Hey folks, After all the very interesting and helpful postings on "How to roll", which sure gave a lot of people inspiration to give it a try, and the stories how people got their rolls I can't help it. Quite a number of people, including me, seemed to learn their roll in more or less a few short time. We keep practising and it seems to be so easy. In one of the next session nothing works, and we blow one attempt after the other. Just when we think we lost it, the roll comes back. This "I was able to roll yesterday, today I don't get it, but hopefully tomorrow it will work again" experience apparently happened to a good number of people. When it happened to me I blamed the boat. After learning in a whitewater rodeo playboat (took the instructor ~ 2 x 15 minutes to get me via extended paddle roll to the sweep roll), the first attempts in a seakayak (Dagger Seeker) were similar easy. The second time in the Dagger it worked during the first 30 minutes, after that it was gone. A week later I got my own boat into the pool. It is a hard chined homebuilt stitch and glue greenlandstyle kayak. The first session with it was with a ~50% success rate. The second pool session in it was a disaster, nothing worked. Not good for ego and self confidence, and worse I started to think to much about it while doing, ehh trying, it. The 3rd session started in a similar way. One blow after another. Then somebody wanted to try my boat, just to find out how a hard chined boat feels, and I got in her boat (CD Storm). Instantly rolling worked again, it was so easy. Later back in my boat, with a lot of regained self confidence on board, I was able to roll it. However, it was harder to roll than the plastic Storm, but it was maybe just a difference in the fine tuning. It is fairly easy to get it up till the boat is on its chine, than it needs an extra kick to get over this point into the upright position. Two weeks ago, 2 month after the last pool session, I tried it again. This time in the ocean, OK it was calm but still cold. It worked so easy that time. Now I have to get over the whimp in me and keep doing it. But the water is still so cold, and in the harbour, were I do all my evening paddling, the water quality is also no encouragement, but next time............ Cheers Ulli Dr. Ulli Hoeger Dept. Physiology and Biophysics Dalhousie University Halifax, B3H4H7, Nova Scotia Canada Phone I : 902-494-2673 Fax: 902-494-1685 Phone II :902-488-6796 http://is.dal.ca/~uhoeger *************************************************************************** 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/ ***************************************************************************
Sometimes a roll is like sex, at least for those of us that have been married a good long time. When you want or need it the most,....it ain't gonna happen. But as soon as you relax and adopt a nonchalant approach, it seems to be there every time you turn around. After years of marriage, er .... I mean paddling, you won't really need that roll, but it will always be there ready for a little attention. Last night some friends and I were talking about lusting after boats that we don't own. Well, anyway one of my more astute friends said "Kayaks are like women. You're always gonna look and you're always gonna dream. But in the end, you'll find that the one you 're lusting over probably isn't as good as the one you have now.". Hmmmm, almost like "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbors kayak". On the other hand, if kayaks were women, I'd be so burdened with alimony payments that I wouldn't be able to afford the gas to get to the coast. Never mind that, I'd be in jail for bigamy. My apologies to any ladies who might be offended these correlations. So many boats, so little time. Jed ;-) *************************************************************************** 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/ ***************************************************************************
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:33:14 PDT