Re: [Paddlewise] Offshore winds and currents.

Rich's comments below are a stron argument for using a sea anchor or
drogue.  I have a Driftstopper that I stopped carrying with me years
ago...one more thing to setup with my folding kayak.  Think I will dust
it off and start using it again.

It worked as advertised.  Alan Boulter of Boulter of Earth has a video
he used to show his kayak in a small channel and how deploying his
Driftstopper product stop him in his tracks in 20 mile per hour plus
winds.  I tried it several times for stopping for a lunch break in heavy
winds and over 15 minutes I moved at most a hundred feet.  I have seen
lots of discussion at times about making your own sea anchor but this
particular one is so well designed that it is worth the $100 plus that
it costs.

Do however experiment with it, i.e. practice, practice.  I found that I
made every mistake in the book with it, such as coming up to retrieve it
at a wrong angle and find it hugging my bow like a pesty octupus; Alan
should have filmed me for a "how-not-to" part of his video. :-)

ralph diaz 


Richard Mitchell wrote:

> In our recent trip to the Jumentos Cays (Ragged Island Cays) in
> the southern Bahamas we appreciated the nearly unrelenting
> Atlantic trade winds that blew from the East, SE or occasionally
> NE.  They kept the bugs away.  We camped on the lee side of the
> cays and enjoyed the relative calm.  But the situation was also
> sobering.  We put small bread crumbs on the shore line to feed
> little fish for our daughters amusement.  Occasionally a small
> crumb would be blown away to the west, and then drift and drift
> until out of sight.  We noticed that a quarter to half a mile
> from
> shore the wind stiffened.  A boat that capsized or lost
> directional control would drift in the wind like those bread
> crumbs for literally hundreds of miles.  As the last likely VHF
> contact would be Ragged Island, and other boat traffic in that
> remote area was virtually nil, there would be little chance of
> attracting attention electronically.  Next stop the Gulf current,
> then, I guess, Africa.  Not a trivial notion.
> 
> We are accustomed to paddling in the Pacific North West where
> winds are commonly on shore and or up and down fjords and
> channels.  Even on the open ocean side the Pacific blows east
> into north America.  Not so everywhere.  The Bahamas situation
> was thought provoking, suggesting attention to the long as well
> as shore term consequences of a mishap or equipment failure.
> Getting back to shore may be a very challenging undertaking in
> some settings.
> 
> Rich Mitchell
> 
> 
> --
> Richard G. Mitchell, Jr.
> Department of Sociology
> Oregon State University
> Corvallis, OR 97331
> U.S.A.
> (541) 752-1323 phone/fax
> mitchelr_at_ucs.orst.edu
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Ralph Diaz . . . Folding Kayaker newsletter
PO Box 0754, New York, NY 10024
Tel: 212-724-5069; E-mail: rdiaz_at_ix.netcom.com
"Where's your sea kayak?"----"It's in the bag."
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