At 09:56 AM 1/13/99 -0500, you wrote: >If you are heading straight down a breaking wave, you'll have to avoid >pitch-poling (your nose digging down into the trough and your tail pointing >to the sky, somersaulting your boat forward). Clyde wrote: >I've never been on a wave large enough to pitch pole (and desparately hope I >never am) but doesn't shifting or leaning your weight towards the stern >alliviate the problem a little? >Doesn't a steep wave have to be somewhere near the length of the boat (or at >least more than half it's length) to be pitch pole threat? Clyde, leaning back is indeed a way to prevent the bow from pearling, but try it and see how you feel about your readiness to brace from that position. And if you're trying to pull up the bow of a long sea kayak you will have to lean pretty far back, depending on the steepness of the wave and the buoyancy of the boat's bow. When you do this while surfing a wave it becomes extremely easy to capsize. The boat can broach and turn over in a hurry. Been there, done it! About your second question, pitchpoling can happen too if the bow hits something underwater, for example the sandy bottom in relatively shallow water, or submerged objects like rocks. So it can happen in waves that seem relatively small. John Somers *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ ***************************************************************************Received on Wed Jan 13 1999 - 10:02:44 PST
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