[Paddlewise] Bringing in a youngster.

Over the last few days I had the pleasure of taking one of my 14 year
old's friends out paddling.

I've taken him out a couple of times in the past, but those weren't in a
one on one context.

Saturday after getting back from the Jamestown Counter Revolution race
we went over to jackknife cove beach, in Chatham Mass, with the surf
skis and my old necky jive whitewater boat.  The kids fooled around on
the boats for a bit then I asked Sam if he wanted to learn to roll.  The
Jive's foot pedal adjustments were firmly in place (the joys of salt
water), so he wasn't well locked into the boat.  We tried rolling for
about 15 minutes - mostly hip snaps and working through the motion of a
C to C roll.  But it was late and Sam got cold before he figured out the
roll.

Sunday morning we grabbed the surf ski's and headed out of meeting house
pond in east orleans Massachusetts.

Sam was using my wife's Fenn XT and one of my epic wing paddles.  I
looked over and he was using a lot of bicep on his strokes.  I explained
to him a proper wing stroke, then I had him follow me for a bit as we
headed out the river.  He quickly changed his technique to a reasonable
wing stroke.

The river can be great fun as it's not very wide and with a 5 mph speed
limit it's a great place to practice catching wakes.  I briefly hopped
on a motorboat wake to show Sam what to do.  Sam tried the next boat but
missed the timing.  I ended up parked on the side wake of motorboat
talking to the 2 small children, who were greatly entertained to see the
wake of their boat flowing over the front section of my boat as I
paddled along next to them.  I started further out of the wake, only
moving closer only after seeing that the kid's father was comfortable
with what I was doing (some boat driver's can very skittish if you ride
their wake).

Over the next couple of miles Sam managed to catch a few motor boat
wakes, and do a few tip over and remounts to get cool.  Coming back in I
was happy to notice the wing stroke had become his "regular stroke".  It
was about this time that he asked why people used "flat bladed" paddles.

We loaded the surf ski's on the car and went back to the house.  No one
was there so I asked Sam if he wanted to go to Crystal Lake and try
rolling again.  He was interested so off we went.  On his third walk
through I was able to stop assisting.  Sam was psyched, his did 5 rolls
in a row.  Heaven forbid I let him rest on his laurels.  We switched to
trying offside rolls.  These didn't work out.  But Sam was comfortable
enough with his "onside" roll that he would try an offside roll.  Blow
it, then roll up with his "good" roll.

We never did get Sam's offside roll going.  Maybe next time.  When I
last saw Sam he wasn't sure what sort of boat he wanted to talk his
parents into getting.  He had been thinking "sit on top" sea kayak, but
that rolling sure was fun....

Sam's dad is a bit of a wood worker - maybe a black pearl, or a SOF for
a winter project ;-)

Riding back to the house my wife asked why she had never tried to learn
to roll in the jive, she's only tried to roll her Nordkapp.  With any
luck this coming weekend I'll have another student for rolling
sessions....

Kirk
-- 
  Kirk Olsen
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