Re: [Paddlewise] How many rolls?

>Mark,
>
>     As an ocean kayaker and kayak surfer of twenty years and a kayak
>instructor of ten who can do a variety of rolls onside and off, including 
>the
>hand roll my take on it is this;
>
>  <<1. What are the benefits of having both an onside and offside roll?>>
>
>    While some folks will no doubt try to impress you with heroic tales of
>circumstances where their offside roll saved their lives, the truth of the
>matter is that one good roll on one side of the boat is more then adequate.
>Understand that we try NOT to capsize in the first place. Needing to 
>perform
>any rescue at all is a result of a failure on your part. So learning 
>multiple
>variations of a single rescue is more for fun then practicality.
>
><<Is it worth the effort?>>

Hi Mark,

If a lay person may beg to differ, or least comment: Prior to a back injury 
several years back, I was pretty much "ambidexterous", and able to roll 
fluidly (so to speak) on both sides. I found that in surf, it was usually 
preferable to roll on the seaward side, since if you were coming up on the 
landward side you were pretty vunerable to incoming waves until you were all 
the way back up. Rolling on the seaward side often meant you could brace 
from below on the incoming wave so that sometimes you did not even need to 
sweep, and/or if you were hit by a wave while part way back up, it would 
actually complete the process of righting you and you could simply slide 
into a brace. Despite my best efforts, my offside roll is now pretty 
marginal, so today I would go for my reliable onside roll in preference to 
the wobbly offside one. However, if you can achieve reliable rolls on both 
sides, there is definetely an advantage to being able to "choose".

Philip Torrens
N49°16' W123°06'


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