Doug Lloyd, It sounds to me like you use the tow belt to attatch a personal tether to yourself. Is this the case? Can you describe the tether system that works best for you in detail? What sort of quick release belt do you wear? How long is the tether? Is the tether made of webbing? How do you attatch what kind of clip or carabiner to the webbing? How and where do you clip the carabiner to the boat? How is the tether joined to the belt? How does it all work in practice? Many thanks, Nick Lyle *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
Nick asks: >Doug Lloyd, > >It sounds to me like you use the tow belt to attatch a personal tether >to yourself. Is this the case? >Can you describe the tether system that works best for you in detail? >What sort of quick release belt do you wear? >How long is the tether? Is the tether made of webbing? How do you >attatch what kind of clip or carabiner to the webbing? >How and where do you clip the carabiner to the boat? >How is the tether joined to the belt? >How does it all work in practice? Nick, et al: Nothing elaborate, nothing radical or creative. I just used stuff from around the kayak retailer. I have a Lotus PFD with the standard lower chest tow belt that threads through in behind the pockets and around back then forwards again with a quick release infront. I have two "D" rings on the back. One ring has a short river tow, yellow web line that coils into a pouch. I use it for towing people's boats in moving water and clipping onto wayward paddles, dead BCU paddlers <G>, and such, with the caribeaner on the end. This caribeeanerer is normally clipped to the front pocket strap when not in use. And, when I want to tether myself for whatever reason, I clip this same caribneneeerer on the end of the short tow line to my deck line. Should I come out of the boat, the line is long enough as it uncoils, to allow manoverability. As I mentioned in a previous post, my old rope tether was just too non-tangle proof and hard to access from behind the cockpit. This short tow is a Lotus product, but is not meant for towing heavy loads, but has prooved strong enough. Now, as far as the other "D" ring, it hold a North Water product that is essentially a heavy guage bungy cord covered with an accordianed tubular web strap. The "D" ring is sewn right into the end of the line. On the other end of the line, is a caribbbeaner. Under no tension, the entire arrangement is about 24 inches. This is just the right size to wrap around and connect to the front PFD pocket strap, right where the shorty tow carribeanner is. As the two carriibenners are different units, I can tell at a glance which line I'm grabbing by the caribner chosen. I am going to make a modification to the PFD however, as a problem happens when I open the pocket to get out a power bar, the carnarabineers fall to the deck. As you are guessing, 24 inches isn't very long for anything. Well, what I use now for long tows is a 50 foot line in a throw bag (Canadian law requires a 50' heaving line) The bag has a loop at one end, and yep, a carinener at the other. The bag is kept in a net bag on the front dech for thowing at my good buddies and pals, the Canadian Coast Guard :-). When I do need it for a long tow line, I unclip the caribner with the short bungy line, clip it to the throw bag's loop, then clip the throw bag's crabiner to the victim of circumstances' kayak, and paddle away, The bungy gives some shock absorbtion. I can also tie off the 50' line at a shorter length, depending upon need. Drawbacks to these modifications I made. Well, there is a fair bit of stuff hanging behind me and to the side, which inhibits sprayskirt reattachment, and I look like a SarTech come wall-climber come Sylvestor Stallon meets Inspector Gadjet, but at least I'm ready for some S&M with Deb <G>. My previous tow rope was a Lotus product, 50' line, built into a pouch that hung at the side of the PFD. It always felt a bit bulky at my side. It did not tie off well at different lenghts, and I had to run it at full length to get the benefits of shock absorption. This is the line I used to tow Andrew in the full gale off the Storm Islands for 6 or 7 hours. I would have like a bit shorter tow, especially with his incapacitation. BTW, I did not have any problems with the rudder/tow line tangle problem whilst underway. I have a home made flag pole on the back deck, and it helped the line to ride over the rudder mostly. (You can see what my back deck looks like in the latest issue of Sea Kayaker Magazine. The article on making the paddle float rescue work, shows a color picture, taken by paddlewiser wise guy Kirby Stevens, of me facing backwards, where you can see the flag pole). The tow off the Storm Islands was probably one of the more rougher, dramatic ones in the history of this sport, no exaggeration. Despite some flaws with the Lotus system I used at the time, I must say that having state of the art gear makes a huge difference to life and limb, as it were. Don't ever underevaluate the importance of good gear, no matter what anyone may say to you. And customizing gear or making your own equivalent for your particular needs is an option more paddlers should explore. Now, where is my dictionary, lets see, cariben... BC'in Ya Doug Lloyd *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
Doug Lloyd wrote: > Now, where is my dictionary, lets see, cariben... c a r a b i n e r Mneumonic: carab + in + (h)er as in ... "She ate the carab beetle and now it's in 'er! -- Dave Kruger Astoria, OR onetime spelling champ (chump?) *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
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