More options are good
I know a couple of very good ww paddlers who can hand roll. Would they count on it in the class 4 and 5 they can handle? I doubt it. But the kinds of things that having a comfortable hand roll teaches are valuable to confidence and ability to be flexible on rolling from various kinds of capsizes. Sea or ww.
Similar to a Greenland roll
A harpoon throwing stick (Norsaq) in one hand, and handroll with it makes it much easier, and helps develop a handroll. Ping pong paddle works good, too.
A fine way to learn, and if you male a Norsaq, it’s a legit Greenlandic roll itself.
Keep at it!
Emphasis
Personally, I would urge a paddler to get equally comfortable rolling on both sides long before I’d suggest learning to hand roll. It just seems much more valuable to me.
The "Value…"
is that I can brag about being able to hand roll… in practice sessions. 
The reality - handrolling up in the break zone, after getting paddle stripped, I promptly went back over on the next breaker and then took that awful swim back in.
Hand roll practice does help with rolling mechanics. Frankly, I don’t think it’s necessary. I would encourage folks to just practice with and be able to roll up consistently on both sides with a paddle. Then take it into mild conditions (surf and/or class II) and just flip and roll, both sides, 'til you get bored from doing it.
sing
harder with modern whitewater K1s
– Last Updated: Jan-02-15 3:53 PM EST –
It used to be pretty common for whitewater kayakers to be able to hands roll back in the 1980s and 1990s but I see it done less often in recent years, or at least a smaller percentage of whitewater boaters seem able to do it. Hell, I could hands roll my Dagger Crossfire or AQII pretty easily on both sides but I doubt I would have as much luck with modern flat bottom, hard chine boats even if I could magically subtract 15 years of age.
I have known two individuals who could hands roll more easily than they could with a paddle. They seemed to have paddle dyslexia and sometimes couldn't figure out what to do with the non-sweeping blade. In those instances they would simply let go the paddle and hands roll up.
Back in the day a common hot dog move was to go surf a hole or wave and throw your paddle away to a friend sitting in a nearby eddy. In that situation, it was certainly nice to be able to hands roll so as to escape the indignation of the bootie beer award that generally followed a swim.
That sort of thing definitely fits the parlor trick designation but there are certainly situations in whitewater in which a hands roll can come in very handy. It is quite possible to get your paddle stuck in a shallow rapid when trying to set up to roll and have to let go of it, or break your paddle, or simply get chundered in a hole and loose your grip on it.
It is also possible for a friend to lose their paddle in a rapid. I have known situations in which an experienced boater saved a less experienced one with a "hand of god" rescue after that boater let go of their paddle, and then the more experienced boater gave the other their paddle and hand-paddled the remainder of the rapid.
I'm sure that there might be an occasional instance in which a hands roll would be handy in flat water, but they would no doubt be less common.
As was mentioned, if you perfect the body mechanics of the roll well enough to nail hands rolls you will have a very efficient paddle roll.
IMO for whitewater it is probably better to stick to one type of paddle roll primarily, either sweep or C-to-C, or a hybrid between the two, and try to make it muscle memory. The ability to roll on either side is a big bonus in whitewater, although the same type of primary roll doesn't necessarily have to be used on both sides. I have known boaters who did a C-to-C on their strong side and a sweep on their weaker side, or vice verse, for example.
The other whitewater roll that can be a face saver on occasion is the so-called rodeo roll or roll off the back deck. This is useful for rodeo boaters as it often is the quickest way to get back upright and stay on the feature. But it can be very welcome if you capsize in a shallow rapid and don't tuck forward quickly enough and get plastered on the back deck.
Here’s some nice hands work…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dvTxJ8eIeg Notice his bubbly room hang time…till conditions are right for the roll to work.
Harder in today’s WW K-1’s?
I never thought about that since I’m really out of touch with the 21st century WW scene.
But hand rolling a WW kayak was quite common in the 80’s and 90’s, as pblanc also seems to recall. Most good kayakers and C-1’ers would hand surf holes and could roll up without a paddle. Of course, that’s not really all that hard in a nicely formed hole. Rolling up in fractally turbulent rapids is a different story.
Nolan Whitesell could roll up his open canoe, which was 34" wide, very snappily with just his hands, on either side.
I thought good Greenland sea kayakers could even roll up with just a torso flick, even without any hands, like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTsFLbEmXLM
It’s not a particularly strong roll.
I have a hand roll and I can pull it off pretty well in my boat. But I paddle a Greenland kajak that’s a pretty easy roll, and with my hand roll I feel that there is hardly enough force to bring me up.
So, I’d say it’s sort of a party trick roll. If somehow I lost my paddle, I doubt those conditions would let me come up with my hand roll alone. Now, a norsaq roll on the other hand has much more force behind it, and uses the same form.
So I’d say learn it, but if you want to use it in the paint, I’d plan to use a norsaq.
Yes and no
All of the crazy rolls that saw given Greenland names and then demonstrated in the video were invented for one reason or another, as explained below. Now they’re learned for fun, and competition purposes.
However you do need to have 2-4 rolls if you want to go hard in the paint and be able to come back up. The thing is that there are a million ways to go down. And knowing a bunch of different rolls makes it so that you can instantly choose the best roll to do, based on where you are now.
older and newer whitewater K1s
I’m sure that some might disagree that modern whitewater kayaks are more challenging to roll, especially without a paddle, but the fact that one sees far fewer kayakers hands rolling these days supports my contention, I think.
Older whitewater boats had displacement hulls which had gently rounded, soft chines. They also positioned the legs straighter out with the knees less flexed and closer together than more modern designs.
Most whitewater playboats these days, apart from some creek boats and an emerging genre of “retro” boats, tend to have flattish-bottomed, “planing” hulls with a sharp chine. This feature and the knee position makes for a very vertically “thick” hull at the front of the cockpit and a fairly sharp edge at the chine.
It is much harder IMO for people of normal flexibility to get their torso wrapped around this thick part of the hull in order to get their heads and upper bodies close to the water surface for a good setup position, which is critical to the hands roll. You just can’t get that thick hull tucked into your armpit like you could with older designs.
The sharp chine and slab sided nature of these hulls also present a distinct edge which resists smooth rotation compared to the softly-rounded displacement hulls of yesteryear.
Yes
When I was learning to roll, we students would damn near fight to get one of the older Pirouettes; the hot dog shaped boats. Everyone got their first rolls in them. The hamburger shaped boats were significantly harder.
if
you are doing a Greenland style hand roll and find that it doesn’t have as much power as you desire {palm up}…try a whitewater hand roll {double pump} It is a lot more dynamic. {it does use more energy tho}
Best Wishes
Roy
Well, there’s Cheri, and there’s us
That roll is amazingly hard to do. I had the good fortune to watch Cheri learn a lot of that stuff at pool sessions that the sea kayaking club we both belong to runs.
She was the first person, male or female, to nail that roll in competition. And it’s scary how easy she makes it look. There might be a dozen people in the world that can do it.
Talk about technique and boat control………
Fun to watch Alison too
Another that makes it all look easy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vN4QrNVbnv8
Best Wishes
Roy
Double pump
Is this where you swing the arm twice to get up? As it is. It swing once and am only able to roll up due to the extremely low deck that I have thrown my weight down on. I feel that most ww rolls are forward or neutral finish and I don’t think I would be able to pull that off in a hand roll (haven’t even done many forward finishes with a paddle).
It is
– Last Updated: Jan-03-15 8:23 PM EST –
where you do one hand following the other in a scoop/cupped shape ...face is down...Palms down...finish is front or sitting ending like a C 2 C {this roll will remind you a lot of a c2c with hands...same arch...same curl....
Best wishes
Roy
in ww its a bit tougher for some to
transition from a pool roll to a river roll. Things are disorienting- boat is moving around upside down while your in it, often you have to fight to set up, and then time your roll with the waves and eddy lines- meaning you might hang a second or two until you can feel the opportunity, then when you do roll up you have to instantly switch into paddling mode. Learning to hand roll is a great way to instill confidence and develop great fundamentals. All that bein’ said, rolling is the weakest part of my game and I still paddle a lot and only swim occasionally so it is possible to ww with a mediocre roll if you’ve got most of the other skills in place.
some lean way back
I have known some good hands rollers who came up leaning way back onto the back deck while quickly swinging the arm and hand opposite the roll out over the water to help center their weight over the boat.
Doesn’t leave one in the best position to hand paddle if one is still in a rapid, however.
The most important
thing with learning a handroll is that you are refining your technique. When you get in a situation when need to roll up you will want to have the best technique possible. Technique can be lost if you don’t practice regularly, so working on that next hardest roll will keep your technique in a good place. I can’t do some of the rolls that others can do but I know that if I keep challenging my skills I will be at my best when I need to roll up.