Hi all,
Like, I think, most of us here, I’m not a WW guy…not really interested, I like to smell the roses when I’m paddling. However, while I was up paddling on the Maine coast my instructor (the awesome Nate from Pinniped Kayak) suggested it would be good for me to do a WW class (to help with confidence, relaxation in larger water). Since I live in Western NC, I was spoiled for choice.
So, I just finished a two day “intro to WW” class at the Nantahala Outdoor Center in Bryson City. What a blast! We spent a couple of hours on the lake getting oriented and making sure our wet exit was up to scratch, then a day and a half on the Nantahala river, which was running high after some storms. Just me and one other guy, plus our instructor Elvis.
We worked on eddying and peeling out, ferrying and even did a little surfing on some smaller waves, but the highlights were the three runs down the river. For all 3 we followed Elvis, who was fantastic, 'cause we had way too much going on to try to pick lines and avoid rocks. There were shelves, holes, rocks and some waves well over my head, sometimes coming from 3 different directions. There were a couple of close calls and definite moments of terror, but we stayed dry. Those boats are pretty amazing and really want to stay upright in all that.
Anyway, I’m not going to convert to WW - too much adrenalin - but it was a great eye opener and skill enhancer and will be a real help next time I’m out in slightly bigger water on the coast or elsewhere. I’d recommend it!
Yup, agree! I took up WW training with the NH AMC white water paddlers early on in my seakayaking pursuit for that reason. I enjoyed it enough that I took up white water more than sea kayaking for awhile. Became one a volunteer coach at the NH AMC white water beginners’ weekend training camps for beginners for several springs as payback.
You can also gain more confidence in your sea kayaking through progressive play/practice/training in the surf zone.
Enjoy and play safely with practice and conditioning.
-sing
Just checked and found that the NH AMC Spring Training weekend for beginners are still offered annually. It’s really a great weekend to learn and connect with WW paddlers in the New England area. So, if you are a northeast paddler looking to up/expand your paddling game…
-sing
Good idea. A class like that will help a lot of skills. It will make you a better lake and ocean paddler. You can learn to read water.
It amazes me how many paddlers never practice wet exits, capsizing or rescues. A class is the way to get started.
Plus, it WAS great fun!
Good for you! I agree that some WW experience can help your sea kayaking skills. But it’s not just about building confidence; in fact, there are some very important differences between WW and sea kayaking. These differences can make you a better sea kayaker, or can get you in trouble, so I hope your instructors talked about them.
It all has to do with whether or not you are paddling in current. Among other things, current creates standing waves: the water moves downstream, but the waves stay in one place. With wind waves on the ocean or lake – except when waves are crashing on shore) --the waves move horizontally, but the water only moves up and down . This is why small ocean waves don’t push your boat much, if at all.
If your sea kayaking will take you places where there is significant current – like in a tidal “race” or on a large river – understanding these differences is essential. (@ppine, your observation that a ww class can help one learn to read water needs to be qualified: it helps if you are paddling in current, but if you’re trying to apply those concepts to ocean or lake paddling without significant current it will cause problems. There are a lot of ways that the dynamics are very different.)
Example 1: Sea kayakers with minimal experience in current may find themselves paddling large rivers. On a circumnavigation of Manhattan some years ago, we paddled downstream (south) on the Hudson and then came back up north on the reversing current on the East River – neither of which, despite some choppy spots, involved any white water. Shortly below the launch, organizers instructed people to pull out into a shore eddy to wait to regroup. Just below the eddy, the current was flowing under a dock. The first 3 (or 4? 5?) people in a row overshot the eddy but pulled towards shore anyway, thinking they would just paddle past the dock. Instead, the current pulled them into the dock, which (like a strainer in ww parlance) prevented their boats from moving downstream, while the current, still pulling on their hulls, caused all of them to flip. If caught under the dock, they could easily have drowned. Fortunately all came out ok.
Example 2: On the ocean, if you are shore surfing and get turned sideways, you (usually, with larger waves) lean into the wave, otherwise the wave flips you towards the shore. But if you are surfing a standing wave (on the river or in a tide race), you always lean away from the wave, i.e. downstream, otherwise the current pulls the bottom of your boat downstream and you flip upstream.
Learning to paddle in moving water is useful no matter how you describe it or how salty it is. Newbies need instruction to make them safe. A ww class is one of the fastest ways to get that instruction.
Hmmm… Here is some footage of seakayak surfing on a big standing wave. Do you see them leaning/carving “away from” the wave, or into the wave (which is essentially on the downstream flow)?
To me, the moves are the same as on a moving ocean wave, except they are surfing down the water flow and essentially going nowhere.
-sing
Interesting thoughts guys. In the actual class that started this thread, the instructor wasn’t a sea kayaker at all. We had some chats about similarities versus differences, but it was mostly me making the comparisons. The class was pretty much a one off for me - I’m not planning to take up WW - so I think I won’t have acquired any bad habits. It has helped with confidence and balance already though, and some of the specifics (entering/exiting eddys for example).
mickp congrats on your nata-hell-ya runs and your ww class. You talked about an adrenaline rush. When I was younger that was certainly part of the appeal but as I grew in the sport I saw ww very differently. For me the objective became taking a chaotic ww environment and making it smooth and tranquil. It became less about paddle strokes and more about using and understanding the river and its features. I’ve dropped the difficulty way down now but I still strive for being smooth and using the river’s energy. The truth is my paddle strokes and form have pretty much always sucked. Put me in some current and I get a bit better. Put me in ww and I look even better.
I took some lessons a few years ago and the instructor asked, “what is your goal for this class?” I told him “I want to make class II look good!” The other folks were kind of shaking their heads snickering since we were in a class III learning environment and the other participants were wanting to expand the difficulty they paddle in, not decrease it. I wanted to get better but not paddle in harder environments.
Learning new things can be daunting but it doesn’t have to be scary or even an adrenaline rush. You could have been on the Tuck rather than the Natty so the venue makes a huge difference but you wanted to be more at ease in textured water so perhaps the natahala was the right place for you because it has a lot more “texture”. Survivor mode isn’t where I personally want to be right now. I did enjoy some of those moments when I was younger and stronger. I had a more “wide open” approach in my youth but that doesn’t work so well for me now. Mickp, you are brave for putting yourself out there. Trying a new environment and craft can be both mentally and physically challenging.
Paddling is supposed to be fun but learning new techniques, trying new boats, and changing the way you think about the sport can be unsettling. Realizing you suck in comparison to others can lead to frustration. Focus on the improvement. Ww should improve your overall focus and keep you very locked in the moment! In addition to experiencing texture perhaps you improved your focus. Fear is kind of the opposite of that. Learning to channel it into focus should translate well to sea kayaking.
I don’t paddle because I’m good at it. I like how I feel when I’m paddling. The world makes more sense when I’m paddling. Technique is just a small but important part of that. Unfortunately , new techniques, boats and environments can feel “sketchy” and not at all serene.
It is hard to enjoy paddling if your hurt, fatigued, or scared. That usually comes down to picking an appropriate venue. You added a few more variables- boat type, paddling partners, and performance anxiety. So you did well!
In ww, stern rudder and stern draw strokes are your friend. Its a bit like driving a light, 2 wheel drive pick up, with bald tires, on a sheet of ice. The back end wants to slide around every which way. Ww paddling, in large part, is about learning to control spin. My recent sea kayaking lessons seemed to focus on initiating spin (often with bow strokes) in a boat that is designed and excels at going straight. Those are some pretty big differences from ww. Again, congrats on moving out of your comfort zone and trying something new. Clearly, you haven’t yet been bitten by the ww bug but you tried it and survived it! Did you get to practice swimming any ww? Perhaps the “terror” level would decrease with a few swims or then again it might lead to quitting ww altogether. Swims are often the “make it or break it” experience for ww paddlers. Thus the importance of developing a solid roll.
TD, great post, enjoyable and generous (like almost everyone here!), thank you!
It was a shock to me how those WW boats spun like a top when we started out on the lake! I mean, I knew they would, but the experience was more than I anticipated. There were no swims on the river runs (and we did, of course, run through our wet exits on the lake beforehand). I plan to spend more time “playing”, swimming, reentering etc in the coming weeks on some local lakes, now that we’re warmed up. I think being more comfortable with swims IS another key.
Anyway, it was fun, and met my objectives!
My ideal is calmness, peace, wildlife, scenery, solitude, be it on river, lake or ocean, ideally with one or more overnights. I’ve done some of all these. My objective is to get where I can be more flexible, have wider margins - for example, I loved my first experience kayaking the Maine coast, and if I ever want to overnight up there, I need to be prepared for at least somewhat bigger conditions. For river trips, I’m fine sticking with Class 1 max, but if for some reason I find myself in something closer to 2, I can handle it (I’d love to do the Allagash Wilderness waterway in a year or two also, which gets up to Class 2). But I have no desire to run the rivers up here in the mountains (did I move to the wrong place? :-)), or to emulate Sing in the surf. Just like your attitude with the Class 3 stuff.
There’s a good looking outfit on the NC coast in Wilmington that might be my next destination for some rolling lessons. Then I’ll be back in Maine in August and hopefully can get with the awesome Nate from Pinniped Kayak again for a day or two on the water.
All goes to show how paddling is such a broad church.
In other news been reading more about tides and tidal currents - talk about complicated!