Scott, Thanks for taking the time to do this survey. I have a couple of comments: KiAyker_at_aol.com wrote: > The problem I have been having has to do with putting a value on the > Eskimo roll for touring/sea kayakers. While I agree that learning the roll > usually makes learning bracing and other skills easier, and it can instill a > greater sense of self confidence in the paddler (a good thing?), the fact > remains that some very dramatic voyages have been undertaken by kayakers who > could not roll, either because they lacked the skill, or because the boat > they were using was not rollable. SNIP I just donā€™t understand > why the roll is apparently of such great importance to beginning sea kayakers > while it is virtually ignored by experienced canoeists and explorers? A lot of the dramatic voyages have been done in folding kayaks and so to a degree this is true. Folding kayaks can be rolled but not as reliably as other kayaks. Depends on the model. In any folding kayak you need to be tightly positioned in the boat and few people bother to set up their foldables in that way except for performance ones like the Khatsalano. And with many a dramatic voyage involving double foldables, the task of rolling in an emergency is even more askewed. I have seen double foldables rolled but mainly as what I term a circus act, i.e. alongside a dock, carefully set up, lots of discussions, agreement on a countdown to coordinate the roll etc. I can't imagine two guys or gals in a double into their 20 mile on a particular day when they suddenly get knocked over having the instinct to perform a coordinated roll while fatigued and lost in their own thoughts when they suddenly hit the water. Same with a solo paddler in a double folding kayak, another standard for longish voyages. It would be a bitch to roll. But in singles like the Khats (or its sister Feathercraft, the K-1), rolling should be a self-required skill for any deep water voyager. Back to the dramatic voyages. Who doubts that Lone Madsen, who perished a year or two ago in Greenland in her hardshell, would not have had a different story to tell if she had known how to roll. I can't see how anyone would attempt what she did in such hairy waters without a very reliable roll and an impeccable reenter-and-roll as a backup. She simply could not do either and was not up to even a paddle float rescue from what I understand, albeit conditions would have taxed any paddle float rescue attempt. > answers I received. 37% responded that they could not roll, 34% could roll > close to 100% of the time, and the rest fell in between. Rolling has been an evolving phenomenon. Better teaching methods, better outfitting of boats and contagious enthusiasm have tended to up the figures of those who can roll reliably or have any rolling ability. Depends on the paddling circles you run in. In some paddling circles, a high portion of people roll and a high portion within that have a pretty reliable combat roll. In others, the percentages are quite low. Figures for PaddleWise can be somewhat askewed since this is an enthusiasts listserver and perhaps people are reluctant to admit they can't. But the figures you come up with are in keeping with what I have seen in some paddling circles. And it is improving. About 5 years ago I was at the Delmarva Paddlers Retreat which draws a more skilled crowd of paddlers and is a mecca now for Greenlandic paddling. A show of hands came up with about 20% saying they had a reliable or combat roll. I would suspect that now that same group would be up around a third as your survey comes up with, perhaps even higher. (But if you were to ask that question in my paddling crowd at the Boathouse, you would find that those with a combat roll would be, at best, in the low single digit percentage and a very low percentage could say they have done any rolling at all.) What has helped is better teaching styles, the spread of better instructor types (official, certified or not official nor certified), and the good ole Greenland paddle, which simplifies teaching rolling. When I first started paddling a dozen years ago and thought I would wind up in a hardshell, I took some serious stabs at learning to roll. My story is quite comical and I will share that in print one day...but I didn't learn. Groups too big in terms of people to instructor ratios, too brief sessions, and instructors who weren't as attuned to the needs of a wide range of people's needs and ways of learning. Then I discovered the real worth and reliability of single folding kayaks and just dropped the rolling quest. More recently I have returned to the rolling pursuit, mainly because I am a curious soul not for any real need in the type of boat I paddle (which won't really tip over easily and are quite easy to re-enter without props). Also Gabriel Romeu, who I met via PaddleWise, generously offered to make the logistics easy for me to get to some excellent instructors with good one-on-one oppportunities for long enough time slots. After some so-so attempts last year, it finally worked for me in January. The ingredients were a good instructor, Dan Smith of Philadelphia, the Greenland paddle in a Pawlata extended paddle grip, and the right method of instruction that clicked for me (Dan uses something like what Matt Broze says in his web page about going through the stages components particularly from finish position back down into the water). 15 minutes with Dan and I was rolling over and over again; sloppy, poor technique, but rolling nevertheless. So now I am rolling a hardshell in a pool with the normal progression of most people who have learned to roll (i.e. some good sessions followed by regression into piss poor sessions). I intend to followup over the coming months with a Euro paddle and a folding kayak such as the K-Light. I doubt I will ever get a combat roll as there isn't that much of an incentive for one in the boats I paddle. Moreover, I do think this should be a dry sport not a wet sport as some insist. I want to be on the surface and favor boats that will keep me there not ones that I have to coax to stay upright with an assortment of skills and then recover with a roll from wet if I do capsize. My final thought. If a person like me can learn to roll at the ripe age of 61 with little pressing urgency or incentive to do so, then certainly anyone can and should if paddling a hardshell under 23.55 inch beam (how's that for being arbitrary :-)). Whether you then can progress to a reliable roll in combat situations is another matter. But if you paddle the kind of boat that can more easily capsize and is harder to remount, then do go for it. Thanks for listening, ralph diaz -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Ralph Diaz . . . Folding Kayaker newsletter PO Box 0754, New York, NY 10024 Tel: 212-724-5069; E-mail: rdiaz_at_ix.netcom.com "Where's your sea kayak?"----"It's in the bag." ----------------------------------------------------------------------- *************************************************************************** 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 Mar 23 2000 - 07:49:58 PST
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