[Paddlewise] Tether rejoiner

I like my boat-to-paddle tether. The only problem I ever had wth it was
during a gale off Trial Island when I broke my paddle in half doing a
self-rescue. By keeping hold of the paddle (commom wisdom in order to
keep your boat after wet exiting) I simply only had that paddle in hand,
or more presisely, half a paddle. The boat wasn't connected anymore.
Fortunately, I had multiple backups, so was still connected via a
boat-to-person tether (did get tangled in that however, but it was a
poor system I was employing at the time).

I've taken the liberty of copying a PW post from ralph last year that I
kept in my massive files:

----------

Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 10:42:10 -0500
From: "ralph diaz" <rdiaz_at_ix.netcom.com>
Subject: Re: [Paddlewise] Paddle Tethers

- ----- Original Message -----
From: <skylakeboatworks_at_yahoo.com>

> I have no idea what kind of can of worms I am opening with this
one....  I have never used one or met anyone who did, yet.
> Paddle tethers....

This has been covered before in Paddlewise.  I use a tether.  I tether
everything I have of any importance to me such as my paddle float, my
pump, my hat, my pee bottle, etc.

You will get various arguments on the use of tethers at all and from the
pro-tether crowd, what to tether your paddle to.  I am of the tether the
paddle to the kayak school.  A recent incident in the latest issue of
Yachting magazine underscores the wisdom of this tether approach.  The
fellow in the accident did not have any tether at all, but like most of
us in a capsize did still have his paddle in his hand.  As he surfaced
he could see his kayak blowing away from him faster than he could swim.
If the paddle had been tethered he would still have had his kayak.  If
you are tethered to your paddle all you have is one of the two
essentials of sea kayaking (the paddle) and not the other...the boat.

ralph diaz

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