Greyak,question.
You’ve got my attention. I’ve learned several assisted rescues, and they are all far preferable to a self rescue with a paddle float, but no one has shown me any other method of self rescue. (Which is one of the reasons I prefer to not paddle alone, although I feel confident about my self rescue skill, it just seems so much easier with another paddler.) How else do you get back in your boat on open water all by yourself? I’m not trying to be a smart @# either, I know you’re a very experienced paddler and this sounds like something I’d like to learn that hasn’t come up. I am hoping to get a roll, and strengthen my braces this season to diminish the need for any sort of rescue, but in the meantime it is always good to have another option if I find myself swimming.
Thanks
Just a beginner here
and hope to keep it that way!
In addition to paddle float (and several variations of it):
Cowboy (many variations, all of limited use - but good to practice anyway as they get you more familiar with swimming/climbing around your kayak.)
Re-enter and roll. This can be done with a paddle float if you don’t have a roll yet. No climbing/balancing needed so you use less energy and are less exposed.
Roll. Accept no substitute. The others are backup. Once you get it there is noting quicker, safer, easier, or more fun to do just because. Rolling will improve all of your paddling.
Get Lull’s book. Well worth the price. All will become clear.
It’s one of many good boats
in that category. Enjoy. George lives in Seattle and offers excellent training through his Kayak Academy. He’s been a friend for many years, and surf bud. I’ve seen paddlers come out of his week long sessions with huge progress.
But there are other great people around the country. Tom Bergh gets mentioned here, and he is likewise a super guy running a great program.
3 biggies
Number one- as a novice we are worried about things we don’t have to be and NOT worried about things we should be. “I will be on the coast, but near the shore”. If a wind shift occurs and a 30-40 mph wind storm hits you will be out to sea regardless. Cold water, self rescue, injury, sickness, emergency communications. Yikes, get some guidance. My rule of instructing is let novices discover without getting hurt that solo travel is for intermediate and up paddlers.
Number two- safety in numbers is good, BUT conditions occur where it is every person for themselves. Don’t go out even with experts in conditions you cannot deal with safely yourself as you learn better what those situations are!
Number Three- Knowledge & Equipment and Lessons are important but don’t go solo until the skills are learned at the “unconscious level” and in the worst conditions you will need them in. Many paddlers get the “grip” and freeze up in rough conditions, make poor choices and fail to roll, reenter, etc.
Don’t rush it! Slower if faster. You can acquire intermediate level skills and knowledge in months not years if you are determined.
Kayaking has great potential to transform your life, It is mostly a low risk sport punctuated with lethal risks. Approach any activity or relationship with great potential slowly to give yourself the most out of it.
risk assessment
there really is a grid, or an excel document for doing risk assessment that everyone should see. It’s part of the PMI, or PMP certification.
Basically it breaks risk down into these factors.
- Probability
- Impact
- Mitigation
probability is the liklihood that the risk will occur
impact is what happens if the risk occurs worst case, best case, and somewhere in the middle.
mitigation is what you can do to avoid the risk.
so what are the risk impacts for paddling alone
- no one knows if you’re in trouble.
- capsize and exit leading to hypothermia and death
- capsize and unconciousness and no exit, leading to death.
so what is the probability of each of these occurring?
these depend upon skill and proper equipment.
mitigators
two best mitigators for kayaking
- roll
- drysuit or wetsuit and drytop.
2nd tier
- radio/cellphone
- flares
the liklihood of risk occurrence is exponentinally greater when the water is colder and the water rougher in combination with no skills.
Traveling helps
I’m in a similar situation as far as availability of good lessons. What my husband and I did was to take a few vacations in paddling-crazy places where we could take lessons. I also bought and repeatedly watched videos, read books, and of course practiced…still do all these things and always will. I was also lucky to get some help with rolling from two other paddlers, one of whom (sing) posts here. My mother lives in MA so I hooked up with a small informal rolling practice group while I was there for a visit.
The Brent Reitz forward stroke video is good for that one thing (plus some nice stretches). I like The Kayak Roll video, as do many other people. Others also repeatedly mention an Eric Jackson rolling and bracing video, plus one by Jay Babina called “First Roll”.
In addition to John Lull’s safety book, the Sea Kayaker Magazine book on same subject looks good. I also found some of the exercises in Paul Dutky’s “The Bombproof Roll and Beyond” useful.
If you have a week, and some money
MIKCO might be an interesting place to start. Tom Bergh is a heck of a teacher. and many of us in New England trace our roots to him. Another might be body boat and blade on the west coast.
Folks like sing have done wonders on theri own, other tryong to go that path have pretty rolls bot have gotten into serious trouble in heavy weather.
Nothing beats time spent in practice, except time spent in practice in rougher conditions. Might be hard to do in Kansas.
Thanks Everyone!
I feel as though I have received invaluable feedback from this post and will likely review it for some days.
Tomorrow I am going to the lake with a friend to practise wet exits. This is what scares me the most. He is not a paddler, but will be there to pull me out should something go wrong. I will hopefully practise rolls as well. I am probably mistaken, but it would seem to me that the likelyhood of having to make a wet exit would diminish greatly if I could roll well.
I do believe that past survival training, coupled with my extensive backcountry experience, should prevent me from taking any unnecessary risks. I will stay in shallow water or venture no further than 20 yards from shore until I am comfortable with wet exits.
I do know the dangers of open water. When I was a young man, a boat I was on capsized during a Norther. I did not have a pfd. I feel lucky to have survived.
Thanks again for all of the great feedback! This is sufficient to get me started in the right direction and once again shows me what a great bunch paddlers are.
Good Luck
And have fun practicing.
You heard about many of the potential risks associated with paddling and some methods which may be used to minimize those risks. Remember, paddling can be dangerous but don’t loose your perspective. Walking across the street can be dangerous, (and crossing the street likly results in a higher percentage of injury than paddling does). Just as you reduce your risk when crossing the street by looking both ways you can use a couple of temporary restrictions to minimize your paddling risk while gaining your sea legs.
If you paddle in water warm enough to comfortably swim in you reduce your risk of hypothermia dramatically. Not all paddle environments call for a dry suit or even a wet suit. If I wore ether in my area during this time of the year I would likey get heat stroke.
If you paddle in fair weather in a lake you reduce your risk of getting blown or pushed into a hostle shore, shole, or obstruction. You will eventually need to learn to paddle in places with a bit of weather and some current and obstructions thrown in. However, you can eliminate, or reduce the likelyhood of seeing these issues, by selecting your paddle place and time.
If you learn a wet exit, rudimentary paddle stroke basics, and some form of self rescue then you reduce your risk of drowning. If you do get tipped over, and you are able to exit your boat and either stand up or easily swim the less than 20 yards to shore you will have eliminated most of the drowning risks associated with paddling.
If you have a basic skill set, paddle in a protected lake, stay near the shore, paddle during fair weather, and paddle in comfortably warm water you will have reduced your level of risk to a level that is lower than many of the non paddling things we all normally do every day.
IMHO, be aware of the risks, gain the skill set required to minimize those risks, but go out and have fun. Paddling is fun and can open up lots of related fun experiences.
Mark
get over your phobia of paddling alone
you're missing out on too many paddling opportunities.....woloyworld(?)
About Rolls - Expectations
It sounds like you are starting off on the most important part, which is confirming that you can get out of the boat if needed. In fct you’ll probably find that it is quite easy, since no one ever realizeds that gravity works upside down too.
As far as practicing rolls though - practicing implies that you have started to be able to do it. I would guess that your friend has indicated that it can be very easy - and for some people it is. But if being under the boat in the water is extremely anxious for you, as it was for me when I discovered that it wasn’t just potentially stalled elevators that kicked of some claustrophobia, it’ll take some time before you can settle yourself down enough to execute the stuff that is necessary for a roll. A roll is very much a mental thing. The good news is that the Chatahm 16 that should be well-suited to the purpose, so you aren’t overcoming boat issues.
Good luck - and if things like a roll take a litle time don’t be bothered. The journey will get you as much as the final skill.
As to places to go to learn - if you can find a way to be in the Bar Harbor area of Maine in mid-sSeptember, the folks at Carpe Diem are putting on a few days weekend of skills work. Steve Maynard will be there, they are in conversation with Tom Bergh.
I paddle alone regularly…I would
suggest you should do a variety of differernt things as I do and have done. First off take a basic course or spend some time with someone who has done a course and practice self rescues, paddle float, scramble and re-entry roll etc… If you are confident that you can get back in your kayak in the event of a capsize then I say get out there and enjoy. Next thing is what you have on. Here in Newfoundland Canada the water is frigid all year round so a drysuit is a necessity for solo paddling. a likejacket is obvious but I also take a VHF(in my lifejacket) and a cell phone in a sealed bag in my lifejacket. Of course you will want a change of clothes in your kayak a paddle float, spare paddle, tow rope etc… The main thing that I do when paddling alone is 2 fold. File a float plan so people know where you are going and when you are gonna be back. Also make sure you only go out alone in prefect conditions. A nice sunny day in flat water conditions you will likely do your self rescues. You get out in nasty water and the likely hood of getting back in your kayak as a novice are slim. Anyway goodluck to you and I hope you have safe fun
Copy of reply to "how many paddlers roll
I think we, the community of kayakers may contribute to this by sounding elitist, jock like, and dramatizing the skills necessary to be confident and have recovery skills.
How? In actual practice it is not a roll per se that gives us the competence to stay upright in rough weather and conditions but the dynamic balance of support strokes, bracing, sculling, a greenland type brace, and a half roll if THESE SKILLS FAIL.
For example, I coordinate our club's mentoring program, with the active help of a core group of great people. We don't hold ourselves out as experts, there is no pressure, we have fun, and novice paddlers get super motivated to see how much excitement there is in learning skills.
We so far have managed to NOT EMPHASIZE "The Roll". Rather we build towards having the brace strokes, greenland brace, and sculling, all of which educates about boat control, rotation, and using the body which floats to stop the boat from going over in the first place.
People can see that basically a roll is a failure to use all these support strokes correctly, and paradoxically will rarely need a roll.
By that time it is straight forward and intuitive to then teach a roll that will actually work for them in conditions, since it is a roll that has ALL the components working, full hip and torso rotation, modified leading edge up sweep, forward or lay back positioning, full boat rotation, leaving the body in the water until the last moment, etc.
What is so great to see is that by teaching in progressive steps folks who are not jocks, even with little strength or athletic ability routinely are performing all the brace and sculling strokes beautifully and going on to several styles of rolling too.
They have come to see by us showing them capsize recovery skills that sea kayaks are not really meant to be easily gotten back into once you leave them. This gives the motivation to learn the far more econmomical brace and sculling up skills.
We call this, "Thursday Rock n Roll Rescue", a series of 8 weeks of free mentoring. It also then encourages further private instructiion too. People start freaked by the idea of rolling, but by the time they get to it, it has its proper perspective.
Simply Put…Know Your Limitations
A ton of folks are going to jump in here but for this paddler, knowing your limitations and limiting where you paddle solo BY those limitations is going to keep you upright and smiling.
Solo Re-entry
I was extremely surprized at how difficult it was to re-enter my kayak the first time I tried. The paddle float just took too much time and energy, and I just couldn't see using it while drifting with the current in a river.
I do a lot of snorkeling and wanted to combine snorkeling and kayaking. I need to be able to easily leave and re-enter my kayak. BTW, it is a Loon 160T, with a large open cockpit.
My solution is to swim to the side of the kayak in line with the cockpit, grab the edge of the cockpit closest to me, and float low in the water. Now, as I give a "swimming kick" with my legs, I pull the kayak under me. I am now laying across the kayak with my legs hanging over one side and my head over the other. It is now an easy matter to get my legs in the boat and sit up.
While this may not be the most elegant method of re-entry, I found it to be very easy, and do it all the time while snorkeling from my kayak. I'm in and out of the boat all the time. I have done this both with and without swim fins. And I have never even come close to capsizing the kayak. But, it is a big stable boat.
One thing I cannot emphasize enough is that, whatever method you rely on, you practice your re-entry until you are confident in your ability to re-enter your boat!
Dangers of paddling alone:
Dying alone…
michigansnorkeler
The scissor kick reentry is a standard resque technique taught in canoeing.
The whitewater community in …
Colorado could be a major assett in helping you develop skills in boat handling. The sea kayaking community can help you learn seamanship, in addition to assisting your progress in boat handling.
Dogmaticus
Stating the obvious
must be your strong suit. I looked at your profile and find it to conflict with your answer. I have met many solo adventurers and have never heard this response. Are you the guide or the customer? I really don’t need to know the answer. I am already regretting that I have dignified this with a response.
“Do not grieve. Misfortunes will happen to the wisest and best of men. Death will come and always out of season. It is the command of the great spirit, and all nations and people must obey. Misfortunes do not flourish particularly in our path. They grow everywhere.”
Big Elk, 1815
Omahas
Obviously you may project anything
you like in my answer...I paddle mostly solo..however I got a dog last year and now I paddle with him...I prefer his company to many people I know...
know your limitations...