Yes
Yes, reboarding is important. Just as you need a way to get yourself back on your sailboat if you go overboard, you should practice getting back on your kayak in waves.
When this is over
I hope you return to paddling.net. You have handled the responses here with a lot of grace and good humor. You don’t seem to be easily offended. We could use more like you on here.
Nice catch
Yes. I’ve spent time in Key West at that time of year and we have friends who are there year around. That’s the conditions I envisioned. If it were normal to have things like 3 m breakers or high winds, I’d never even consider it nor would my wife probably consider the swim.
MOB
The truth is that there isn’t any way to reboard the sailboats I single handed. It just cannot be done and it’s not even a question. If you go overboard, you are dead. Even if you could scale the freeboard, you can’t catch the boat to get on nor would it sit still for you to try.
I wasn’t on small day sailers but rather larger world cruising sailboats.
Rather than expect or hope for this, we took measures to prevent going overboard. This only applies to single handing which I did a good deal of. Of course, if you are crew, then recovery is not only possible but is part of the usual drill.
I’ll ask my wife about the issue of MOB.
Odd couple
My wife and I are an odd couple, it seems. We can’t get enough time with each other. Due to our work schedules, this isn’t common time, but in the 5 years we’ve had, we once did have a week of being together 24/7. Best week of our lives.
Good thought
Since my wife is an experienced kayaker, perhaps the good thing would be for us to rent a tandem (if we can find one to rent) and she instruct me. This will also give her information if I’m hopeless to perform so she’ll need alternative SAG.
Offended?
– Last Updated: Mar-09-11 11:26 AM EST –
I may be impossible to offend. Call it a personality defect. After all,if someone calls me a slack jawed imbecile for even considering this task, I look at it as him knowing more than I do. I have to consider that I am, in fact, such an imbecile.
I don't plan on leaving this site but will return to lurking so I can pick up information as I go. I also may ask for a bit of added help as I go and learn more.
What I will also commit to is to post my report on the race so the folks who have been so kind on this thread as to lend me their time and expertise have some 'how it came out' satisfaction.
This supposes my wife's training leaves her confident to participate in this event. Her training demands a year's lead time but she has had fewer than five months to prepare. In theory that's insufficient. So she just started training from the 7 month mark. She may break down or she may find herself ready to go. I can't say and neither can she.
I do promise to post at this site and on this board the outcome assuming we do participate.
Great idea as proposed
I like the idea in its original form. A purchase of a boat for this purpose won’t cost any less money than paying for a half day in a tandem with a guide, in fact it’d probably be much cheaper.
To the Oper - this way you are still doing SAG, but you’d have a chance to relax a little and enjoy the day as well rather than having to monitor your direction and pace in an unfamiliar environment every two minutes. And if the shit did hit the fan in terms of conditions, you could likely continue in the race without having to call in the motor boat.
Well . . .
True, that generally with cruising boats, the strategy is to stay on board. That’s not to say single-handed MOB isn’t entirely impossible to recover from. Some folks do advocate trailing a trip line to your wind vane, or other back-ups, and personally I wouldn’t single-hand without having a boarding ladder that can be released from the water (even just one of the PVC/rope deals that has a trip line that can be reached from the water). Then there are more expensive solutions to the problem that can turn the boat to weather, or shut the engine if a person falls overboard.
Fortunately reboarding in a kayak is less complicated, but it might not be easy without some preparation.
With kayaking as with sailing, you need to decide what is an acceptable level of risk after learning about the activity. Most here would likely argue that ocean kayaking without practicing a method of reboarding is not an acceptable risk, so I’d recommend you add that to your list of skills to practice before the event. (even if your wife tells you not to worry about it)
Reboarding after a capsize
– Last Updated: Mar-10-11 12:27 PM EST –
It's a sailing term - the usual paddle boat term is self or assisted rescue. But it's still getting back into a boat, whether all by yourself (self) or assisted (with help from someone who stayed in their boat).
As to the likelihood of you being in the water and watching your boat get blown away by the wind - this is to be expected for a new paddler who has just capsized. That is because for most people the habit of hanging onto the boat - whether it be deck lines or hooking your foot into the cockpit (except that these two options are often unavailable in SOT's) - with wet hands in bouncing waves is learned, not natural. MOST new paddlers will lose at least their boat the first time they capsize, usually their paddle as well. Or if they hang onto the paddle they lose their grip on the boat.
In even 10 knot winds, nothing much for a sailor, you can expect that your boat will get blown away from you faster than you can swim to catch it.
This hadn't come up because (I think) people were busy suggesting alternatives to your original plan. But it is part of the thought process for paddling open water. If you are going to do this as stated, you need to listen to Nate and practice capsizing and getting back onto the boat you'll be using. You'll also need a submersible VHF on your PFD so that you can call your buddy in a motor boat if you miss.
I also had a thought the other day - should your friend have to enter the fray to help you, how does someone steer a motor boat thru lines of swimmers and escort craft tactfully? But then I don't race so I may be missing something.
I’ve heard of those things
but really don’t think they’d work. If I were to be washed overboard by green water over the bow while, at the same time not being tied on to my jackline, I think the possibility of grabbing a warp (trailing line) impossible. A boat travels quickly in heavy weather and the chances of me being a MOB off the stern are almost zero. The most dangerous times were while I was at the mast. Were I to be washed overboard, it’d be amidships or at the quarter.
When sailing single handed, as I often did, I just assumed there are certain things which aren’t recoverable from and MOB is one of those things. It’s why I wore a harness with two lifelines. I’d clip in the second before I clipped out of the first. I also ran jacklines fore and aft port and starboard.
When flying, I knew that if my plane lost a propeller blade whilst in flight, I’d die. It was that simple. The imbalance would cause the engine to drop off the mounts and I’d just enter an uncontrolled fall to earth. That’s my assumption and I accepted it as part of flying. Ditto, I accept certain dangers whilst single handing. MOB is one.
If you do choose to sail sometime on a larger sailboat, I suggest you test your theory with others aboard and alert to your experiment!!
Try this. Deploy your warp. With the boat traveling at, say 7 or 8 kts, jump off amid ships. Then try to recover the warp AND and over hand it to the boat and then deploy the ladder and then board the boat. If you succeed, please email me.
VHF & etc
I will have a submersible VHF w/o a doubt. Do people leash themselves to their craft using something like a surgical rubber tether perhaps 2m long? I can easily see that were I to be separated from the boat, I’d never be able to recover it by swimming if it were an 8 or 10kt or more wind. I say this because presumably the boat would be pushed off in any incident which caused me to lose my perch. From there on, the boat would drift faster than I could swim in most conditions I can visualize.
Do people tether their paddles too? I can envision losing a paddle much easier than I can see losing my perch.
I’ll give a try to recover my seat after an intentional abandon ship. I’ll ask the person I buy from for some tips if I can’t catch up to a local expert before the event. I’m supposing you regain a kayak like I used to canoe - by a bow or stern entry.
Well, much good info here and much to consider.
Sit OnTop Capacity
I would recommend a Sit On Top for a novice on open water. The Scupper, or Tarpon, that Seadart mentioned would have more than enough capacity. Another that would work, and you might find for rent, would be an Ocean Kayak Prowler 15.
The most common beach rental is the Ocean Kayak Malibu II. That would work in a pinch, but it would be a really long 12 miles.
You Are OK, Dude!
I got to admit I am impressed by the way you take PNET “constructive criticism”
There are people here who would not cross the street without a police escort.
If you are young and in pretty good shape, this could be as simple as renting a Malibu II from the nearest Dive shop. People do it all the time.
Paddle Leash Good Idea
Commonly leash the paddle to the boat. That way if you go over, you hang on to the paddle, and the boat does not get away from you.
Much more commonly, you might drop the paddle for some reason when using hands for something else.
Leashes
Usually you leash paddle to the boat or your wrist, the leash paddle to the boat means you have to hang onto your paddle. One leash can cause much debate about risk of entanglement, two leashes will surely double that. For your situation I’d suggest leash the paddle to the boat and resolve to hang onto the paddle. You can find such leashes in any sports store that has paddling stuff at all. It’s often telephone cord but look around - personally I use the wrist one if at all so I am less familiar with these long ones.
I am not sure about SOT’s, but often re-entry in a paddle boat also involves use of a float that you inflate and put on the paddle to use it as an outrigger. It takes some practice but again, SOTs are supposed to be easier so maybe not much.
I think you’ll find plenty of info on recovery from a capsize on this site (pnet) if you look around. Spend some time knocking around here, also the site for Atlantic Kayak Tours which has a lot of good info. This is an area for which there are lots of videos and articles available and it’s easy to see what normal practice is.
Thanks
Better idea than my thought to lash my wrist to the boat by surgical rubber tubing.
Leash
OK, I"ll look for boat recovery here and in some other places I’ve stumbled upon since I have learned I’m Mr. Sag of Kayak Fame.
My idea to use surgical rubber tubing is to avoid entanglements. The tubing is very strong but also quite elastic so if I were to become entangled somehow, I could stretch the tubing out and get away from whatever was entangling me. That strikes me as a good deal better than phone cord which either isn’t elastic or in in a very limited sense.
I’ve kinda caught the bug too seeing other kayaks as suggested by this board and then wandering further. Frex, I am intrigued by an ocean kayak called an F1 which would demand I travel to OR to build - something I can stand the thought of easily enough. Doesn’t make sense for this mission, but it’s always wonderful to discover a new world and see how wide it is.
Malibu
I have an agreement with a shop to buy and sell back a Hobie Adventure for less than the rental on a lesser kayak would be. I want the Mirage Drive so I can have my hands free to work with my wife while she’s in the water plus I feel my chances of being able to complete the task better if I can use my feet and hands for propulsion.
As to the constructive criticism, believe it or don’t but I do appreciate people taking the time and effort to tell me I’m stupider than a stump but still smarter than a box of hammers for trying this. I figure they know better than I do.
Hobie
Hobie still is my top choice due to the Mirage / foot drive. I need all the help I can get so I say, “Feets, do your stuff” and hope that they will.