Re: [Paddlewise] Bow painter

I'd second that Scott.

As far as a bow painter, Doug Alderson's Forager I bought from him has a 
half length bow painter that has a loop up near the front of the boat by the 
second to last recessed deck fitting. The loop runs free along that section 
of perimeter line. The length of painter near the paddler in under bungies. 
When deployed, the line isn't too long, but when you run forward with the 
line it travels up to the last recessed deck fitting at the bow, thereby 
giving you access to the bow painter from the cockpit but also a good line 
out in front of the bow when you need it too, all without being too long.

For my Nordkapp, I had a nice long line from bow back to a low profile cleat 
near the cockpit and then back to the bow. The last part of the back-to-bow 
section was bungied, with a clip that you could unattached for a double long 
length bow painter. In the cockpit, I could reach to the cleat which had a 
hook that a clip running free on the bow painter clipped into the cleat. By 
quickly releasing the cleat I could jump out of the cockpit, run up a 
dumping surf beach, not look back, and always know I had my kayak in tow, 
the length being as long as most bow painters, yet still expandable. In 
years of hard core use, it never came undone or tangled up, only coming 
unclipped when I wanted it to. Flawless. Certainly, loose bow painters can 
be a hazard, especially one rigged up haphazardly.

Sorry for your roll problems. Your incident would have been a good one for 
my entrapment article, the one you said was full of what ifs, not what 
happends. Yours would have been a good one. :-)

Doug L


>>>You have also diagnosed a problem with my roll that I'm very aware of. I
> have so little flexibility that I can't get my paddle very high on my set
> up, but it's something I just try to work around.
>
>
>
>   A few years ago I was teaching rescues in a kayaking class when someone 
> asked me a question about people who had difficulties getting back into 
> the boat. So I pulled out my loop and explained loop rescues, which was 
> not a usual part of my curriculum for this class. Rather then take the 
> time to replace the loop back into the hatch I store it in, I just quickly 
> tied it to my deck bunjies and proceeded with the class. A little while 
> later someone asked me about Eskimo rolls, so I promptly capsized to 
> demonstrate one. Once underwater I attempted a paddle sweep only to 
> encounter resistance. I realized that my paddle had somehow been tread 
> into the loop which was tied to the deck of my boat! Since failing a roll 
> in front of an audience was simply NOT an option I extended my paddle and 
> managed a modified short sweep Pawlata roll and came up. Hail to the power 
> of the extended paddle :-)
>
> Scott
> So.Cal.
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