I will try to be more clear:
If one uses a sea kayak as a sea kayak is supposed to be used, it will flood all the time.
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Good luck Allan…
Well, I guess I’m not using mine the right way during my 10+ mile trips along the Lake Erie coast 
If it’s rough, I might get the occasional wave on my lap, but no biggie. If I get too much water in the boat, I have a pump. I prefer not to capsize to begin with, so rolling is basically useless. I guess rolling is for people who don’t know how to kayak and can’t keep their boat upright.
Are you from this planet, E.T.?
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You really do not understand. Rolling is about being able recover from a capsize with the least risk.
Frankly l didn’t capsize until l started pushing my skill level. I then proceeded to capsize a lot, and any time l go out to refresh my skills l generally dump here and there.
Not having capsized is no point of pride for people who go to expand their skills. It is usually impossible to get better without taking some swims.
I am coming around to the idea above, that you are overstating the conditions in which you paddle. Might be worth checking the marine forecast - l am sure there is one for Lake Erie - to see what the buoys say was the wave,height for when you paddled.
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A spray skirt is an essential part of a sea kayak, not an optional accessory. It just takes one rogue wave or boat wake to swamp a sea kayak and even a few inches of water sloshing around in a boat significantly reduces its stability. A sea kayak is also more stable when moving. I prefer not to have to stop paddling in rough conditions to pump out a boat.
If you have ever done an assisted rescue, which everyone should learn and practice, you will find that often the edge of your cockpit will dip below the waterline depending on your boat and conditions. If this happens when you are not wearing a skirt it is likely that both of you are going to end up in the water. In a self rescue in rough conditions with a flooded cockpit you may not be able to pump out the water faster than it comes in without a skirt.
People often overestimate wave height. A three foot breaking wave or chop will be over many people’s heads sitting in a kayak.
Nobody plans on capsizing, but it’s an excuse that I often hear particularly in reference to wearing a PFD. Paddle long enough and it will happen.
A fair number of people in our Club have switched to Greenland paddles. They tend to be easier on the shoulders and many say they are better for rolling. They will still paddle with Euro paddles at times, sometimes switching off. (A good reason to paddle an unfeathered paddle).
The overwhelming number have made their own. We often run a workshop every year for the cost of materials. A paddle can be substantially finished in a day with just some finish work to do even for people with no prior experience. A paddle from clear western red cedar will cost about $50 and will be to your own specific measurements. I would guess that there are tutorials online.
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Always possible that Pammy 140 is back.
ET, you remind me of the paddler with a 10’ boat that will do anything anywhere on water.
May we have your name for when the drowning is reported?
Is it Troll?
My GP cost $3.10. It isn’t Western Cedar, just junk white wood from a lumber yard. And I had my father-in-law teach me how to use a wood plane. Priceless. It isn’t the best one in the world but it’s mine.
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“I don’t really get why so many people like spray skirts. I like to stop every once in a while and pull my knees up and just move my legs around. I don’t have any desire to roll, and I’m not going to dump over unless I get hit by a major wave or a boat gets extremely close. I mainly paddle on Lake Erie, and have played around constant 30 MPH+ WINDS and 5+ FOOT WAVES. Not to say that it couldn’t happen, but it would take a lot for me to capsize in my Tsunami 140.”
LOL
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I don’t know, that’s a quote from E.T. ask him.
And when it does?
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The Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh has an entire gallery called “The Polar World” with a collection of artifacts of the Arctic Peoples of North America including skin kayaks and Greenland and Aleut style paddles. All of the originals that are in the exhibit have strips of sealskin or cotton rags wrapped around the paddle shafts, clearly to deflect water running off.
I have paddled almost exclusively with GP’s for 12 years and always prefer to wear a spray skirt to keep my lap from getting wet AND for safety reasons.
The ONLY time I went out in a large lake without a skirt it happened to be Lake Erie, off Chatauqua on a warm but windy day with a lot of chop. I was sticking close to shore, paddling with two cousins for whom I had brought a couple of kayaks while visiting them for a few days. I was in my replica Greenland boat which takes some time to set up since I have to inflate the flotation bags in the open bow and stern chambers. I made two mistakes that day, one being not bothering to take the time to go back to the car for my sprayskirt and the second, adding a closed cell 1" thick foam pad under my butt on top of the usual ensolite I sit on. Just that little bit of center of balance change made the boat a little unstable. I’ve had that boat out in all kinds of conditions and have very good control of it – had only capsized it before that deliberately to get a feel for the boat and to practice self rescue or rolls.
I was about 100 feet from shore when the wind gusts sent a reflected wave I was not expecting towards me just as I abruptly turned my body towards a shout from one of my companions. The kayak started to tip and though I quickly braced, the coaming had already hit the water and the unskirted cockpit immediately flooded and dumped me over. No chance of even attempting the roll I had just learned earlier that summer so I had to bail out. Fortunately I was near enough to shore and the lake was warm enough that I could just grab the boat and swim to the shore to dump it out and re-launch (without the extra seat pad this time.) The only danger was to my pride but had I been farther out I would have been in rough shape and pumping it out and recovering would have been a real challenge. I will not do that again.
When I hear people who brag that they must be a “good” paddler because they have never capsized, I recall the words of the guy who taught me to ride a motorcycle (he had been one of the early factory riders for Harley Davidson): “You aren’t a good rider until you’ve lost control of or dumped the bike at least three times.” The point is, that until you have experienced how gravity and outside forces behave to create chaos, you really will not know how to react, deal with and even prevent it.
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Like I said, been paddling for years on Lake Erie, and have been out in the rough stuff…without a spray skirt 
My buddies and I are usually the ones who come to the rescue when people dump over.
Then I’ll get back in 
True story, bro. It’s OK if you can’t handle those conditions. Keep practicing…maybe someday.
I have a Tsunami 140. It’s a very stable boat. It would take a hell of a wave to knock me over. Sure, it could happen, but the odds are very, very small. It would probably take quite a bit of effort to purposely dump it. Not really sure what all you guys are doing that you capsize so easily.
Pretty hard to drown with a life vest on, and I can swim, too. Imagine that.
PFD also make bodies easier to find.
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