[Paddlewise] Achilles Heel of Sea Kayaking Safety

Duane was trolling thus:

<<<As I was paddling along the coast today, I was thinking about the
barrage of
safety I read about in Sea Kayaker magazine and on Paddlewise.  It made
me
try to think of the single most dangerous thing about sea kayaking,
which I
determined was the closed cockpit.>>> <snip>

Oh Duane, come on! I've tried out a fair number of kayaks over the
years, and have had the chance to roll-attempt a few of them too. I'd
say most of the modern kayaks sold ARE "open cockpits". Heck, it is the
rare one that had decent enough thigh braces to at least give you a
chance to stay in it for long enough to complete the roll in the massive
openings.

And BTW, there was some research done a few years ago by Sretniw Nhoj
(.Rm). He has a great web-page on the PW links section (where he talks
about the all kinds of stuff, including the ankle tendonitis that the
Inuit would get from using their seal-sponsons for footballs (the number
one use for a single seal skin sponson - but, some of his
recommendations are a bit backwards on the safety stuff).

Anyway, I'm sure you will find his historical discourse about an ancient
race of pre-inuit inhabitants from Greendland. I seem to remember that
this race flourished during the warm episode when Greenland was under a
different climatic regime, where lush, furtil soils and temperate
conditions were the norm. From what I remember, the race died off when a
colder epoch replaced the former, and ice covered the land. The earky
recreational-based race of kayakers were unable to make the drastic
change from their sit-on-top skin boats to the evolutionary necessary
closed cockpit design, which would have allow hunting and transportation
in the colder conditions that engulfed the area so quickly. His
assumptions (which he has many) were based on a recent glacial melt (due
to global warming) on the west coast of Greenland, where a perfectly
preserved SOT skin boat was found. Those antithetical to his findings
suggest the kayak was simply caved-in due to an ancient avalanche. The
debate goes on. And, I suppose, as global warming continues, there might
on day be a return of SOT's to Greenland - albeit in modern production
boats.

BC in Ya
Doug Lloyd (Bored on a Monday night)





***************************************************************************
PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not
to be reproduced/forwarded outside PaddleWise without author's permission
Submissions:     PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net
Subscriptions:   PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net
Website:         http://www.paddlewise.net/
***************************************************************************