At 11:51 PM 7/27/02 -0400, Strosaker_at_aol.com wrote: >Paddlewisers, > >Thirteen of us had a blast practicing rescues at Alamitos Bay in Southern >California on July 27, 2002. During the past several years, I hosted rescue >practices for California Kayak Friends and other clubs about a half mile >offshore, but this year I hosted it in a bay to try to draw more sea >kayakers. More weren't drawn, but the safety of the bay allowed us to >experiment more than we would off the coast. You name the rescue and we >probably did it! Cleopatra's Needle? >A few people who hadn't practiced rescues in the past came, made big >improvements, and realized just how fun and important practicing is. Last week two of my buddies and I went out onto the lake as a storm was approaching. We paddled out about a mile where the whitecaps were all around us. We decided to try a "cowboy" self-rescue. The first guy capsized and we watched as he tried to get back in using a cowboy rentry. He got up ready to sit in the cockpit and realized that the new foam thigh braces he added to his Arctic hawk made it a tight squeeze to get back in but somehow he managed to get seated without capsizing again. The other guy then tried it (in a Seaward Endeavor). He was able to climb on an shimmy up to the cockpit but capsize as soon as he raised his center of gravity to get his butt over the cockpit. The tried two more times before changing his tactics a bit and tried a "backwards cowboy" reentry. He climbed onto the rear deck, threw a leg over each side and shimmied backwards until his feet were in the cockpit and managed to roll over and get seated. He were watching with interest when we noticed that his paddle was hooked under the deck line at the bow and was wondering what he was going to do once he found himself seated in the boat with his paddle out of reach. Just as he sat down though, the paddle came unhooked and he able to hand paddle over to retrieve it before it blew away. Next I did my capsize. I quickly discovered that the stern on my Outer Island was really slick and had a heck of a time getting any weight on it before slipping off the end. It took several attempts before I could get the cockpit out of the water and empty it. I haven't installed bow/stern toggles yet but now realize they could come in handy. With the flat rear deck on the Outer Island it was real easy to slide forward to the cockpit but I capsized when I tried to get my butt in the seat. I tried three more times with similar results. I was starting to get a bit tired so I decide to just try a standard paddlefloat reentry. I grabbed the paddlefloat from a deck bungie, inflated it, and was back seated in the cockpit and starting to pump water in less than 30 seconds. In each instance it became pretty clear that a "cowboy" self-rescue is pretty unreliable in windy/wavy conditions. *************************************************************************** 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 Mon Jul 29 2002 - 09:04:45 PDT
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