MJAkayaker_at_aol.com wrote: > > 1. What are the benefits of having both an onside and offside roll? > Is it worth the effort? Let me recount a couple incidents from my own experience which might shed some light on your Q. Two years ago I was paddling with a group of friends (all capable experienced paddlers) back from a "park & play" area. The air temp. was in the 40s, water temp. was below 40. The wind was + 25 kts. from astern and we were spread about 100 yds. apart surfing the 1~2 ft. wind waves along the shore (100~200 yds. out). I was pulling sweep. The paddler in front of me, an experienced WW playboater with a onside and offside bombproof roll (wearing a ((shorty??)) wetsuit instead of a drysuit at the time - just a tad over confident), was working a little harder than the rest of us to keep his 21' long Seda Glider stable in the short chop. For whatever reason (may have air braced), he capsized - surprising but certainly no big deal so far. I turned and sprinted in his direction as a standard precaution. I watched him go through his 1st sweep roll (down wind) with no luck. I watched his second attempt at the same (downwind) also fail. His third and last was a fully extended pawlata, which also attempted on the downwind side, failed. His paddle shaft had gone vertical before he could hip snap on all three attempts. He popped out of his boat, more frustrated than he was cold. I pulled up, got the water out of his boat and him back in it and rejoined the group (who'd heard my yell but not my whistle, a Nexus(? - flat 2 chamber - since lost). In debriefing the incident, he had become frustrated with his paddle blade diving so suddenly three times in a row. In retrospect, it was realized that he had been drifting (capsized) with the wind, broached to the wind waves, much faster than the water speed. And there was nothing in the way of a downwind roll that was going to save him the embarrassment (never mind the cold) of coming out of his boat. He never thought of switching sides to his upwind side. Though he does now... In my own experimentation in similarly 'flat' windy conditions; not only have I found that upwind rolling is the only ticket to getting back upright while staying in a warm dry boat, but that it becomes _much_ easier to roll (on the "off" side) when conditions are pushing you on your roll up side. [I haven't tried it yet, but I think I might be able to pull of a hand roll in surf (on my off side) rolling up into the wave, even though I still have yet to hand roll my Khatsalano on flat water] > 2. Is a hand roll really useable in the kind of conditions in which you would > likely get turned over? O.K. Incident #2: During my BCU 4 Star last November, our group was paddling in 3~4' confused surf when a rescue presented itself. As the assistant instructor latched onto the rescuee's boat, I was instructed to hook onto the instructor's boat and tow both out of that section of the break. As I was paying out the first yard or two of line by hand, I looked up into a breaking dumper, grabbed my paddle and tried to steal a quick stroke before digging into the wave face. With the blade at some wrong angle, the blade dived and so did I. After spending a moment to figure out which way I was tangled up in my own tow line (and therefore which way I'd have to roll back up), I timed it out and rolled up (easily) on my offside. Though (#1) these conditions are not 'typical' for many paddlers to go out in, they are pretty typical for getting even crusty old (or young) storm paddlers turned over in. And in an instance such as this, I could have very easily lost my paddle (had it not been leashed), been back surfed (inverted or no) further over my tow line so that it hung up around my body, or, into the company I was trying to tow out, or all three. If any of those had happened, it could prove difficult to impossible to move a paddle through its roll arc (if it were there in the first place). The hand roll might also prove more successful if timed with the wave and finished in storm position and might buy enough time (air) before getting knocked back over to assess the situation topside and determine what needs doing. > Would it take an inordiante amount of practice to develop the hand roll to > this point? How much time do you consider inordinate? In the meantime, I'll keep striving to get a working handroll down (in a sea kayak). > 3. Are there condtions where the so called standard Greenland roll will not > work well? I'll defer the rest to the toothpick users out there, if you don't mind. > > What roll would work better in these condtions? > > 4. Is there another roll that I should be working on and why? > > Mark J. Arnold > MJAkayaker_at_aol.com > *************************************************************************** > PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not > to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission > Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net > Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net > Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ > *************************************************************************** *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Thu Feb 17 2000 - 12:28:50 PST
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