On Thu, Feb 24, 2011 at 8:36 AM, skimmer <skimmer_at_enter.net> wrote: > I particularly appreciate Richard Culpeper's discussion about real life in > a > Dragon boat in rough conditions. > > Scary stuff-I had no idea!! > > There is a dragon boat in Oak Harbor where I kept the Muthah-Ship two years ago and I remember looking at it and wondering whether it would be safe in heavy water. The NW Indian tribes have a yearly meetup where the various canoe families paddle from their home area to a place where they all can meet. The meeting area varies every year and has included reservation lands in BC as well as Washington State and there have been canoe families from as far away as SE Alaska in attendance. These are not dragon boats, of course; they are all descendants of various types of canoes used by earlier people and they look more seaworthy to me. Nevertheless there have been fatalities from high seas and failure to wear PFDs (especially by the men). Sue and her family are Chinook and her mother is active in the tribal affairs so they have a lot of videos of the canoe trips. We were just looking at them last weekend when we were visiting and I noticed that almost all of the women paddlers (they call them "pullers") wore a PFD but almost none of the men. Not surprising, I suppose. I've volunteered myself to be a "puller" in one of the Chinook canoes this season so I'll probably have a better idea of how these boats behave in a seaway. I wonder if they'll think I'm weird if I wear my drysuit. LOL Craig Jungers Moses Lake, WA www.nwkayaking.net *************************************************************************** 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 Thu Feb 24 2011 - 09:20:09 PST
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