Re: Broken GP
Hi Mark, if your from the Corpus area, I think we met at the kayak expo in Aransas Pass last year. If you want I’ll build you another GP, it won’t cost you anything more than the cost of a cedar 2x4. I build these all the time and find it a enjoyable way to spend the afternoon. If you still have the broken one we can use it as a pattern. If memory serves me you had a unsholdered paddle, and is quite easy to do. Shoot me a email and will get together.
Michael
The foam backrest of my Betsie Bay
kayak came with two bungees through holes so that it be slipped over the end of an GP and used as a paddle float. I’ve never tried it, but that’s one solution.
Invaluable for a lost roll
– Last Updated: Sep-06-08 7:24 PM EST –
One of the most valuable things I found with my foam fixed paddle float was giving me practice and confidence back when I temporarily lost my roll. I used the foam a couple times, successfully rolled, and then quickly took it off. (on a GP)
Mountain bike tube and foam piece?
What if you stuck the GP blade into a slot in a chunk of foam AND wrapped and tied that with a partially inflated mountain bike tube?
Maybe even the tube without the foam?
Easy enough to experiment with these.
Paddle float
– Last Updated: Sep-10-08 2:51 PM EST –
I have three paddle floats but not a Mariner. None of them can be pulled off the GP when I blow them up hard. One is a two bladder and the other two are single bladder. Make sure you blow them up hard and twist them shut while still in your mouth. I find that once it is blown up hard, it's just about impossible to pull off a GP. Perhaps you have a shiny, slippery varnished paddle? and that's the reason?? The other thing you can do is make a longer strap / velcro that will twist around the loom.
can i be a bad bad man
and tell you to learn to roll.
You should definitely have a paddle float in the interim. Two pieces of minicell are a great solution.
But long term. Learn to roll it will make you feel like a super hero.
I do roll
I have an on-side and off-side roll. I can capsize remove my spare storm and roll with that. I have rolled in surf.
I do not enjoy rolling so I do not get enough practice. Even when rolling regularly I always expect my roll to fail everytime I go over. I want a paddle float to use in conjunction with a re-enter and roll. For this use I think the narrower profile of a foam float is probably easier to use.
Mark
"I always expect my roll to fail"
How’s that workin’ out for you? Body follows mind. Roll is 95% mental…
Anyway, as for the float, I agree a GP is a float all by itself. Once I went GP it was easy to to that sort of recovery with paddle alone.
Floats do have many other uses though, so I’d never discourage anyone carrying one. I always do, though haven’t used it in years.
I’ve had a few different ones, including foam (not worth the bulk IMO - except maybe if in very cold waters where time/dexterity/icing are factors). All the inflatables worked well enough on my GPs - grabbing the blade really tight as Jay said.
why do you expect your roll to fail?
Greyak said
"How’s that workin’ out for you? Body follows mind. Roll is 95% mental."
It obviously is not working well. That’s why I am interested in the paddle float as a rolling aid.
Mark
Rolling
as greyak has pointed out is a mental exercise as well as a physical one.
It’s good to see you are thinking about consequences of failure-paddlefloat.
But working on your roll will ultimately be the best bet to staying safe.
A roll takes about a second and a half. A paddlefloat rescue, if done successfully takes almost a minute. A paddle float re-enter and roll maybe half that. This is on flat water with a young athletic person.
Where are you located? We might be able to get you hooked up with a coach/club to work through the roll?
Keith
My location
I live in Corpus Christi, Tx about 200 miles south of Houston. I know of one instructor about 220 miles away in Austin who has experience teaching roll with GP’s. He is a very good instructor. There are several instructors with a WW background giving rolling classes in the Austin area, but I do not think any of them have GP experience. Not sure what is available in the Houston area any more. A while back all the instructors I knew where Euro paddle oriented. Things may have changed.
Of course there are lots of commonalities between rolling with Euro and GP so it would not have to be GP instructor. I just do not want to wind up with an instructor like the one I went to who insisted that I do a C to C roll.
Mark
I am not sure why I expect failure.
Maybe “expect” is too strong a word. However, it just seems that whenever I start to practice a roll the first thing I am thinking about is exactly what to do to wet-exit when the roll fails. If I am solo I only practice rolls very close to shore (or at least close to shallow water where I can stand) because in the back of my mind I think I will fail.
Maybe it is just because my roll has failed a few times in the last 5 or 6 years and I tend to focus on the failures rather than the success.
I kind of wish it was different, but although not impossible, changing my basic physcological make-up, would not be easy to do.
Mark
Hi Mark
Just a mind habit.
Try this: http://www.amazon.com/Calming-Your-Anxious-Mind-Mindfulness/dp/1572243384
oh yeah pal?
…how’s that super duper greenland paddle working out as a camp pillow? Hmm?
j/k 
great stuff!
I’m really a believer in tools like these.
Mark - I would even ask you: if you’re practicing, so what if your roll does fail? You either re-set, or bail out and try again.
Something else I’d recommend to add to the great suggestions above: learn a r&r. It’s one of the things that actually got me over the hump, and I’m convinced it was purely psychologically. Something about it not being over if I came out of my boat, combined with starting in a more controlled position. But it was actually just as easy for me to accomplish. And now I can do one in almost any condition.
I’m not an instructor so my words don’t count as some of the more experienced folks here.
FTR: I still carry a paddle float - it doesn’t take up any space, it can be used as a camp pillow, and one never knows which tool they may wish for until they’re in need of innovation.
It’s warm down there
Go out when it’s REALLY REALLY HOT and paddle around first to make yourself WANT to roll. I’ve had days when all I wanted to do was practice rolling because it was so hot. This will help make it more fun.
Also, I found the static brace and boat rotation practice to be really helpful, and those shouldn’t care whether you are using Euro or GP.
If you had come up to Navajo, I would have practiced with you, and the water was so warm regular clothes were enough. (Twin Lakes, OTOH, was cold even wearing a wetsuit.)
POTD!
if this isn’t a troll, it should be
mine stays on when I roll–nm
gotta agree with you
because no matter how good a roll you have, no one has an absolute bombproof one(although some are close) and there may one day be the occasion where you get dumped from your boat and have to use the paddle float to get back in, either with a re-entry and roll(which are real real easy with a paddle float) or the classic paddle float rescue.