I will make it my biz
To find same and take that instruction. thanks.
Practice
Based on some of the posts here, I will try to get some local instruction as well as some time afloat in a lake. Best I can do and maybe it’ll tell me I"m in way over my head.
I don’t remember posting about my arms getting tired in actuality. The Adventure has a foot and arm drive which I hope will distribute the load so that I’ll not have much issue with muscle fatigue.
Insufficient
You say that you’ll have a week of practice, but here’s the problem; in the ocean, by the time you realize you’re over your head it’s too late. You don’t have the tools to recognize you’re over your head or to correct it. That is one of the messages that many of the people here are trying to get across.
Additionally, your has her own agenda and may be overestimating her own expertise (notice I don’t use the word experience).
You will be doing this cold, with zero paddling experience headed out onto the open ocean, make no mistake.
No one ever does. NM
Good luck!
It sounds like a great adventure. Hopefully the weather is calm. I brought up biceps because that’s a typical beginners mistake: what we call “arm paddling”. But think of your torso as the motor and your arms, shoulders, wrists merely as the drive chain, transferring energy from your torso to the water. Another tip: Don’t pull. Pretend you are skiing slaloms, and rather than pulling the paddle back, you are pulling your boat by the paddle. If you can, get a lesson in forward paddling technique. All the best!
but he will be surrounded by
other rescue boats and have a VHF radio, and if the conditions are rough, they’ll call it off.
I agree with you about being in over his head IF the conditions are less than ideal. If they are ideal, I think he can do it IF he learns how to paddle 12 miles. He’s in shape, so Lord willing he’s not going to have a heart attack. Now all he needs is to learn good form. (I remember my first extended trip early on–my forearms hurt, my biceps were burnt out, and I had pain throughout my neck. Complements, of course, of bad form.)
He does have seamanship experience, so he knows a lot about the sea in general. He’ll recognize things from a new perspective. No doubt he’ll be a great paddler with time. The problem is that he doesn’t have time, and those of us with more experience understand that time in the seat is as important to a kayaker as it is to a pilot. (For me, it was about loose hips in waves and developing a sense of muscle memory.) Things money or good intentions can’t buy.
But I think we’ve scared him enough. He gets the point, but there is some redundancy built in (VHF, a rescue boat). Dryadsdad, do us a favor: Dress for immersion–assume you are going to swim; wear a kayaking life jacket–something well fitted that will stay out of your arms’ way. Don’t allow your VHF radio to get away or sink. Learn to paddle so that it all comes your core and legs. And come back and tell us about it when it’s all done!
“Sit-On” vs. "Sit-In"
The hobie boat you’re looking at is considered a “Sit On Top” (SOT) kayak, because you’re sitting on top of the deck, not under the deck. All kayaks have a deck and a hull. SOT kayaks have limited access to the space between the decks, and you sit your butt in a depression in the deck. SinK (Sit inside Kayaks) have a cockpit opening right through the deck, and your legs and butt are sitting on the hull, under the deck.
The sailboat analogy is that in a typical cruising sailboat, the cockpit is like a SOT kayak - you are sitting in a depression in the deck molding. That cruising sailboat’s cabin, however, is like a SinK cockpit - when you’re in the cabin you’re sitting on the hull, but under the deck.
Example of Sit Inside
– Last Updated: Mar-08-11 2:45 PM EST –
Since the Tarpon came up, I went to Wilderness Systems' site. In the photos on the below link, you'll see that the paddler's legs extend UNDER the front deck from the seat in the cockpit. The hatches fore and aft cover up the dry storage area under the deck that is contained by bulkheads from the hull to the deck at each end, one behind the seat and one ahead of where the legs end under the deck. Many touring boats have an additional bulk headed area behind the seat, commonly referred to as a day hatch.
The open cockpit that can fill with water is the reason for a skirt. This is not an issue for a sit-on-top like you are considering because, as Nate says, the inside of the boat is not similarly available to you or the sea. SOT's are usually considered easier to get back onto from taking a swim, though I've seen or heard of enough people failing to do so that it'd bear some practice to be sure.
http://www.wildernesssystems.com/product/index/products/sea_kayak/sea_kayak_tsunami/tsunami_160_seakayak/
I am glad to read below that you are considering spending some time actually paddling something sooner than the week of the race... Sit insides are likely what your wife paddles. It might be worth a trip to the garage or wherever to look at one and compare it to the SOT you are considering.
Looks very tame …
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wKGNetZTKHo/TFHCTVq0LeI/AAAAAAAAJc0/75KVtmhiSmQ/s1600/key+west.jpg
Practice going straight and paddling for 5 or 6 hours in a slow SOT and you should be fine.
By the way
On the topic of Sit-on vs Sit-in, for this race, with limited time to gain skills, a sit-on-top is probably a better idea. Recovering from a capsize with a sit-inside takes more training and practice than recovering with a SOT does. Make sure you practice it beforehand though, and do it when you’re tired.
Personally, I think your biggest concern is probably any wind (more so than the risk of tiring out, since the pace will be very slow). So keep an eye on the forecast, and consider alternate plans if 10 knots or more is forecast. That 20% chance of Force 4 or greater sounds a lot worse to me than I think it sounds to you. While those winds are perfect for a sailor, Force 4 can be challenging conditions in a kayak. You may find you have trouble holding the course you need to hold, even downwind, and if you can’t hold a course, your wife could be in trouble. I’m sure as a sailor you listen to the forecast, and consider that real conditions could be somewhat worse, especially when the forecast is 12 hours out, so give yourself some headroom - If you find in training that you start having trouble in 15 knots of wind, and you have a 10-15 knot forecast on race day, then you will have no “head-room” - you’re already paddling at the top of your ability level. If anything gets worse or goes wrong, you’re in over your head.
Good luck - that hobie sailing rig looks like fun! 
WOW!!! Not many people can say…
“NEED to be with the wife”, and actually get to enjoy what they need to be with them for!!!
HAVE FUN!!!
Paddle easy,
Coffee
PFD
I will shop for an appropriate PFD when there. We have from the 30th of May until the 3rd of Jun to practice and equip. I’m sure in that time I can find the right device.
No argument
Nobody including you can say if I"m in too deep here because you don’t know me or my physical capacities. Meanwhile I don’t know the challenge of a 12+ mile rough water paddle. So we’re even.
I do have a friend standing by with a motor boat in case I find myself too tired to support my wife. If it all fell apart to an unimaginable degree, the worst that could occur is that he’d SAG for my wife and I’d later get ‘rescued’ by him in his motorboat.
I appreciate your concerns and warnings. Please do not think I’m dismissing you here. I just do not think that you’ve given me credit for planning not only success, but failure.
I am an SOB but a retentive SOB.
Yeah
I don’t know about kayak racing, but I have been charmed by the idea of motorless sea travel. My dream is to have a place by the sea and it will include a kayak.
Hmm
OK, I hadn’t thought of it, but maybe it’d be a good idea for me to wear a PFD. As a pretty strong swimmer, I hadn’t considered that, but there is nothing to lose by wearing one.
I greatly appreciate the concerns expressed on this board even if some of them may be taken by others as being insulting to me. I don’t view them that way. I view them as, perhaps excessively vehement, expressions of assessments finding me coming up short in my abilities to perform my stated goals.
The element unknown by others which can’t be known is the love and concern I have for my wife. I’d never put my own ego so high as to endanger her safety or even her ability to finish this amazing athletic feat she’s set out to do. If, during practice, I find that it’s unreasonable for me to do what’s required of me to support her within the envelope of conditions forecast, I’ll demur and find some alternative even if it means significant expense. I can re-make the money but never replace my wife or replace her experience in this event.
The reason I posted here isn’t some sort of wild hair I got to do this thing but rather my wife’s desire that I accompany her on this feat. Were she not to have said that she wishes me to be her support team, I’d never have considered doing so but instead have contacted the organizers to hire a commercial support team. That may still come to pass.
If I die
then many here will have the last laugh. If I’m anywhere that I can also laugh, I’ll ruefully shake my head and agree that by gol, this time I took on too much.
Rent a tandem
My advice -
Find a qualified instructor with access to a tandem kayak, and have the instructor paddle with you for the event. If you call the local shops, I suspect that you will find something.
That way, you will save the cost of purchasing a tandem, have a qualified person there in case things go bad, and you will get some great instruction. Tandems are also more forgiving in bigger water for beginners.
I think it is a good idea to always have somebody very capable taking care of you if you are challenging yourself in the water.
Thx
for the clarification, Nate.
SOT / SI
Ok, I got it and also got a good lesson that I am way behind the information curve. I figured since my wife has all that experience & years of paddling that she’d save me from making a very bad decision.
That link went to a site with a very nice looking boat. I have to say that these kayaks are darned good looking. The ones I see here tend to look a bit like a cross between a rubber duck and a shoe. They are about 2 m long and people sit on them sort of like they’d sit on an inner tube or a log.
As to regaining the boat after going overboard, is that really a concern? I hadn’t considered that I’d be in danger of losing contact with the boat and needing to re-board from the sea.
Lesson
yeah, I will seek out a teacher locally even if it means, as I’ve seen, lessons given in a swimming pool.
My concept of how to paddle includes not only using the whole body but both sides to distribute the load. That is, I envisioned padding by both pushing and pulling using my whole body as you describe in the slaloming analogy.
I am in pretty decent shape, but there is NO way I figure I can arm paddle my 85 kg ass 12+ miles even in glass calm water.