I heard about your swim
I have experienced how quickly the power of moving water can humble a person. Sorry that your maiden voyage in your new speeder ended so quickly and coldly. FYI - Evergreen Outfitters will be offering rolling lessons at Chatauqua Institute in Feb. and Mar. I hope to sign up. Laura
Would have been nice to video that.
It is hard to analyse all that went wrong there. I didn’t keep the forward momentum. I did not look downstream. Did not lean downstream. And braced on the srong side. Started my sweep too late. And did not try to recover with a high brace. All that would have had to been second nature muscle memory and I have not been out in the boat a few months now.
At least I can officially join the swampers club. 
I owned a Speeder for a while
and then sold it.
Per the literature, I knew it was intended mostly for downriver racing but mistakenly thought it would be a good lake boat by virtue of its length and width.
That turned out to be sort of true… it was great for lake paddling as long as conditions were not at all windy. I am telling you, that Speeder is ONE FAST BOAT on a placid lake. But with any wind, it takes a lot of energy for correction to make it go straight. Very frustrating.
I did find that it handled well on the river, although I only paddle Class I-II whitewater. You have to lean aggressively on turns going into eddies, but that just takes some getting used to. It does a nice job on the river, but I’m more of a lake paddler so I ended up selling mine.
Some people say it feels “tippy” and two experienced paddlers who tried my Speeder capsized in it - and that was on the flat part of a river just trying the boat out! So everybody is different in what they consider tippy. I never had a problem with it being tippy.
I hope this helps.
Sorry about your maiden voyage
ending up so badly. Don’t worry, I think you will like it better once you get used to it. I agree that you have to lean more aggressively in the Speeder than in a normal whitewater kayak. Give it time.
Can’t wait to get back in it.
– Last Updated: Dec-25-09 7:15 PM EST –
A whole lot of stuff I should have done, like stretch and warm up. For some weird reason, I am feeling exceptionally overconfident and brave again. Perhaps it's the Cabernet? :)
Going to try to get my act together to take it to the Red Moshannon race if I can get some seat time and loosen up before then.
I can't wait to see how fast it goes forward. She goes over sideways amazingly fast.:))
My main use will be downriver racing, but usually practice a lot on the lake. Thanks for the warning about the wind, I am sure I will get to test that too.
Speeder turning
I have raced the speeder on the Nanty,class 2/3. Plan your moves EARLY.The easiest way to turn is, jump the bow off of a wave while doing a powersweep[start at the bow,all the way to stern].
NO B.S. …Lean AWAY from the turn to turn !!!
Tech. wise treat it like a WildWater boat.
The Speeder is the third fastest{{but best handeling}} downriver boat I’ve ever been in.
#1= glass Wilwater
#2= Wavehopper
The coolest thing about the speedeer, once you are “up2speed” It’s easy to stay that fast.
Second Impression
Well I took it to a pool for rolling classes. First thing I did was inform them I needed a bit to become accustomed to just keeping it upright. Was not going to do me much good to roll up if I could not stay up. In just a lap, I was completely at ease. This thing actually does have quite strong secondary. I let some of the lighter weight paddlers in it and they were quite comfortable. One lady rolling it back up very easily. I did not manage to roll any of the boats they put me in tonight.
After five minutes in the boat, I could easily sit relaxed enough to eat lunch or take pictures. Once I learned to relax and trust it, there was really no issue at all. I am quite surprised at this point that I managed to upset it. I kept pushing the limits in the pool until I did find a point that I just could not recover and wet exited. This was more on purpose than accidental.
So, I think my tensness and extra clothing and lack or warming up and stretching contributed to my maiden voyage spill. I would feel quite comfortable today heading out to class 2 waters. That is if they were not all frozen solid here. Spring is coming. I cannot wait.
Learn to roll!
– Last Updated: Jan-16-10 12:08 PM EST –
The sooner you learn to roll, the better. IMO, while learning, your balanse will improve too. Until I had a relatively reliable roll I was afraid to experiment. Once I knew I can roll back, my learning of other skills progressed much faster than it would have without a roll to "bail me out" when I flip trying to edge or brace or what not...
Moving water in a tippy boat will take more time to master if you have to swim after every mistake. Initially, when my roll was shakier, I kept a foam paddle float handy that I could slip over the paddle while upside down or use to help with a static brace if I could not do a full roll. Much easier to roll with a float on the paddle - good learning aid to minimize the times to swim while learning to roll or if a roll fails...
Took the first roll lesson last night.
It didn’t do nearly as well as I had expected. I will get it down soon. Tried a few different boats and I think the Speeder was easier than the WW play boats.
It took me a while to get my first roll
Mid-way thru my first year of “serious” paddling I signed for a class on rolling. I was not even close to rollng before that. At the end of the class I managed to do a few unassisted C2C rolls in a river-running WW boat (Pyranha Burn).
I could not repeat that in my sea kayak nor do it reliably in the WW boat for quite some time after that though.
Interestingly enough, my roll became somewhat reliable for the first time when I started using a wing paddle. The wing paddle has som much leverage that I could “cheat” and cover for my less than perfect body motion. But I still could not do a reliable roll with a Euro paddle at that time.
Then I got a greenland paddle and learned to do a static brace. Once I could do a static brace, I then learned to get back on the rear deck from a static brace position. Once I had that mastered, I had a “reliable” roll for flat calm conditions - I could always lay flat on the water in a static brace, compose myself, then either finish with a layback or try again with a different roll.
Once I had one relable way to come-up, it was much afaster learning. But the boat matters too - some are just easier to roll than others and that can be a big thing while learning.
I don’t have huge experience in WW boats but last year I could reliably roll my sea kayak where I could not the WW boat. The technique is a little different for the optimum ease of rolling either but once I figured out how to roll the WW boat I find it no harder than the sea kayak - just a little different on some rolls as it is short and you can’t do broad slow sweeps like you can in a sea kayak. Nor can I do a static brace in the WW boat - floats too high and I sink down -
My point is that for the average non-exceptional paddler like myself who paddles once or twice a week, even after getting a roll in a pool, it probably would take months more to get the roll really reliable in all conditions where I would paddle (e.g. large or steep waves, strong currents, strong winds).
Then comes the off-side roll - I had not really tried too often, but the few times I did it failed. But recently, when my on-side roll had become efortless enough, I was able transfer the knowledge to my off-side and somewhat surprisingly, was able to do the off-site rolls too (in calm conditions; have not yet tried in more challenging waters - still too cold).