Just a thought, after watching two very skilled, competent sea kayakers fail to be able to pump out after being swamped in some three foot chop on an eight mile open crossing, one with a blown nylon sprayskirt and the other with an opened-at-the-wrong-time neo skirt: if you're considering the handpump as your primary seawater elimination tool, try it in nasty conditions but with some controls before you're caught in them for real without support. The idea of being able to enter a partially or completely swamped cockpit --- and this is assuming that the bulkheads are sound and the compartments don't start to flood --- and stabilize yourself in order to pump out your boat may not be realistic in lumpy seas. It is not easy. Even if you can brace adequately with your knees somehow gripping your pump so that one hand can control a two-bladed paddle in lumpies and one hand can pull that pump bail straight up continuously, you'll be hard pressed to keep as much water out as you're pumping out. Some people can make this work. Says so in a lot of the books. I just don't know any of them. Jack Martin *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Wed Jun 20 2001 - 08:45:02 PDT
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