On Sunday 13 May 2007 17:35, Craig wrote: > The UK Special Forces have a long and illustrious history of using > kayaks for their missions. One of the most famous is during WWII when > Blondie Hasler (who later invented the self-steering windvane for > sailboats and was a primary mover in the single-handed races between the > USA and England) led a team of commandos on a raid into France. Hasler's book on how to build a 'Practical Junk Rig' (which is its title), is the bible in these matters. Lots of drawings, nary any photo! I must protest, by the way, against Craig claming that the 'Cockleshell Heroes' used boats similar to Folboats. It is true, that the Marine first tried kayaks were something like Folboats, but they just took too long time to assemble on deck in pitch darkness so they were replaced by weird plywood kayaks, of similar size, but with wooden tops and bottoms, while the sides were canvas. In packed form they looked liked packed sheets of plywood, with canvas inbetween, but it took just seconds to straighten the frames under the deck and go paddling. As their bottoms were flat I doubt they were very easy to paddle - and they tended to leak. If the film used other kinds, I have no idea. The attack on French shipping in Bordeaux was very daring, but their military importance was next to nil, and just two commandoes survived, one of them being Hasler. The rest died underway, or from German actions. As they tried to evade capture in 'civvies', they were all killed. Just like that! Later the marines and the SBS (the naval equivalent to SAS) used powered canoelike vessels that could dive as well! The advantage was that the commandos using these vessels arrived fairly rested, while some of the paddlers involved in Operation Frankton had been very near exhaustion. Here's a picture of the boats they used for the raid: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Cockshellboat.jpg The canvas sides is easily visible, as is the wooden deck! A bit about the raid: http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/cockleshell_heroes_of_1942.htm Better: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Frankton Tord *************************************************************************** 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 Sun May 13 2007 - 15:57:52 PDT
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