[Guest]

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

 

Dragon Boat Canada


IDBF


Canoe Kayak Canada

182 Guests, 0 Users

[MerlinJP]

Have you heard about our Data Acquisition Paddle?  It reveals just how effective your stroke is at moving the boat forward.  Humbling or encouraging..... you decide but, it's aim is to help you and your club be the best paddlers you can be! 

For those of you who coach we hope that you will see the benefit this could be to you.  Excalibur reveals what's really going on with the paddle whilst it's in the water!  Excalibur reveals strength and technique issues and could be a great asset in helping you coach your paddlers.

Here's a short introductory video which we hope you'll find useful

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzPO9u501TA

For more details please see our website page http://www.merlingear.com/excalibur.htm or contact us on [email protected]. 

Kind regards,

John

[LARDCore]

Looks like some useful data but the paddle is the cost of an oc1 (assuming I'm converting AUD to USD correctly).  Too rich for my team's blood.

[BernMan]

Looks like some useful data but the paddle is the cost of an oc1 (assuming I'm converting AUD to USD correctly).  Too rich for my team's blood.

I did an exchange this morning using an online currency exchange site and this is what they came up with: 3,140.00 AUD = 2,728.66 USD

For us in Canada it is this: 3,140.00 AUD = 2,886.24 CAD

Now both the above figures are wholesale rates so you can add a bit more to the respective figures because banks etc charge a slightly higher rate to make money on the exchange. Typically you can add between 10 and 25 basis points or close to that anyway. I haven't worked in a bank in a long time so I could be wrong...


However it does look like an interesting tool in my opinion.

[rtsdhvy]

This is an interesting concept, however, I think you'd get more benefit if you spent the money on an OC-1.

[huli_chuck]

This tool could be very useful. I could see many possibilities. But pricey. The fact that you can't adjust the paddle length makes it difficult for everyone on a team to use the paddle. I doubt many teams can afford buy 2 or 3.

Have you given thought to starting a rental program? Teams can rent the paddle from you for a week or two for a fee. I don't think many can afford to pay thousands for a paddle, but a few hundred might make it more palatable for some.

[coach]

It looks like it would be useful for the purposes described. It could be more...

From a feedback point of view it would be more useful if it could get the information to the paddler in real time, that way they could make adjustments and see the results immediately. It's difficult to say "the data here shows that the stroke you took yesterday at 8:52 p.m. you were dragging your paddle, stop dragging your paddle". It would be useful as a teaching tool if it made a sound in relation to the positive and negatve force on the blade.

Make it put out a tone to a bluetooth earpiece so you can hear a nice sound proportional to the positive pressure and a nasty sound for negative pressure, then it would be even better.

[madcap]

Get twenty of them and they could paddle the boat...

[MerlinJP]

Have you given thought to starting a rental program? Teams can rent the paddle from you for a week or two for a fee. I don't think many can afford to pay thousands for a paddle, but a few hundred might make it more palatable for some.

Hi, Thanks for the rental idea, we already have this facility available in North America from our US distributor.  The cost is USD$140 per day and includes shipping and support, although I'm sure you could negotiate a discount on the fee for a weeks rental    You can contact them at http://www.merlingearusa.com/contact.htm

Here in Australia we do have clubs that rent Excalibur.  We think that maybe just 3 weekends a season would be fine for most clubs.  First at the start of the season to assess everyone and devise personal training strategies and goals, second mid way through to check for progress and make adjustment if necessary and third perhaps before the big event of the season to assist with final team selection, etc.

Kind regards,
John

 

[MerlinJP]

It looks like it would be useful for the purposes described. It could be more...

From a feedback point of view it would be more useful if it could get the information to the paddler in real time, that way they could make adjustments and see the results immediately. It's difficult to say "the data here shows that the stroke you took yesterday at 8:52 p.m. you were dragging your paddle, stop dragging your paddle". It would be useful as a teaching tool if it made a sound in relation to the positive and negatve force on the blade.

Make it put out a tone to a bluetooth earpiece so you can hear a nice sound proportional to the positive pressure and a nasty sound for negative pressure, then it would be even better.

Thanks for the feedback. 

We think that real time sounds good but, the reality is that if you're paddling you're already going to be on stroke 2 or 3 by the time the coach has made a comment on stroke 1, so we're not convinced it would actually be that helpful.  There are also technical issues.  As it is the coach and paddler can sit and analyse the data together and look for consistent issues in technique, power and fitness.  Does the paddler need to be more consistent in maintaining the power throughout their stroke, is the dragging happening at a particular place in the stroke or data set i.e. more as they tire, or more at the start, etc, is the peak of the power in their stroke corresponding to when the paddle is most vertical or when it's too flat, etc.  Have you used Excalibur at all?  If not perhaps you'd like to contact our US distributor and arrange a trial for your club and see what you think when you use it? 

The sound re: positive/negative force is an interesting idea, thank you.

Thanks again for the constructive feedback, it really is appreciated.

Kind regards,
John

[MerlinJP]

Hi,

When reading through the comments on this post please bear in mind that Excalibur is relatively new technology.  Mobile phones and computers have come a long way from when they were first brought out and Excalibur is still in it's early days but, it is here and working now and teams are benefiting from it.  We are committed to working with existing Excalibur users to develop the technology further and would welcome you to join that group, why not benefit from the technology now and help to improve it for the future.

Thanks.

Kind regards,
John