On May 18, 2010, at 7:48 PM, skimmer wrote: > From Scott: > > "take the focus away from the equipment and put back where it belongs - on > the skills." > > I agree that skills are the foundation on which our well being is absolutely > dependent. > > When I took up white water kayaking, I knew from my years of white water > canoeing, that I HAD TO LEARN TO ROLL THE BOAT! All other white water skills > depended on my learning this skill. While I agree that skills are important, I don't see them as being much different than gear. They can lead to a false sense of security. For the purpose of discussion I like to break skills into two types "hard" and "soft". "Soft" skills are those that are fuzzy and difficult to evaluate. They are things like ability to stand at a put-in, look out at the water and determine whether it your abilities are good enough to paddle safely. "Hard" skills in contrast are easily defined and easy to evaluate. They can be tested with a simple pass-fail criteria. For example "can you roll?", if the answer is "yes", you can put a little check mark on your list next to "Are you wearing a life jacket?". These skills are "hard" because they are also brittle. They can fail easily and completely. They are typically what are taught in kayaking classes. They are often marked by addition of stars or by another checkmark on a rolling list. In the same way that wearing a life jacket or carrying a paddle float are severely limited in the safety they can provide, hard skills are only as good as the paddlers ability to judge when the skills are a good match for the conditions. I have seen many very good rollers with lots of checkmarks on their list end up swimming when confronted with large breaking surf, a long bongo slide, a nearby rock or cold water. You don't necessarily know how your hard skill will break until you experience the condition that breaks it. Gear is easy. You take your card to the store and you buy your cool new toy. This is often money well spent. A life jacket is very simple and does its job reliably and can make a huge difference - extending life from mere moments to many minutes. Hard skills are also fairly easy - despite my choice of terms. You can take a class and do a little practice and in a little time adding a function to your list that is good. You can not necessarily count on it working when the s#!t hits the fan, but you will never regret having the ability. Soft skills are much more complicated. What does a 15 knot northwest wind translate into when there is a mile of fetch? What is a 2 foot wave like when it is passing over 4 feet of water? How will my kayak respond to an 8 inch chop vs a 8 foot swell? What difference does it make to go with the wind vs into the wind vs across the wind? What will the weather do after that front passes through and how long will those conditions last? The only way to add these skills is experience. You can read a lot of advise and listen to stories of others experiences and study maps, charts and tables. You can research things off the water and practice things on the water, but most importantly, you need to get out there and experience it for yourself. Without actual experience it is just abstract knowledge. Time on the water will make it concrete and real. This accumulation of soft skills is fraught with risks because until you experience something you don't really know if the hard skills and gear you have are up to the task. Thankfully, most of us survive this and either quit in fear or go on to try riskier things. It is possible to paddle a open recreational kayak safely year round in Maine wearing street clothes and no PFD - if you know enough about judging conditions to pick your days, put-ins and destinations. There are also times when someone wearing a life jacket and dry suit and all the gear who can do 31 different rolls on each side of the boat should stay home. Making that determination requires the soft skills. The two girls who lost their life could have had a perfectly safe paddle the day they went out, dressed as they were, if they had known how to match their abilities to the conditions. If they had made it home last weekend, they would have been vastly safer paddlers than when they left that morning. Unfortunately, the accumulation of soft skills did not happen in time to keep them alive. Nick Schade Guillemot Kayaks 54 South Rd Groton, CT 06340 USA Ph/Fx: (860) 659-8847 http://www.guillemot-kayaks.com/ *************************************************************************** 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. 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