RE: [Paddlewise] FW: ACA meetings: Greenlan

Mark,

I think you missed the point of the Nigel Foster quote.  Your club (at least
judging from your signature banner) is a sea kayak club.  We all know that
sea kayakers --- for a variety of reasons -- avoid learning to roll.  White
water kayakers, on the other hand, are obsessed with rolling.  80% of the
white water kayakers I know have solid river-rolls and the other 20% are
working very hard to get theirs.

Clearly, only very serious sea kayakers learn to roll -- and these people
tend to become (or already are) advanced paddlers.  This makes sea kayak
rolling by construction an advanced technique.  But it doesn't have to be
that way -- which is the point of the Nigel Foster quote.  Its not an
advanced technique in white water paddling.  Given that rolling a sea kayak
is no harder than rolling a white water boat (except when the  sea kayak
fits too loosely in which case they can be a bit harder to roll), there is
no reason rolling can't be a basic skill in sea kayaking as well.

The benefits of rolling a sea kayak are almost as great as in a white water
boat.  Its fun to stray into an intense tide rip or pounding surf and being
able to relax 'cause you can fall back on your roll.  It greatly expands the
range of conditions you can safely enjoy.  I qualify my opening sentence
with the word "almost", however, since some portion of the sea kayaking
population chooses to always paddle in calm water and as long as they take
steps to stick to that decision, they may not NEED to know how to roll
(though even they would benefit from the obvious saftey benefits of having a
roll).


--Tim

P.S. Anticipating a response from the gentleman from New York concerning
folding boats, there are boats that are hard to roll by design hence, it is
therefore possible that for these isolated cases, it is not productive to
push acquisition of rolling skills. 



> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Mark Zen [SMTP:canoeist_at_netbox.com]
> Sent:	Tuesday, December 15, 1998 4:14 PM
> To:	paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net
> Subject:	Re: [Paddlewise] FW: ACA meetings: Greenlan
> 
> >>as Nigel Foster pointed out in Sea Kayaker some time ago, a roll is
> >>considered a basic skill in whitewater, so why not in sea kayaking?
> >
> >HMMMM. Now, if a roll is a basic skill in kayaking then what about
> >canoeing?
> 
> rolling is an advanced skill... under 10% can roll in a pool, less than 
> 5% under combat conditions, at least that's my observation of a 250-300+
> member club.
> 
> mark
> 
> #------canoeist[at]netbox[dot]com--------------------------------------
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