[flowmerchant]

Some might think why have the females in a physically exhausting endurance effort? In a canoe, females lower center of gravity helps tremendously. And for many hours of continuous paddling, often males will have mental break down before the females. The Texas Water Safari is an endurance canoe race starting in San Marcos, similar to this crossing with regards to duration, effort required. The winning boat this year had two females. Ask any racer in that comparator, they will agree with regards to the anatomy and mental differences with regards to men and women.

[abeppu]

The actual article from the researchers discusses their choices:

> The boat was paddled by a mixed team consisting of four men (paddlers) and one woman (steerer), without replacement by other paddlers on the way. The inclusion of both men and women is essential because our focus is ancient migration, not men’s adventure. An unstable, round-bottomed dugout required skilled paddlers to control it on the open sea. Furthermore, because this type of boat does not travel in a straight direction but instead snakes its way, the skill of the steerer is crucial for optimizing its performance. Considering these factors, we invited professional and semi-professional sea kayakers as the paddlers and steerer.

And ... this wasn't a race? Perhaps 5 women could have gotten there faster, but speed wasn't the primary goal.

I don't know anything about paddle sports specifically, but I have seen a discussion about sex differences in performance in other endurance sports, and one important distinction is that women as a group can have average pace times that are faster than men as a group, even when most of the outright winners are men.

https://archive.is/5nx7X#selection-4259.0-4259.255

https://trainright.com/women-faster-than-men-ultramarathon/

[thaumasiotes]

> I have seen a discussion about sex differences in performance in other endurance sports, and one important distinction is that women as a group can have average pace times that are faster than men as a group, even when most of the outright winners are men.

Why is that important? Unless the runners are conscripted into the race, it's not telling you anything about women or men.

Your second link notes this explicitly:

>> What the data actually means is that after 195 miles the average pace of all women competing is better than the average pace of all the men competing. Why is this the case? Math and demographics (not physiology and toughness). In any athletic user group, the early adopters are also higher performers. Take the people who pioneered skateboarding, or adventure racing as an example. Those early adopters were good at the sport they were trying to push the boundaries. As a sport becomes more and more popular, the number of non-elites grows much faster than the number of elites. Therefore, even though the best times and performances improve (by way of a course or world record) the average times get worse. Ultrarunning is no different.

[lostlogin]

If you look at longer distances, women seem to perform better than men. Ultra endurance sports is where you see this.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/dec/30/the-lon...

[stevenwoo]

From the article - it would have been a one way trip to seafarers 30000 years ago (without the thorough mapping of the strong currents prevalent between Japan and the two hypothesized origins available to the scientists now). There was no round trip. Women had to make that voyage 30000 years ago to make human settlement viable.

[rob_c]

I'm not denying your chosen cherry picked example, but at what level is that biased by looking to support an argument?

Most triathlons are probably won by men and global exploratory voyages were first accomplished by men...

Not saying your wrong I'm asking what I'm missing?

[MangoToupe]

> global exploratory voyages were first accomplished by men...

This assumption seems strange. How do you think polynesians spread without both men and women?

If you're referring to the european age of exploration, they weren't rowing much at that point, rendering sex mostly irrelevant.