My Experience
I have been paddling a sea kayak for coming up on 5 years and I have never needed a roll. My one capsize was in a couple of feet of water when I learned what “broaching” meant… the hard way. And no, I don’t just paddle on a farm pond on calm days. Most of the rough stuff has been in the sounds at the NC outer banks.
That being said, I learned to roll and am working at getting good at it. On Friday I realized that even if I never acquire a ‘never miss’ roll, I have learned a lot while out there practicing. I would NEVER have learned just how powerful a brace is without leaning way the hell over and leaning on that paddle. I would never have leaned that far without going out and getting upside down. My buddy and I have also learned how to help one another when one of us is upside down or wants to use a bow to re-enter a boat. Again, OTHER skills are being developed when learning to roll.
What I can’t figure out is why you can have a roll one week and it’s ****ing gone the next!
He claims to be an advanced paddler.
2nd request
Pahismeroi, when was that artcle published?
I would love to read it.
Why the attitude?
What's wrong with a "beginner post"? Some of us aren't the self-proclaimed experts who must exert their self-righteous views on the rest. I think there are some absolutes in our sport (e.g. wear a PFD, dress for immersion, etc.), but there are many gray areas, such as the comparative benefits of the various rescue techniques. I enjoy reading differing viewpoints, even those which apparently violate the orthodoxy of the esteemed experts. I think this post is making a good point; namely, that rolling is not the end-all definitive accomplishment in kayaking. I have learned to roll this year, and I think it makes me a safer paddler, but more importantly, the chicks dig it! In the final analysis, though, I am just a first year paddler trying to fit in.
Skol, brothers and sisters, and go easy on the novices. We need more lovin' and less hatin'.
Erik
useless labels
Sure, he claims to be advance. He maybe advance on whitewater and beginner on seakayak, or the reverse. What use is that lable?
That’s why I don’t fill in those silly profiles. Because I simply can’t.
Half my sea kayaking friends think I’m advance because I can roll. But they can put 20+ miles against headwind and I have a hard time getting my butt back from Angel Island back to Horseshoe Cove! But I can roll, and I have instinctive brace and edge control from years of whitewatering.
Ask a whitewater paddler, they wouldn’t be able to understand why you can’t cover a
To match attitude with attitude, that is
Read the original post, he’s the one who “exert their self-righteous views on the rest” by proclaiming there’s too much emphesis on rolling at the expense of re-entry!
Sea Kayaker
The article was published over five years ago. My instructors had 20 years of experiece each and were experts at rolling. It was they that called it a waste of money to pay them to learn it. Their point was that you will rarely capsize and a re-entry will always save your life but a roll won’t.
How many of you ever pratice doing a roll while in a fully loaded kayak? Is it easier, harder or damn near impossible? That would be a good question for most to consider. A loaded kayak is more stable in the water. I would think that it might be much harder to roll. The only time I’m going to worry about being dangerously rough water is when I’m on an expedition with a loaded kayak. How many people are going out in 40 knot winds? I’ll do 20 knots without worrying about capsize. To date I’ve never capsized on the ocean or a lake. Been out in some 4’ & 5’ waves left over from a wind event on the Sea of Cortez but never felt threatened.
I took my lessons from the biggest kayak shop in S.Cal at the time but the name escapes me at the moment. Southwinds I think it was. Since the instructors weren’t the owners I don’t know how much they tell the owners what they are saying to the clients.
Loaded kayaks roll
easier. Especially if you have the heavy stuff along the keel and well packed into the holds. Acts like a keel on a larger sailboat.
your “instructors” didn’t have a clue…
A self rescue such as cowboy scramble or paddle float re-entry requires much more strength, effort, and balance than any roll. I would trust my roll to save my life in 4-5 foot swells in frigid water but if I trusted myself to other self rescues, I'd be a fool. Somehow I'm doubting the "expert" nature of your instructor's rolling abilities. Anyone with advanced rolling skills is 100% confident in them.
Also, Chuck is completely right about a loaded kayak. They roll MUCH easier than an unloaded kayak.
Edited to add: Would that shop happen to be Windsport (http://www.windsport.net/)? If so do you the names of the instructors as I'd love to email them ask them their true thoughts on rolling.
"a re-entry will always save your life"
Always? Really? What sort of re-entry are you talking about? One that works in water rough enough to cause one of those rare capsizes? One that gets you out of the water fast and in a dewatered cockpit?
Maybe you’re alive for the first one. How about the next one a minute later while trying to pump out and stow that float? The one after that. If you have to get out and back in every time the kayak goes over you will get very tired AND be exposed. Good luck with that.
Do you really think there will be only one capsize when the $#!t hits the fan? Do you really think those same conditions would be equally challenging for a roller. Good rollers seek out and play in stuff most non-rollers avoid.
The depth of your misconceptions are astounding.
Your instructors were right about rarely going over - BECAUSE they can roll. It’s VERY hard to capsize a decent roller in the first place. Far less likely to have an unplanned capsize than a non-roller. Things can start to go downhill fast from that first wet exit in rough/cold waters.
GO READ “DEEP TROUBLE” - You may read Sea Kayaker - but you must have missed this book. Not too many stories about expert rollers having near death experiences (any?), and many about people with what they thought were OK rescue skills quickly finding them inadequate for more than a few attempts at staying in.
The read John Lull’s “Sea Kayaking Safety & Rescue” to better understand multiple levels of defense and what order to rely on them in.
Windsport
is a struggling shop in San Diego. Southwind is a large shop in Irvine. Southwest Sea Kayaks was a shop run by Ed Gillet ( of Monterrey to Hawaii fame) who was not super big on rolling.
Southwinds instructors
If you can provide a year I bet I can tell you in about 2 hours who taught your class. I bet I can even get them to reply here. Kayaking is a very small world. Where was your class taught?
For a self rescue re-entry, extra
equipment is needed and if you have no roll your life may well depend on having that extra equipment. I would much rather rely on my skills than equipment any day, period.
Relying soely on the strength of the aft bungies to hold your paddle in place requires regular inspection and replacement. I’ve seen boats with such loose bungies that doing a self rescue would be very difficult.
The roll is priceless when it works, and when it doesn’t you will be in a more dangerous position, and much more tired. That said, a roll is the first defense and reentry is a distant number 2. Both should be practiced because even the best kayakers find themselves needing a roll or a re-entry.
What Southwind says now.
From their website:
“A solid Eskimo roll opens up a new world of kayaking for you. Aside from being the best self-rescue technique available, it allows you to improve your paddling skills. The goal of this fun, three-hour course is to get you rolling if you’ve not done it before, or to perfect your rolling technique, add new rolls, and get you ready for rivers or surf.”
The main thin is that the wer pahs’s
instructors. What a job they did!
Well there is that story aboit
Eric soares needing to shoot off flares and being rescued by a ferry. But we all know that carrying flares on us is stupid. ;-^
Good Books
Both books are really great, a good recommendation. From beginners to experts - they all capsized for different reasons. The biggest problem besides poor equipment (missing PFD’s, missing dry or wetsuits, no kayak floatation etc.,) was to get back into the boat without capsizing again.
Last weekend we lost a kayaker in the north sea for exactly this reason. 3 kayaks capsized, one kayaker could swim to shore, one got back into his yak and one died, trying to swim after loosing his kayak (No more details are known about this).
pure bollux
in my opinion, length of time/experience doesn't necessarily produce good instructor skills nor does it guarantee that they know what they're talking about. in this case, they are dead wrong.
actually, a fully loaded boat is lower in the water and thus, easier to roll.
you haven't capsized YET. evidently you're not paddling very challenging water. you may not want to but others do.
'big' doesn't translate into "good", or quality .. or much of anything necessarily positive for that matter.
“you haven’t capsized YET”
That's a key point on two levels:
1. It's just a matter of time. Not "if" but "when".
2. If you're not doing it on purpose and often you:
A. risk being in a bad way when you do.
B. are relying on luck instead of being prepared.
C. miss some of the most fun aspects of kayaking!
Why roll? Insurance. Nothing is a guarantee - but rolling is the best insurance available. Learning and practicing (along with other rescues as already noted) takes care of all of the above. It's also a lot of fun and provides other skill benefits far beyond the roll itself.
I really can't fathom why people will waste other's time and possibly compromise their safety by trying to downplay the immense benefits of learning to roll. Maybe they are playing Devil's Advocate/fool just to illicit the inevitable flood of good posts? If that's the case - Thanks! If not, keep your ignorance and fear to yourself.
Roll or not? Just look at the equipment. What makes closed deck Sea/WW/surf kayaks different from all other small watercraft? They are MADE to be rolled. It's part of the deal. So, if you don't roll, are you a kayaker or just a paddler who happens to paddle a kayak? Yes, it's that simple - and I think an important distinction. (Donning asbestos PFD & spray skirt now...)
Out of date attitudes…
Yeah - loaded rolls easier. Granted that I wasn't able to take advantage of this until I had a chunk of rolls under my belt, but it was because I had to get the bit that it was harder to roll loaded out of my head. It is easier for all the reasons listed here - and yeah I've practiced it.
The only diff I find is that it is a slower start than an unloaded boat, but as you move past the secondary stability point the weight pretty much brings the boat up by itself.
There is a contingent of longer term paddlers out there who spent a lot of years paddling when it was still rare to find a sea kayaker who could roll, and the boats available were mostly the high decked North American boats that make rolling much more difficult than the lower decked decked designs you see now. These folks include many very capable paddlers, all better than me I am sure, but frankly their attitude about rolling is out of step with the times. Not only do a lot more sea kayakers learn to roll than used to, current boats make it a lot easier.
The CD Solstice (GTS), for example, would be a very difficult boat for an average sized woman, 5'4" or so, to roll. And that is the population to which many were sold, because for the time it was as close a fit as was available. It's a good solid, fast boat, but between the total lack of positive thigh braces, very high deck and the balance of its stabilities, an average size woman has to have an extremely strong roll to bring this up. But the same paddler can get into something like a Romany, or Mystic or even a low volume Explorer and bring it up twice as easily.
There is another real important element here too - a lot of these attitudes fail to take into account the increase in the number of women involved in more challenging sea kayaking. Granted we are still often in the minority, but there are a lot more of us than 15 years ago. It does, and always will be, take proportionately more upper body strength for a woman of a given overall size (small, average, large) to haul her posterior and lower body over the back of a boat than for a guy of the same size. We simply have more of our weight down there. For a lot of women rolling, even if it does start from a wet re-entry, represents the least strenous option to get up.
Again - I am not maligning the paddling skill or overall advice of many of these longer term sea kayakers who discount rolling. But in that particular area, some are not giving good counsel because they are not recognizing the changes in boats, skills training and makeup of paddlers that exist now.