Timely discussion. I'm working on teaching myself how to roll. I've a lot of experience being in boats, but just started sea kayaking. Last Monday I rented a Looksha IV and paddled over to a quite place in the lake. I steeped through the exercises of holding on to a dock, then a paddle float, then with paddle. I spent a fair amount of time hanging up side down. There were quite a few failed attempts where my head insisted on being the first thing up. And I was swimming several times. But in half an hour I could roll up on both sides reliably. I was using what was described as a "high brace" roll. Basically hold the paddle perpendicular to the boat and set up by pivoting it all the way to one side. A long bracing sweep cross body to the other side, with hip snap, and I'm up. I chose this one to start with mostly because it was one that I could understand from written description, but I don't think it is that effective of a roll. By the time I ran out of paddle oomph I was about 85% up - just on the edge of tipping back over but could recover. My guess is that to have a good chance of success in unstable conditions I have to be able to come up very solidly in stable conditions. Next step is to get a mask so I'm comfortable hanging upside down and go practice a screw roll. Anyone have any other suggestions for developing a solid, reliable roll? Tom Unger unger_at_tumtum.com http://www.tumtum.com Seattle, WA *************************************************************************** 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 Thu May 27 1999 - 16:13:52 PDT
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