he takes his time (a little bit) to assess what happened, use the 1/2 of paddle he does have to roll
I suspect he has practiced rolling with 1/2 a paddle before. (I find that a ‘hand’ roll can be easier than using 1/2 a paddle, however, the 1/2 paddle is very useful - as can be seen in the video, after he is back up)
note: luckily he had gloves on - sometimes a broken paddle will have dangerous shards to avoid
I have tried rolling with half a euro along with half a greenland (my Paddle of choice). I find it easy. I would think everyone should have that down. Especially if your a euro paddler since they always keep there euro paddle in 2 pieces on the deck so thats all you would have if you lost your paddle while upside down. I wonder how long it would take before I realized I broken my paddle in half. Never broke one yet.
@Rex said:
Yeah man! I practice losing my paddle entirely and retrieving my ‘spare’ GP from the forward deck. Never had to do it but I practice it quite a bit.
Exactly my point about a euro paddler. They store there paddles broken down in 2 paces so they should have there half paddle roll down. Not that its hard. Lost my main greenland only once grabbed my Storm GP and quickly went to get back my 600 dollar greenland. It was terrifying to lose it just for a few seconds. I was like Nooooo not that paddle. .
Note- Bill rolled up with a broken half of his regular paddle, not with a spare off of his deck. In many ways, this is more challenging, as while you are underwater you need to feel around and figure out what is going on and how to make it work. Looks like it is opposite blade from what he would have used for that roll with a full paddle, so he had to swing the blade around from one side of his boat to the other to make it work. Rolling with a spare off deck would have been something he has practiced before, so he’d know exactly where the half paddle is and how it is laid out, so it would have been grab and go.
Not the first time this has been done, nor caught on film. Here is Sergey from a few years ago when he broke his wooden GP on a large pourover, and had to figure out how to make it work to roll up. https://youtu.be/uDn1kVSNwYk?t=3m51s
Note - if you back the video up to start at time 3:29, you will see Sergey’s wife going over a bigger, super impressive wave and need to roll up, but she doesn’t have paddle issues, so that run isn’t relevant to this conversation.
Edit - looks like Youtube doesn’t bring over the second part of time stamps, only minutes. The Sergey roll is at 3:51.
Those guy/gals are crazy rock gardeners. Yes I saw that he had to first realize his paddle was broken then turn it around to roll up on that side. I might have just rolled up on other side but I wonder how long it would take me to realize the paddle is broken. Makes me want to go out an paddle BUT not hear in snow land.
@Blitzemall said:
That’s pretty bad arse; but I just gotta wonder why someone would use a carbon blade while rock gardening? Isn’t that kind of overkill?
My CF blades are tough as nails. I never have rock gardened, but they have hit plenty of rocks with just a few dings. I touch up the dings with epoxy.
@dc9mm said:
Lost my main greenland only once grabbed my Storm GP and quickly went to get back my 600 dollar greenland. It was terrifying to lose it just for a few seconds. I was like Nooooo not that paddle. .
Loosing the $600 paddle … That’s why a lot of us use the cheap paddles for surfing and rock play.
I was performing a Greenland rolling demo to a crowd on Lake Superior a number of year ago, doing the “under the hull sculling” roll, when something just didn’t feel right. I had practiced the roll with the same paddle a few hours earlier. This time the carbon GP felt like it bent around the chines and hull like a soft bar of lead. I didn’t hear a “snap”. I tried to roll again (standard roll) and failed again, but finally figured out that one end was flopping around uselessly but was still attached. I had to deliberately tear off the bad section, held with carbon fibers, and then rolled back up with the remaining (longer) piece.
I was embarrassed by breaking the paddle but rolled up to much applause, and It turned out to be the highlight of the demo (or so I was told). Fortunately I was able to borrow another paddle and carry on…
@Rookie Yes, that video is of Bill. He has been doing the west coast symposiums for a while now, but looks like other areas are finally catching on to who he is and what he has to offer.
@gstamer said:
I was performing a Greenland rolling demo to a crowd on Lake Superior a number of year ago, doing the “under the hull sculling” roll, when something just didn’t feel right. I had practiced the roll with the same paddle a few hours earlier. This time the carbon GP felt like it bent around the chines and hull like a soft bar of lead. I didn’t hear a “snap”. I tried to roll again (standard roll) and failed again, but finally figured out that one end was flopping around uselessly but was still attached. I had to deliberately tear off the bad section, held with carbon fibers, and then rolled back up with the remaining (longer) piece.
I was embarrassed by breaking the paddle but rolled up to much applause, and It turned out to be the highlight of the demo (or so I was told). Fortunately I was able to borrow another paddle and carry on…
I only remember breaking my paddle twice and both times it was the same circumstance, on a waveski perpendicular to a huge close out wave, I put the blade above my head after window shading in self-defense and hang on - both times I roll right on over and up but holding two haves of a paddle broken in the middle of the shaft , and no real intention to roll just trying to hang onto the paddle and to keep my head and back protected and not dislocate a shoulder or elbow.
For me - all my breaks (about a half dozen or more) have been from the underwater turbulence while learning or playing in (heavy) surf.
When in surf, my paddle is always unfeathered. I think this position is not good in heavy surf due to the underwater dynamics. (this is why I suspect a greenland paddle is better in these conditions - no big blade to grab a bunch of water - more distributed over the stick).
some lessons learned:
carbon paddles don’t belong in heavy surf practice (note: I say practice, when on a trip - you have no choice)
2 piece shafts are more likely to break (all of my breaks have been at the ferrule)
corollary to above: for practice sessions, use a one piece paddle in heavy surf
check your paddle - once I had the blade come off in a surf session (the paddle was fairly old)
you always do a ‘pre-check’ on your kayak before going on a trip, maybe the paddle should be checked as well
