boaters failed to notice such a water eddy/reversal. Furthermore, it's impossible for simple 15"-18" gradient-rapids waves to push a group of boaters upstream. Therefore, it has to have been either the wind or wind waves, which both boil down to wind vector forces as being the only possible physics culprit, which seems confirmed by the relief you found "in the lee of the opposite shore."
This also leads to the only possible answer, which I know you subjectively recall as improbable: namely, you were mistaken as to the wind direction when the phenomenon hit. The wind direction could have shifted to a direct or angled upstream direction, slowing your entire group down via a combination of upstream wind and wind-wave vector forces.
"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." — Sherlock Holmes
Nope.
Wind. There are no gradient waves at that part of the Potomac.
I vote for the alien tractor beam. Either that or the Secret Service has installed a new security system to keep people away from Trump National.
Obviously a sail boat can move (indirectly) into the wind using the position of the sail and the boat. You wouldn't think that a canoe or a kayak would generate enough wind resistance for that to happen, and you would have to maintain the perfect angle or you would start to get blown down wind. Still, if there is no upstream current, what else can it be.
We don't have any rivers that wide around here. Closest is the Connecticut River which is about half as wide. Never seen 15"-18" wind blown waves on a river, but I can imagine it would be tough to paddle in.
Obviously a sail boat can move (indirectly) into the wind using the position of the sail and the boat. You wouldn't think that a canoe or a kayak would generate enough wind resistance for that to happen, and you would have to maintain the perfect angle or you would start to get blown down wind. Still, if there is no upstream current, what else can it be.
We don't have any rivers that wide around here. Closest is the Connecticut River which is about half as wide. Never seen 15"-18" wind blown waves on a river, but I can imagine it would be tough to paddle in.
If anyone knows how to make a bare canoe or kayak sail upwind, I'd like to see that trick.
Wind does surprising things though, all the time. My inland sailing experience drives that point home.
Wind does surprising things though, all the time. My inland sailing experience drives that point home.
I started to make a parallel to the joke Floridians make about Georgia: why does the St. John River flow north? Because Georgia sucks. But, that would be political and we don’t need politics here.
Fairfax County has a mid-river water intake just north of the golf course. I think it physically impossible for Fairfax to take enough water to affect the direction of flow, but I was straining for some explanation and momentarily gave it consideration.
Aliens are as good an explanation as any. Perhaps it was alien abduction that caused me to become separated from a friend out there one night. We launched from Riley’s and were floating around near the golf course enjoying the moonlight but lost contact with one another. I stood in my boat waving a light and tooting my whistle, but failed to connect with my friend. I concluded friend had entered the canal, so I headed down the canal. My friend eventually caught up with me from behind wanting to know why I had paddled off. Had not seen my light or heard the whistle. It now seems obvious that my friend had been beamed up by aliens for biological evaluation, the memory of which was brainwashed away, and therefor didn’t see the light or hear the whistle.
Regards alsg’s incident, there is no explanation and we’ll never know. I don’t think the phenomenon will occur again. Life goes on.
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