Larry I;m glad I joined the list. I have thus far been truly impressed by the combined knowledge within paddlewise. Good way to further our knowledge bout this paddling thing. What de heck took me so long to join? Guess I should introduce myself and give the fellow subscribers a little back ground? For those who don't know my last name Hebert is pronounced "abear" not Heeebert. I have been sea kayaking since 1992 this is when I first met Larry Koenig, he allowed me to paddle one of his sea kayaks. It wasn't long after that that I purchased my first kayak (can't say how many vessels I have now my wife might read this, some things is safer left unknown). You see Larry had heard about someone that had circumnavigated Lake Ponchartrain (New Orleans) 108 miles in fifty hours in a Mad River Tempest Canoe. He hunted me down and I am glad he did. Since that time Larry and I have paddled numerous trips together. We paddled the entire Louisiana coast together (482 miles). Raised on the Louisiana coast. Shrimping and crabbing the Gulf and surrounding waters was my family's livelihood. Had three pirogue's for as long as I can remember, so paddling has always been part of my life. The open sea (if the winds ablowing I'm agoing) and night time paddling is on top of my list for paddling, the serenity of the swamps and bayou's is surly next on the list. My wife Debbie and I bought our first canoe 22 years ago. We're down to just one canoe (Tempest), one racing pirogue and a Olympic sprint. My oldest daughter Nichole isn't into paddling much, But my youngest Brooke (11 years old) loves to paddle, actually she retired her Zephyr and paddled her brand new Merlin XT yesterday in the swamp. She is a tall girl for her age foot pegs ok, but I will have to retrofit the seat for her, daddy will have that done before we go out next weekend. She didn't appreciate not being fitted to the boat, I apologized and understand (give me a break we just got the boat Friday). Last year on this day Was at 23* 27' N 88* 30' W approx. 115 nau miles from the Mexican coast paddling home to Louisiana on a solo unescorted crossing of the Gulf of Mexico. Check the web site on the expedition at http://homepages.gs.net/seacajun Which leads to the idiosyncrasies of the Drift stopper (sea chute). Paddlewise covered the do's and don'ts well but I guess I can add and put emphasis on a couple of things: 1) Practice, practice practice 2) I reinforced the underside of my deck where all attachments (fittings) were located. Under average or maybe a little above conditions (three to eight foot waves) there really is not that much stress on the fittings. But I was preparing for any conditions, hurricane??? I really don't think it would not be a bad idea to beef up the underside just to be on the safe side. 3) I shorten the float line (retrieval / deployment line) so when I tucked the float under the bungies fore of the cockpit the line was taunt heading toward the bow (sea anchor stow bag). I was still able to reach the float when retrieving it. 4)On the tether line when sea anchor was not in use I had a loop on the tether line, this loop was just a couple inches away from the balance of the line that was coiled up. A carabiner attached to the loop and the bungies fore of the cockpit helped to keep the line taunt going to the sea chute. Additionally this also stopped the tether line that was not coiled up (the line leaving the coil going to the sea chute)from pulling on the 28' of coil tether line that is strapped down by a 1" wide nylon strap with Velcro. Without the carabiner the coil of line would tighten, which made it harder to slide off the nylon strap. Hope that made sense. 5) On the 1" wide nylon strap with Velcro that held the 28' coil of tether line I used a rubber O ring to hold the Velcro connection secure. My concern was a wave separating the Velcro, I never had that problem prior to the idea of the O ring but I felt better to be safe than sorry. Arthur Hebert -----Original Message----- From: Larry Koenig <paddlin_at_home.com> To: Paddlewise <PaddleWise_at_lists.intelenet.net> Date: Sunday, May 23, 1999 11:04 AM Subject: [Paddlewise] Sea anchors redux >*************************************************************************** -----Original Message----- From: Larry Koenig <paddlin_at_home.com> To: Paddlewise <PaddleWise_at_lists.intelenet.net> Date: Sunday, May 23, 1999 11:04 AM Subject: [Paddlewise] Sea anchors redux >Arthur, I'm glad to see you've joined the list. My understanding is that >during your Yucatan to Louisiana crossing of the Gulf of Mexico you used the >sea anchor nightly for most of the twenty days you were out there in order >to get a little sleep. You must have become well versed in the >idiosyncrasies of its use during that time. Anything more to tell? >Larry Koenig > >*************************************************************************** >PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List >Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net >Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net >Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ >*************************************************************************** > *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ ***************************************************************************
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:32:59 PDT