Could you please bring that post up
so we know you are not posting your usual BS.
I have been lurking here a long time, and notice you love to make false statements and sarcastic remarks.
Guy
Thank you Celia
– Last Updated: Dec-14-15 12:16 PM EST –
I just wanted to clarify my background. Grew up with canoes in the boy scouts. Did multiple trips to the Flambeau river in wisconsin. I have done 3 trips t the boundary waters and quetico at 7 days a piece. Did over 120 miles on one trip and countless portages through rough rocky mudpits. Was even in quetico during the 1999 microburst. I know my way around canoes. But have never used a kayak or done this with young kids and that is why I asked. There are different tools for every situation.
I could
If I gave a rat’s ass what you thought
Recovery options
Thanks for the info.
If I had to say what mostly changes between your own experience and what you are trying to do now, it is the issues posed by a capsize or conditions which would cause the boats in your party to get separated. A sudden wind comes up, or you hit some current that catches you by surprise in an estuary, odds are that the adults in the group can handle it faster and better than young kids.
And you have to anticipate a more difficult range of possible behaviors. When it was just you, you had a great deal of control over the behavior of the paddler involved (you) when things went south. That’s not so with you, your wife and three kids. All kinds of responses can happen, some will be counter-productive to solving the problem.
For example even if your older kid enjoys capsizing his boat, he might not stay so calm after he has let go of it and it gets blown 30 feet away from him and the rest of you are some distance because you are experiencing some issues with your younger ones.
You can limit your issues with most of this by staying relatively near shore and away from water with a long fetch or much in the way of current. Then even if something does happen, it is not likely to get complicated.
As to what craft, the real question is whether all the kids are paddlers or you really have a couple of passengers. It sounds like the latter, that what you most need is boats to accommodate three paddlers and two passengers. Personally my best suggestion is to skip the ocean part to start, you can do a tour for the occasional run to the salty stuff. Look at a couple of used tandem canoes, starting with what you already know, and see how the family paddles together before you invest in more than that.
Sounds like you could use a war canoe
http://www.bluemountainoutfitters.net/tours.html#War Canoe Tours
3 kids
If I had three kids who could tread water they would not be in either a kayak or canoe. Only place would be in shelter water close to shore with me in charge of one child and the water over 65*
I guess I have a different perspective.
When I had my pontoon boat we used it as a giant swim raft and the kids and their friends (wearing properly fitted PFDs) had a ball leaping off the boat then climbing back on to do it again, and again, and again.
They all could tread water, but the PFDs saved energy and most important, even the poor swimmers were comfortable in the water wearing them.
one boat doesn’t do all
I know many want a one boat do all for utility but there really isn’t any one boat that does everything equally well. Tandem canoes do better on moving water than tandem kayaks, the kayaks usually are just too long for that. But canoes really don’t belong on the ocean, even in sounds, with no decks they just too easy to swamp and a kayak with it’s deck is much better.
Basically either limit the area you want to use the boats you buy or be prepared for multiple boat purchases, or rent for the areas you only paddle occasionally.
Bill H.
Sarcasm?
Surely you jest guideboatguy; I am very passive, and never sarcastic.
Ooops! Check ya later; gotta go straighten my halo.
BOB
dude, ease up on the swimming criteria
There is no stated “minimum” regulation for swimming ability for kids swimming aptitude applied to kayaking. I don’t think her kids are looking for a cert.
I might be the greatest advocate here of swimming ABILITY - which to me doesn’t mean some rote test, but the ability to show confidence and aptitude while in the water. But let’s be realistic and not frighten people away from getting their kids out on a pond, ok?
something to counter the kid-phobia
– Last Updated: Dec-15-15 11:30 AM EST –
I presume your kids can swim. not medal in an olympic event, perhaps, but move themselves through the water sufficiently for a short distance, and are able to keep their heads above water. I forget what it was like not knowing how to swim but what I do recall was that it was relatively easy and empowering. Distance swimming is deceivingly easy for a kid, so I kind of dismiss that academic "requirement".
Presuming I'm right - get your kids out in controlled, safe conditions and dump the boat. Dump one boat and have everyone help. Dump all of the boats at once with a plan, and see what happens.
No new paddler has an innate reaction to a capsize. It doesn't matter if you're Diana Nyad. But kids are relatively fearless and love challenges. So utilize that and ease them into reacting to capsizes. If you and they wish to reach a certain aptitude (possibly with an instructor), you can have them out in increasingly demanding conditions.
To me this is one of the things that paddling is about: learning and increasing one's limits.
canoe
For load hauling of people and equipment a canoe is always an advantage.
Six man canoe would be best.
It is easier if you are all in the same boat. A six man canoe would be best and save a lot of time and money down the road.
However it might be cheaper and easier to find two used canoes. I’d set up at least one canoe for rowing and towing the other canoe. Children wear out easily and need to be towed.
Also children should learn to row and a fixed seat canoe with fixed clamp on oar locks is a good way to start them.
Sorry No!
A kid’s life is just too valuable. I’ve witness too many near misses with kids, even in a small pool. Kids are kids and will be miles away on a kayak before you miss them. All I’m suggesting is increasing the probability that they’ll survive if they ever lose their kayak…not certification (where did that come from)?
nonsense
– Last Updated: Dec-16-15 8:54 AM EST –
Let's revisit what you just posted. A "small pool"?
Why does a child in a small pool need to be able to swim a mile in a half-hour to be able to survive the pool?
Don't give me that rote line about kid's lives being too important. No one claimed otherwise. I don't know of a single child who drowned lily-dipping in a 1/2 acre pond because he couldn't swim a mile at a certain pace. Drownings of children with no swimming aptitude are far more common. You want to save a kid? Address that.
You live on the ocean so I get your concern. But context, please. It's nonsense.
Sounds crazy to me too
What you are saying is that it’s okay for adults to have typical swimming abilities, but even kids on little rivers must be able to swim like champions. Otherwise you just can’t be sure they’ll make it to shore. And never mind the fact that PFDs are the great equalizer.
The idea that a kid who swims pretty well, who can easily make it to shore in a multitude of non-ocean environments, should be denied the chance to enjoy boats until he can swim faster and longer than 95 percent of the adults posting here, makes no sense to me.
Indeed, We Do Paddle In Different Water
Only suggesting what I definitely know to be important in my narrow part of the world. Especially now, when kids prefer SUPs over kayaks and canoes.
Kids do the unexpected
I agree with the idea that kids and adults should have comparable skills. There are two reasons I would argue though that if you have to choose, make sure the kids’ skills are better. One is that too few adults can actually handle a problem in the water. It is absurd that people who say they are non-swimmers will get into a kayak and go a mile or more offshore, but they do. The other is the nature of kids, at least young ones.
The same situation where an adult would either avoid capsize, or swim immediately to the nearest shore… kids will do otherwise. Do safety for a kayak demo day for example. You will be having an easy day if only one kid purposely capsizes a rec boat that will take two or three people to haul to shore because of course no one put float bags into it.
Or where to swim - my sister was a fish. She was seemed to have been born with a fearless dog paddle. When she was just a peanut she would go with us to the beach in New Jersey and escape into the water to go thru the breakers and dog paddle her way out to the end of the jetties. Where the currents swirl. One summer we were barred from the beach unless she was contained after the life guard had to pull her in three times in a day. My mother invented an early version of a kid leash. She was too quick to contain otherwise.
If kids were small adults I might have a different thought. But they aren’t, and the one saving grace is that they are also at a point in their lives where they can more easily learn.
You missed my point
You always fall back on examples of being “a mile offshore” on the ocean when the topic of safety comes up. My whole point was that there lots of situations far less extreme than open-ocean paddling (in fact, I see I’m not the only person who is saying exactly that). As a typical inland example, a person who wouldn’t bat an eye at needing to swim a few hundred yards is certainly well within their comfort zone when needing to swim 40 or 50 feet, which is a typical distance to shore on a medium-sized river, or several times that far if the adjacent shore looks like a bad place to take out. And PFDs actually do help. You’ll naturally counter that some rivers are bigger, and some are swift and turbulent, but my point is that there’s no need for all forms of boating to be off-limits to a child who swims well but hasn’t demonstrated the ability to swim a mile in 30 minutes or less.
Actually you missed mine
– Last Updated: Dec-18-15 10:48 AM EST –
You launched too literally off the mile offshore thing. It was an example of how bad a decision adults can make, the difference between that and kids is that with the kids you have a chance to get in front of it. I did not say it was distance from which everyone needed to be able to swim to shore.
What I did say, I thought clearly enough but maybe I was wrong, was that kids are unpredictable and in the same situation will not act like adults. So the opportunity to better insulate them with skills is valuable.