[Paddlewise] Drift Stopper Sea Anchor Modifications

Paddlewisers,

Recently, I purchased a Drift Stopper sea anchor.  With more adventures 
planned at the Channel Islands in Southern California, which are famous for 
strong winds, I am planning to use the sea anchor for taking breaks when 
heading into the wind, and if worst comes to worst, to slow myself down if I 
have the misfortune of getting blown off an island and out to see.  It will 
also be nice for slowing down my drift while fishing.

Like any new piece of kayaking equipment, I have been testing it out and 
practicing with it to discover its effectiveness, limitations and most 
importantly, liabilities.  I began using it as instructed by the manufacturer 
and was very displeased.  The problem was how the sea anchor sat in the 
stored position on the deck.  When the nylon straps that held the storage bag 
on deck became wet, they expanded, causing the storage bag to flop around too 
much when waves washed over the deck.  Sometimes the bag even hung over the 
side a bit.  The tightening strap is too far forward to reach myself while in 
the cockpit, but I had a partners tighten it on the water, and it still 
flopped around a lot.  Also, there were way too many straps and lines on the 
deck, which just seemed unsafe.  That storage bag was just too much windage 
too.

Deploying the sea anchor wasn't very smooth either.  The looped line usually 
become tangled and slowed deployment.  Also, I was concerned about the chute 
being in the air towards the bow during deployment and retrieval, possibly 
catching the wind, inflating and causing havoc.  This never happened, but the 
potential seemed to be there, especially in a strong wind.  Even worse, when 
bringing the chute back on deck, it had to hang from one side of the bow 
while the water took a few seconds to drain form it.  This much weight to one 
side made the kayak a bit difficult to balance in choppy water while the bow 
was going up and down in the waves.

I solved these problems by doing away with the storage bag and its straps.  I 
simply put the main chute line through the front pad eye that is used for the 
front toggle.  Then the line is tied around the cockpit, as recommended by 
the manufacturer.  The chute is stored by collapsing it and folding it in 
half, wrapping the remaining line around it, and tucking it all under the 
front bungees.  This makes for very little windage and very few lines on the 
deck.

To deploy it, all I do is unwrap the line from around the chute, stick the 
chute directly in the water, and the wind does the rest.  To retrieve, all I 
do is paddle forward to the float that is attached to the chute by the 
manufacturer, pull the float and chute out of the water, fold the chute, wrap 
the line around it and tuck it all under the bungees.

Before making these modifications to the Drift Stopper system, it seemed that 
there were too many liabilities, and I considered not even using the sea 
anchor because of it.  But with these modifications, it seems to work fine.

I was wondering what kind of experience other Paddlewisers have had with the 
Drift Stopper and other sea anchor systems.  I would especially like to hear 
form Arthur Hebert, who I believe used a sea anchor on his solo crossing of 
the Gulf of Mexico.

Duane Strosaker
http://members.aol.com/pirateseakayaker

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