Finally got around to posting about the club paddle from Yarra Bay. This was a dummy assessment, in my case in more senses than one, so I was expecting to find out what things I needed to work on. I went into it knowing that my fitness was poor, my back is a bit dodgy and that lifting boats and towing might be an issue for me. I also tend to get sea sick when practising rescues and self rescues. In fact I have a long history of motion sickness but have found kayaks to be the least problematic boats for me. Most of the time I do OK.
So how did it go ? Well it could have been better but I was actually surprised that I went as well as I did.
Fitness
Fitness wise, I wasn't the slowest there but still clearly need to improve.
Strokes
Against my own better judgement I used my wing paddle................. and it was great. I really felt comfortable with it in the rebound from the sea cliffs and it was fine getting in and out off the beach. Some of the other strokes need more work with it but overall I was really happy. It was actually the first time I'd used the wing on water with a bit of texture to it, so I expected to struggle and I just didn't.
Balance
The exercise I was most nervous about was putting on or taking off a cag on the water. I had visions of thrashing around upside down with the cag over my head and one arm stuck in a sleave or something, but it never eventuated. I had my Reed top handy in the day hatch and whipped off my PFD, pulled on the top, put the PFD back on, done, no problem. Note: I used my Reed top, not my semi dry top with the latex wrist gaskets and neoprene tube neck ! Mainly because I thought I'd get hot and while it's easy enough to get into, Houdini himself would struggle to get out of it while bobbing around in a boat.
Rescues
I forgot to instruct the swimmer to "Grab your boat, grab your paddle" so she artfully discarded both and swam around smugly. I managed to get my "victim" back in the boat, pumped out and spray deck on before barfing all over her boat. Chunky bits just don't wash out of the compass recess that easily. I was still very chairy about hurting my back and it did feel tender but I can see light at the end of the tunnel. Practise, practise, practise.
Motion Sickness
As for the motion sickness, while I was sick, my perseverance seems to be paying off. I appear to be improving, as I was able to paddle on after getting sick this time, but got sick again later, and paddled on after a short tow to shore and a break. Finally needing a longer tow on the third bout. I'm told my colour was reasonably healthy right through and while that sounds silly, it is a significant development for me.
Why did I get sick? Probably a bit of a combination, I usually use Sea Bands and ginger. The Sea Bands, which have been so good for me in the past, had stretched in the wash and applied no pressure where it was needed. They will be replaced with Bio Bands that have velcro straps and don't rely on elastic. I didn't find the ginger effective on its own although it may well have helped me recover quicker afterwards. I took a Stugeron tablet at lunch time. This didn't really have time to get into my system and the only effect I noticed was that I felt slow, my reaction times were a little out of whack and I felt I was always late responding to conditions so I felt wobbly although I don't think I was in any danger of going over. This could also have been an effect of the motion sickness as I was sick again on the way back to Yarra Bay but in the past I've found antihistamine based products knock me about nearly as much as the motion sickness. I remember sitting upside down in the boat at Umina once looking up at the surface and trying hard to motivate myself to roll. I did but all I really wanted to do was go to sleep.
Towing
Well I provided the towing practice after my third bout of barfing and was in an excellent position to see what did and didn't work. So I will be making some changes to my set up and doing some testing to make sure that it's free of the glitches that I observed in other peoples systems. There was clearly alot of drag in some parts of the system, tow systems failed, paddlers struggled, gear came adrift and progress was very slow. In the end the assessor took over the tow, so I'd say that's a pretty clear NYC for all concerned. Thanks all for your towing efforts, now lets get out and practice some more.
Surf
Well I'm no surf guru, but I'm comfortable enough to get in and out and stay upright or roll as required. After turning myself inside out before lunch I was feeling a bit flat so I sat out most of the surf session but did a landing and launch and put myself in position to do a few braces on the way out. The surf was pretty small so there was no real challenge there.
Self Rescue
The rolling component is fine, but the other self rescue techniques need a brush up and some additional balance training wouldn't hurt either. Particularly I need to practice with both paddles and practice paddling swamped.
Fun Factor
Well we had a beautiful dolphin encounter in the morning, the scenery was superb, the water was clean and warm and I got to enjoy breakfast, morning tea and lunch in both directions. I also discovered that the high energy gel shots actually taste better on the way back up, which made me laugh in spite of myself. So in spite of the barf fest it was a good day, for me anyway, probably not so good for the poor beggars doing the towing/supporting and trying to avoid the technicolour yawns. It finished up with the club Christmas party at the Yarra Bay sailing club which was fun, too. A very nice meal and the only meal of the day that had a one way ticket, shame I had to drive home and so skipped a nice glass of wine to wash it down with.
The day was topped off with a fascinating Q&A session where Stuart Truman answered questions on his trip around Australia. His comments on co-existing with crocodiles particularly fascinated me. I don't mind sharks that much, but crocs worry me. There are huge sections of the coast that I would love to see but would have worried about paddling until hearing Stu's strategy for avoiding them. As during his trip he successfully avoided every croc residing on mainland Australia as well as some of the island based ones his strategy obviously works. There was actually a solid insight into crocodile behaviour behind his strategy by the way which largely changed my thoughts on tropical paddling.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Friday, December 9, 2011
Hanging my Britches on the Line.
I've just had a little lie down, my back was killing me after an hour or so bent over running some new retroreflective decklines round my bow. One of the very few things on my boat that is merely adequate rather than top notch are the deck lines. They are functional enough but a little on the thin side. So I replaced them with 6mm line with a retroreflective strand woven through which I bought from Mick McRobb of Flat Earth Sails last Rock'n'Roll.
I took the opportunity to add a pair of Northwater's Paddle Britches just forward of the front hatch and compass recess while the lines were going on, so we'll see how they go in the surf tomorrow. Last time I played in the surf I nearly lost half a Werner Cyprus. It was tucked in under the front deck bungees and the water pulled it out at the far end and it was flapping around all over the place. The paddle britches look just like a little pair of pants and are designed to hold the shaft ends of a split paddle safely on the front deck where it is easy to get at. A full review will come shortly.
If you ever find yourself changing deck lines on a sea kayak: many boats are supplied with lines that are really too thin so there's a good chance you will be: you will find it much easier if you start off by melting the new line and shaping it nicely into a drawn out point. It just needs to be long enough to poke through the deck fittings so you can easily catch it with a pair of pliers and ease it through. 6mm line is a snug fit in Valley deck fittings and the kernmantle construction of the cordage makes it expand when you try to push the cut end through, so melting it and rolling it to a stiff little point lets you get it through without the sheath bunching up and fraying. You might also want to think about letting it cool slightly and wetting your fingers before you roll it as molten plastic does nasty things to skin.
When you finish, I think it's worth leaving the tail ends a little long, just a few inches as this makes it much easier to adjust them down the track if the new lines should stretch or shrink. Put a loop in the end of the lines and you have two impromptu towing points if you ever need them although I would worry about using them for all your towing needs as I could see it being likely to rip out deck fittings in rough water. Maybe a loop of bungy cord as demonstrated by Gordon Brown in his rescues DVD is a better option.
I'm off down to Botany Bay, bright and early tomorrow for a club paddle as part of my ongoing preparations for sea skills assessment. Four of us Klanners will be joining the legendary Stuart Truman for a paddle to test us out and see how close we are to ready for assessment and give us some tips on what we still need to work on. In my case, I know that will include manoeuvring in rough water, rescues in bouncy water, preferably without throwing up and towing. The way my back is the rescues and towing are going to need great care but I hope that over the next six months I can find work arounds for the things that hurt and build enough fitness back up to get by in the assessment. It will be interesting to see what else Stu picks up on.
The instructional team tomorrow is Stuart Truman and Shahne Gresser, so we will have the first man to paddle completely unsupported around Australia (only the third person to circumnavigate Australia) and the first woman to cross Bass Strait solo so we couldn't be in better hands. If we don't learn something from these guys, then it's probably a lost cause.
I took the opportunity to add a pair of Northwater's Paddle Britches just forward of the front hatch and compass recess while the lines were going on, so we'll see how they go in the surf tomorrow. Last time I played in the surf I nearly lost half a Werner Cyprus. It was tucked in under the front deck bungees and the water pulled it out at the far end and it was flapping around all over the place. The paddle britches look just like a little pair of pants and are designed to hold the shaft ends of a split paddle safely on the front deck where it is easy to get at. A full review will come shortly.
If you ever find yourself changing deck lines on a sea kayak: many boats are supplied with lines that are really too thin so there's a good chance you will be: you will find it much easier if you start off by melting the new line and shaping it nicely into a drawn out point. It just needs to be long enough to poke through the deck fittings so you can easily catch it with a pair of pliers and ease it through. 6mm line is a snug fit in Valley deck fittings and the kernmantle construction of the cordage makes it expand when you try to push the cut end through, so melting it and rolling it to a stiff little point lets you get it through without the sheath bunching up and fraying. You might also want to think about letting it cool slightly and wetting your fingers before you roll it as molten plastic does nasty things to skin.
When you finish, I think it's worth leaving the tail ends a little long, just a few inches as this makes it much easier to adjust them down the track if the new lines should stretch or shrink. Put a loop in the end of the lines and you have two impromptu towing points if you ever need them although I would worry about using them for all your towing needs as I could see it being likely to rip out deck fittings in rough water. Maybe a loop of bungy cord as demonstrated by Gordon Brown in his rescues DVD is a better option.
I'm off down to Botany Bay, bright and early tomorrow for a club paddle as part of my ongoing preparations for sea skills assessment. Four of us Klanners will be joining the legendary Stuart Truman for a paddle to test us out and see how close we are to ready for assessment and give us some tips on what we still need to work on. In my case, I know that will include manoeuvring in rough water, rescues in bouncy water, preferably without throwing up and towing. The way my back is the rescues and towing are going to need great care but I hope that over the next six months I can find work arounds for the things that hurt and build enough fitness back up to get by in the assessment. It will be interesting to see what else Stu picks up on.
The instructional team tomorrow is Stuart Truman and Shahne Gresser, so we will have the first man to paddle completely unsupported around Australia (only the third person to circumnavigate Australia) and the first woman to cross Bass Strait solo so we couldn't be in better hands. If we don't learn something from these guys, then it's probably a lost cause.
Monday, November 28, 2011
Hunter Kayak Klan Greenland Paddle Day.
I had a nice paddle on Saturday afternoon. My Klan mates had allocated a day to do some Greenland paddling. As I had some commitments in the morning, I met up with them half way through at Wangi Point on Lake Macquarie.
Depending on who you ask, the Greenland stick is either a high efficiency aerofoiled wing design honed by thousands of years of experience or a primitive tool, far inferior to modern day materials and computer aided designs. The truth I suspect is closer to the former than the latter, but they are certainly a different tool with different strengths and weaknesses. Regardless of which opinion you ascribe to, there are lessons to learn from the GP that are relevant to other paddle types and there is also a goodly dollop of fun to be had in the process. Every time I play with a GP I tell myself I must get one, but so far I have only borrowed them. Christmas and my Birthday are not far away though, he hints with all the subtlety of a baseball bat.
Lacking a beautifully crafted aerofoiled greenland stick of my own, I took my beautifully crafted and recently sorely neglected aerofoiled modern "wing stick" for an outing. I do find it amazing how ten kilometres with a wing paddle finds out the poor techniques that I slip back into. My personal paddling Guru, Rob Mercer, calls these paddles "a forward stroke lesson on a stick". He is so right ! I am still very much a beginner with a wing paddle but my regular forward stroke is a high angle style so the adjustments to a wing are comparatively small compared to others.
On this trip I benefited from Owen's coaching, it is such a great help to have someone else looking at your stroke. Particularly someone who actually has some knowledge of what to look for. Without the aid of a video camera, we can't really look at our own stroke and having someone paddling along beside you is a good substitute. It's also nice to concentrate on form and technique rather than power, and high cadences. As this was a very gentle and cruisy paddle, I was able to do that without falling behind.
I tend to lift my left hand too high, and let my hands drop as I rotate which shortens the stroke and lifts water at the back of it. It really helps to have someone remind me when I'm doing it. At the end of that short paddle I was really getting some improvement. It felt good. I kept Col, Tony and Shawn company back over to Swansea and then came back across to Wangi on my own. The wind was shifting into the north east and picking up a little eighteen inch wave with just enough energy to catch the odd little ride. The sun was setting in the west and out on the lake there was nothing but peace and serenity.
One of the things that wings are not very good for (there are pros and cons to every paddle type), is manoeuvring. The finer points of linking and blending strokes and sculling are not really well suited to the design. As part of my wing paddle learning curve, I took the opportunity to play with a little flat water rock hopping on the way back to the boat ramp. I was very glad to have a plastic boat as the reflection of the setting sun and flat water made it quite hard to spot the rocks until I was nearly on them. Sweep strokes with the wing work very well. Draw strokes work well too, but a little care is required if drawing on the move as the twist in the blade takes some getting used to. Still lots to work on there, too.
Back at the boat ramp, there was a gentleman washing his dog near the jetty, or perhaps he was shark fishing, it can be hard to tell....He asked me if I was worried paddling with all the hammerheads in the Lake. There are hammerhead sharks in Lake Macquarie, but they are the small scalloped hammerhead, which is not a threat to humans. There's also a healthy population of Bull Sharks, too and they certainly can be a threat to humans. The ones in the Lake, are pretty well fed though and if they were actually interested in eating people, they probably would have done it by now. I don't recall every hearing of a shark attack in the lake, although there have been instances of close encounters and kayak fishermen being harassed. Sadly it's probably only a matter of time before somebody gets bitten, and the media will have a field day, but the simple fact of the matter is that healthy ecosystems need predators. Personally, I'm delighted to see that there is enough biodiversity and fish life in the lake to support these creatures. The lake also supports a small but permanent population of dolphins too.
Depending on who you ask, the Greenland stick is either a high efficiency aerofoiled wing design honed by thousands of years of experience or a primitive tool, far inferior to modern day materials and computer aided designs. The truth I suspect is closer to the former than the latter, but they are certainly a different tool with different strengths and weaknesses. Regardless of which opinion you ascribe to, there are lessons to learn from the GP that are relevant to other paddle types and there is also a goodly dollop of fun to be had in the process. Every time I play with a GP I tell myself I must get one, but so far I have only borrowed them. Christmas and my Birthday are not far away though, he hints with all the subtlety of a baseball bat.
Lacking a beautifully crafted aerofoiled greenland stick of my own, I took my beautifully crafted and recently sorely neglected aerofoiled modern "wing stick" for an outing. I do find it amazing how ten kilometres with a wing paddle finds out the poor techniques that I slip back into. My personal paddling Guru, Rob Mercer, calls these paddles "a forward stroke lesson on a stick". He is so right ! I am still very much a beginner with a wing paddle but my regular forward stroke is a high angle style so the adjustments to a wing are comparatively small compared to others.
On this trip I benefited from Owen's coaching, it is such a great help to have someone else looking at your stroke. Particularly someone who actually has some knowledge of what to look for. Without the aid of a video camera, we can't really look at our own stroke and having someone paddling along beside you is a good substitute. It's also nice to concentrate on form and technique rather than power, and high cadences. As this was a very gentle and cruisy paddle, I was able to do that without falling behind.
I tend to lift my left hand too high, and let my hands drop as I rotate which shortens the stroke and lifts water at the back of it. It really helps to have someone remind me when I'm doing it. At the end of that short paddle I was really getting some improvement. It felt good. I kept Col, Tony and Shawn company back over to Swansea and then came back across to Wangi on my own. The wind was shifting into the north east and picking up a little eighteen inch wave with just enough energy to catch the odd little ride. The sun was setting in the west and out on the lake there was nothing but peace and serenity.
One of the things that wings are not very good for (there are pros and cons to every paddle type), is manoeuvring. The finer points of linking and blending strokes and sculling are not really well suited to the design. As part of my wing paddle learning curve, I took the opportunity to play with a little flat water rock hopping on the way back to the boat ramp. I was very glad to have a plastic boat as the reflection of the setting sun and flat water made it quite hard to spot the rocks until I was nearly on them. Sweep strokes with the wing work very well. Draw strokes work well too, but a little care is required if drawing on the move as the twist in the blade takes some getting used to. Still lots to work on there, too.
Back at the boat ramp, there was a gentleman washing his dog near the jetty, or perhaps he was shark fishing, it can be hard to tell....He asked me if I was worried paddling with all the hammerheads in the Lake. There are hammerhead sharks in Lake Macquarie, but they are the small scalloped hammerhead, which is not a threat to humans. There's also a healthy population of Bull Sharks, too and they certainly can be a threat to humans. The ones in the Lake, are pretty well fed though and if they were actually interested in eating people, they probably would have done it by now. I don't recall every hearing of a shark attack in the lake, although there have been instances of close encounters and kayak fishermen being harassed. Sadly it's probably only a matter of time before somebody gets bitten, and the media will have a field day, but the simple fact of the matter is that healthy ecosystems need predators. Personally, I'm delighted to see that there is enough biodiversity and fish life in the lake to support these creatures. The lake also supports a small but permanent population of dolphins too.
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Messing about in boats.
With very little time at my disposal last weekend I decided to get on the water with the sole aim of spending an hour or so, just moving the boat around buoys, edging, blending strokes, paddling backwards along a range and bracing. I was really working on getting my lower body and abs involved to move the boat more efficiently and it makes such a big difference. Still lots more work to do though.
Edging and manoeuvring often includes the odd roll thrown in when the edging goes slightly further than intended and this weekend was no exception. There were lots of impromptu braces and a few rolls where I was out of position to brace without a rapid movement. I have some back problems at present and any really quick movements tend to hurt so it's better for me to roll gently than brace awkwardly or violently. I have become very rusty and when you go somewhere from point A to point B you often don't make the time to actually practice these skills so it was a worthwhile excercise for me.
It was a beautiful calm morning, the water was cool and clear, the breeze little more than the lightest zephyr to ripple the surface of the water. It was a pleasure to be on the water, even for just an hour. There is something seductive about altering a smooth surface, whether it's putting your footprints in fresh snow, writing the first word on a blank page, getting into a pool alone or watching the ripples spread out as your bow gently cleaves the water on a calm day.
I was joined by Owen, Anne, Selim, Marty, Tony and Carolyn who had more time up their collective sleave and continued on for a quiet paddle around the headland to the lighthouse.
Edging and manoeuvring often includes the odd roll thrown in when the edging goes slightly further than intended and this weekend was no exception. There were lots of impromptu braces and a few rolls where I was out of position to brace without a rapid movement. I have some back problems at present and any really quick movements tend to hurt so it's better for me to roll gently than brace awkwardly or violently. I have become very rusty and when you go somewhere from point A to point B you often don't make the time to actually practice these skills so it was a worthwhile excercise for me.
It was a beautiful calm morning, the water was cool and clear, the breeze little more than the lightest zephyr to ripple the surface of the water. It was a pleasure to be on the water, even for just an hour. There is something seductive about altering a smooth surface, whether it's putting your footprints in fresh snow, writing the first word on a blank page, getting into a pool alone or watching the ripples spread out as your bow gently cleaves the water on a calm day.
I was joined by Owen, Anne, Selim, Marty, Tony and Carolyn who had more time up their collective sleave and continued on for a quiet paddle around the headland to the lighthouse.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Rogue Shark
Tragically, there have been two fatal shark attacks off WA in the past couple of weeks. The families of the two victims have my deepest sympathy and my heart goes out to them.
Predictably the media and politicians are jumping on the populist bandwagon with the usual cries of "Rogue Shark" and promises to hunt the maneater down and kill it or install shark nets on beaches that are completely unsuited to them. They appear to be oblivious to the fact that it's incredibly unlikely that it was the same shark and even if it was, these animals are an endangered species and protected in Australian waters. You can't have it both ways. Healthy oceans need top end predators. You can't protect them and hunt them down.
So why don't two attacks in 12 days automatically mean a rogue shark on the loose. Fairly simple really. Firstly, humans offer a very poor return on investment in terms of energy. Great whites that have eaten humans usually regurgitate us shortly afterwards. They really don't want to tie up their digestive system for several days with a meal that has such a low calorific value compared to a seal or dolphin. These animals are also smarter than your average fish. Having made the mistake once, they probably have the smarts not to make it again unless truly desperate. You might say that energetically speaking, they can't afford to eat us.
This is also why young great whites generally swap from hunting fish to marine mammals at around the three to three and a half metre mark. The energy expended chasing fish isn't recovered in the size of the meal. Once they get big enough they would starve to death eating fish and are forced to go for larger fattier prey.
So lets have a look at the two recent attacks and see if we can learn anything. The more recent attack occured 500 metres off the coast of Rottnest Island, where a diver was attacked by a three and a half metre great white shark. While media articles have talked about great whites following the whale migration there is a far more likely seasonal food source in this instance.
Fur seals are a favourite food for great white sharks and they can show up off seal colonies at any time of year, however they will travel long distances to get to colonies when the pups are weaning. The young pups are inexperienced and easier prey. Fur seals breed on Rottnest Island pupping in December and the pups wean nine to ten months later, just about now in other words. This is likely to mean more sharks in the area.
The water was reportedly murky. For a visual predator like the great white shark this makes prey harder to catch and they're more likely to go in hard and hit something that they weren't actually targetting, such as a diver. This is probably particularly true for a three and a half metre shark that is still learning to hunt larger prey and may not be as good at identifying prey as an older individual. it may also be hungrier and consequently more aggressive, especially if it has travelled a long distance to get to the colony.
The earlier attack was on a swimmer four hundred metres off Cottesloe Beach. He was out for his regular morning swim. It was early and the water was murky. Great white sharks are known to hunt most actively at dawn and dusk. It is thought that this behaviour takes advantage of the low angle of light falling on the water which causes glare and makes it much harder for animals at the surface to see a shark below the water.
In both of these cases the victims were exceedingly unlucky. However both were in the water at times or places that are known to be associated with a significantly increased risk of shark attack.
So why do these animals improve the health of our oceans. Why shouldn't we eradicate them completely ?
Well lets look at a terrestrial example, the big bad wolf. The wolf was pretty much eradicated in the continental United States although there were still some populations in Canada and Alaska. They were reintroduced to much outcry from ranchers and hunters in a few selected locations such as Yellowstone National Park. In Yellowstone the wolves primarily feed on elk, but will also take deer and occasionally they will take livestock. Elk have for many years been over grazing the park and deer and bison numbers have dropped. They have destroyed vegetation along rivers resulting in erosion and shallower, warmer water with less dissolved oxygen which supports fewer fish. With no riverine vegetation there were no sticks and beaver numbers had dropped dramatically.
When the wolves were reintroduced they went to work doing what they do best, eating elk. Bison and deer numbers recovered, along with other small grazing animals. The riverine vegetation recovered, shading the rivers and providing habitat for fish, aquatic invertebrates, insects, birds, reptiles, amphibians and all the species feeding on these things. Beavers came back and their dams provide deeper, cooler pools with more fish in them and which provide shelter for a range of other smaller creatures which coexist with the beavers. The richness and diversity of the ecosystem changed dramatically with the return of a top end predator.
So what about the livestock ? Well the government does have to compensate the odd farmer for a lost animal. However researchers have observed wolves stalking right through livestock to get to the elk on the other side. Like sharks, these animals know what they like and only deviate from their usual prey in very lean times. So the simple fact is that we need top end predators, without them we don't get a full range of biodiversity and without biodiversity we don't tend to get the stable and sustainable ecosystems that provide us with our habitat.
It seems that both Jaws and the Big Bad Wolf have had more bad press than they deserve. Are these animals potentially dangerous ? Yes they are, but we can coexist with them and if we learn more about them we can reduce our risk of being dinner.
Predictably the media and politicians are jumping on the populist bandwagon with the usual cries of "Rogue Shark" and promises to hunt the maneater down and kill it or install shark nets on beaches that are completely unsuited to them. They appear to be oblivious to the fact that it's incredibly unlikely that it was the same shark and even if it was, these animals are an endangered species and protected in Australian waters. You can't have it both ways. Healthy oceans need top end predators. You can't protect them and hunt them down.
So why don't two attacks in 12 days automatically mean a rogue shark on the loose. Fairly simple really. Firstly, humans offer a very poor return on investment in terms of energy. Great whites that have eaten humans usually regurgitate us shortly afterwards. They really don't want to tie up their digestive system for several days with a meal that has such a low calorific value compared to a seal or dolphin. These animals are also smarter than your average fish. Having made the mistake once, they probably have the smarts not to make it again unless truly desperate. You might say that energetically speaking, they can't afford to eat us.
This is also why young great whites generally swap from hunting fish to marine mammals at around the three to three and a half metre mark. The energy expended chasing fish isn't recovered in the size of the meal. Once they get big enough they would starve to death eating fish and are forced to go for larger fattier prey.
So lets have a look at the two recent attacks and see if we can learn anything. The more recent attack occured 500 metres off the coast of Rottnest Island, where a diver was attacked by a three and a half metre great white shark. While media articles have talked about great whites following the whale migration there is a far more likely seasonal food source in this instance.
Fur seals are a favourite food for great white sharks and they can show up off seal colonies at any time of year, however they will travel long distances to get to colonies when the pups are weaning. The young pups are inexperienced and easier prey. Fur seals breed on Rottnest Island pupping in December and the pups wean nine to ten months later, just about now in other words. This is likely to mean more sharks in the area.
The water was reportedly murky. For a visual predator like the great white shark this makes prey harder to catch and they're more likely to go in hard and hit something that they weren't actually targetting, such as a diver. This is probably particularly true for a three and a half metre shark that is still learning to hunt larger prey and may not be as good at identifying prey as an older individual. it may also be hungrier and consequently more aggressive, especially if it has travelled a long distance to get to the colony.
The earlier attack was on a swimmer four hundred metres off Cottesloe Beach. He was out for his regular morning swim. It was early and the water was murky. Great white sharks are known to hunt most actively at dawn and dusk. It is thought that this behaviour takes advantage of the low angle of light falling on the water which causes glare and makes it much harder for animals at the surface to see a shark below the water.
In both of these cases the victims were exceedingly unlucky. However both were in the water at times or places that are known to be associated with a significantly increased risk of shark attack.
So why do these animals improve the health of our oceans. Why shouldn't we eradicate them completely ?
Well lets look at a terrestrial example, the big bad wolf. The wolf was pretty much eradicated in the continental United States although there were still some populations in Canada and Alaska. They were reintroduced to much outcry from ranchers and hunters in a few selected locations such as Yellowstone National Park. In Yellowstone the wolves primarily feed on elk, but will also take deer and occasionally they will take livestock. Elk have for many years been over grazing the park and deer and bison numbers have dropped. They have destroyed vegetation along rivers resulting in erosion and shallower, warmer water with less dissolved oxygen which supports fewer fish. With no riverine vegetation there were no sticks and beaver numbers had dropped dramatically.
When the wolves were reintroduced they went to work doing what they do best, eating elk. Bison and deer numbers recovered, along with other small grazing animals. The riverine vegetation recovered, shading the rivers and providing habitat for fish, aquatic invertebrates, insects, birds, reptiles, amphibians and all the species feeding on these things. Beavers came back and their dams provide deeper, cooler pools with more fish in them and which provide shelter for a range of other smaller creatures which coexist with the beavers. The richness and diversity of the ecosystem changed dramatically with the return of a top end predator.
So what about the livestock ? Well the government does have to compensate the odd farmer for a lost animal. However researchers have observed wolves stalking right through livestock to get to the elk on the other side. Like sharks, these animals know what they like and only deviate from their usual prey in very lean times. So the simple fact is that we need top end predators, without them we don't get a full range of biodiversity and without biodiversity we don't tend to get the stable and sustainable ecosystems that provide us with our habitat.
It seems that both Jaws and the Big Bad Wolf have had more bad press than they deserve. Are these animals potentially dangerous ? Yes they are, but we can coexist with them and if we learn more about them we can reduce our risk of being dinner.
Saturday Paddle with the Klan
Saturday morning, and the sun is shining, an unseasonably warm current has brough water down that is nearly 20 degrees centigrade and we're trying to get to the beach to put our boats in. Unfortunately our planning omitted the "Fat as Butter" rock gig and the road to our launch spot at Horseshoe Beach on the Newcastle Foreshore is closed. Luckily the three of us managed to hook up anyway and moved down the harbour to Carrington where we found a nice convenient put in point.
We paddled out of the harbour and down the coast as far as bar beach, with nice moderate conditions. There were dolphins and some bumpy water around he headlands. Newcastles beaches are fairly shallow so you tend to get a bit more dynamic water conditions as the swell kicks up and the rebound off the rocky coast generates some nice frolicsome water.
We had a new paddler along and he did very well, looking very comfortable in his boat and keeping pace nicely. I'd have to say my pace is pretty slow at present anyway as I've been having some back problems and have become enormously unfit. We turned around just north of bar beach and headed back to have lunch at kite point. This is a beautiful little beach, just inside the harbour but on the Stockton side. There we played happily after lunch wallowing, rolling and doing some edging and bracing practice with Shawn mentoringTony and me trying hard to remember how to do it myself after a winter virtually devoid of paddling.
I tried out Tony's boat too. A Riot Evasion. It was a nice little boat. The hull design is channeled and it kept a respectable pace for a shorter and quite manoeuvrable style of kayak. It was much easier to roll than my old Gecko as the deck is more contoured behind the cockpit and it's easier to get moving. It had a rather high and obtrusive seat back so a forward finishing roll was required but as that's my usual choice anyway it didn't affect me. The foot pegs are the sliding track kind to work the rudder so you lack a solid foot brace for optimal forward stroke although if the rudder is up you do get some support even if it feels spongy. The boat actually tracked pretty well without the rudder too. A top end touring boat it isn't but a decent little entry level kayak it certainly is. I'd probably rip out the seat back and put a backband in and replace the foot pegs.
On the way back we paddled past the "Fat as Butter" gig in full swing with four bands playing on separate stages. The kayaks were humming like sound boxes from the base being transmitted through the water. Even from a distance of 300m it was unpleasant and I felt priveledged to have spend a morning on the water instead of on the Newcastle foreshore. Not surprisingly, there were no dolphins to be seen.
We paddled out of the harbour and down the coast as far as bar beach, with nice moderate conditions. There were dolphins and some bumpy water around he headlands. Newcastles beaches are fairly shallow so you tend to get a bit more dynamic water conditions as the swell kicks up and the rebound off the rocky coast generates some nice frolicsome water.
We had a new paddler along and he did very well, looking very comfortable in his boat and keeping pace nicely. I'd have to say my pace is pretty slow at present anyway as I've been having some back problems and have become enormously unfit. We turned around just north of bar beach and headed back to have lunch at kite point. This is a beautiful little beach, just inside the harbour but on the Stockton side. There we played happily after lunch wallowing, rolling and doing some edging and bracing practice with Shawn mentoringTony and me trying hard to remember how to do it myself after a winter virtually devoid of paddling.
I tried out Tony's boat too. A Riot Evasion. It was a nice little boat. The hull design is channeled and it kept a respectable pace for a shorter and quite manoeuvrable style of kayak. It was much easier to roll than my old Gecko as the deck is more contoured behind the cockpit and it's easier to get moving. It had a rather high and obtrusive seat back so a forward finishing roll was required but as that's my usual choice anyway it didn't affect me. The foot pegs are the sliding track kind to work the rudder so you lack a solid foot brace for optimal forward stroke although if the rudder is up you do get some support even if it feels spongy. The boat actually tracked pretty well without the rudder too. A top end touring boat it isn't but a decent little entry level kayak it certainly is. I'd probably rip out the seat back and put a backband in and replace the foot pegs.
On the way back we paddled past the "Fat as Butter" gig in full swing with four bands playing on separate stages. The kayaks were humming like sound boxes from the base being transmitted through the water. Even from a distance of 300m it was unpleasant and I felt priveledged to have spend a morning on the water instead of on the Newcastle foreshore. Not surprisingly, there were no dolphins to be seen.
Friday, October 21, 2011
Cold Water Conditioning.
There are two immutable facts about kayaking in cold water.
http://www.seakayakermag.com/2008/Feb08/cold-shock.htm
http://www.coldwaterbootcamp.com/pages/home.html a site where you can see the immediate impacts of cold water.
http://beyondcoldwaterbootcamp.com/ a site for trainers and educators with resources for getting the message across to students.
Jim Kakuk and Eric Soares, the founder members of the Tsunami Rangers, have been saying for years that if you want to be a sea paddler, you should first of all be a sea swimmer. If you don't believe you could swim there, you probably shouldn't paddle there. I think this is pretty good advice and it highlights the need to be dressed for the conditions in the water. If you would need thermal protection to swim there then put it on to paddle there too.
Even when you're wearing you're cold water gear, the shock when you hit the water can be disorientating, even painful. It triggers shortness of breath, gasping, hyperventillation and can trigger panic attacks and vertigo.
And yet we see people in their togs (no synthetic rubber blubber suit) swimming in very cold water for fun. The Bondi Icebergs, the San Francisco Dolphins and plenty of others, get in and swim regularly without thermal protection. So are they immune from the cold ? Superhuman athletes with antifreeze for blood ?
So what do these guys do and could it be useful for us ?
The primary thing that they do is to acclimatize. They don't usually start off in mid-winter, they start in summer and then just keep going. They don't always swim very far either, (they wear a wetsuit if they do) and they're not immune to hypothermia far from it, but they do have a very good handle on what they can cope with and when to get out of the water. They're also very good at preparing their body for the shock of immersion. They will always splash some cold water on their face and neck three to five minutes before they go in. This works because our bodies are actually very bad at judging temperature. They're very good however at judging difference in temperature. Your body can't regulate blood flow to your face and neck like it can to your arms and legs so they don't go numb and the volume of blood flow is quite large. By cooling them and reducing the temperature difference you greatly reduce the level of shock. It's easier to control your breathing and there's less chance of your gasping down a lungful of the beautiful, briny stuff we like to paddle on.
A second and rather counter-intuitive thing that the swimmers do is to exhale as they go in. A long slow exhalation as they (and I'm quoting a swimmer here) "embrace the cold", accepting it, acknowledging it and not being paniced by it. Having done some fairly chilly swims myself I can vouch for this approach. It's hard to gasp in when you're deliberately blowing out. (You may also trigger the mammalian diving reflex, but that's another story).
So is acclimatisation going to keep you alive for hours in cold water? Absolutely not, there is still no substitute for dressing up in rubber.
Acclimatization is really just giving your brain and body a chance to get used to cold water immersion. This seems to be helpful in assisting your body to adapt faster and your brain to keep charge. It may not eliminate the gasp reflex but it reduces it's intensity and makes you better prepared for it and more used to managing your breathing. That may give you a better chance at a reflexive roll, a quicker self rescue and if you do end up in the water maybe a couple of extra minutes of functional time to call for assistance before you lose the capacity to help yourself at all. If nothing else, do what the open water swimmers do, splash a bit of cold water on your face every few minutes as you paddle along, just in case. Neoprene hoods help too, but you can still benefit from splashing your face.
So do what I do, spend a few minutes thinking about dressing up in rubber clothes and then go and have a cold shower. What could be easier ?
PS: Just kidding about the rubber clothes, honest.
- Cold water kills more kayakers globally than any other factor.
- Always dressing for immersion is the only safe option.
http://www.seakayakermag.com/2008/Feb08/cold-shock.htm
http://www.coldwaterbootcamp.com/pages/home.html a site where you can see the immediate impacts of cold water.
http://beyondcoldwaterbootcamp.com/ a site for trainers and educators with resources for getting the message across to students.
Jim Kakuk and Eric Soares, the founder members of the Tsunami Rangers, have been saying for years that if you want to be a sea paddler, you should first of all be a sea swimmer. If you don't believe you could swim there, you probably shouldn't paddle there. I think this is pretty good advice and it highlights the need to be dressed for the conditions in the water. If you would need thermal protection to swim there then put it on to paddle there too.
Even when you're wearing you're cold water gear, the shock when you hit the water can be disorientating, even painful. It triggers shortness of breath, gasping, hyperventillation and can trigger panic attacks and vertigo.
And yet we see people in their togs (no synthetic rubber blubber suit) swimming in very cold water for fun. The Bondi Icebergs, the San Francisco Dolphins and plenty of others, get in and swim regularly without thermal protection. So are they immune from the cold ? Superhuman athletes with antifreeze for blood ?
So what do these guys do and could it be useful for us ?
The primary thing that they do is to acclimatize. They don't usually start off in mid-winter, they start in summer and then just keep going. They don't always swim very far either, (they wear a wetsuit if they do) and they're not immune to hypothermia far from it, but they do have a very good handle on what they can cope with and when to get out of the water. They're also very good at preparing their body for the shock of immersion. They will always splash some cold water on their face and neck three to five minutes before they go in. This works because our bodies are actually very bad at judging temperature. They're very good however at judging difference in temperature. Your body can't regulate blood flow to your face and neck like it can to your arms and legs so they don't go numb and the volume of blood flow is quite large. By cooling them and reducing the temperature difference you greatly reduce the level of shock. It's easier to control your breathing and there's less chance of your gasping down a lungful of the beautiful, briny stuff we like to paddle on.
A second and rather counter-intuitive thing that the swimmers do is to exhale as they go in. A long slow exhalation as they (and I'm quoting a swimmer here) "embrace the cold", accepting it, acknowledging it and not being paniced by it. Having done some fairly chilly swims myself I can vouch for this approach. It's hard to gasp in when you're deliberately blowing out. (You may also trigger the mammalian diving reflex, but that's another story).
So is acclimatisation going to keep you alive for hours in cold water? Absolutely not, there is still no substitute for dressing up in rubber.
Acclimatization is really just giving your brain and body a chance to get used to cold water immersion. This seems to be helpful in assisting your body to adapt faster and your brain to keep charge. It may not eliminate the gasp reflex but it reduces it's intensity and makes you better prepared for it and more used to managing your breathing. That may give you a better chance at a reflexive roll, a quicker self rescue and if you do end up in the water maybe a couple of extra minutes of functional time to call for assistance before you lose the capacity to help yourself at all. If nothing else, do what the open water swimmers do, splash a bit of cold water on your face every few minutes as you paddle along, just in case. Neoprene hoods help too, but you can still benefit from splashing your face.
So do what I do, spend a few minutes thinking about dressing up in rubber clothes and then go and have a cold shower. What could be easier ?
PS: Just kidding about the rubber clothes, honest.
Monday, October 10, 2011
HKK Intro to spoon rocks.
It's been a long winter with not much paddling. Some back and shoulder problems have been keeping me far too dry. So after a long paddling draught I got out with the Hunter Kayak Klan for a nice paddle from Swansea Channel down to the sea caves of Wallarah National Park.
The sun shone, the seas were calm with a gentle offshore breeze. The water was turquoise, clear and clean with a view to the weed waving gently on the bottom. We got into the smaller of the caves which is always nice. There were whales, dolphins and sea eagles. There were sandy beaches, some rocks to play round good food, good company and good weather.
About twenty kilometres and a brisk finish against the last of the ebb tide through the channel with a light westerly headwind to finish off.
The team on the day were Owen, Anne, Selim, Dirk, Pieter, Marty, Col, Shawn, Linda, Carolyn and myself. While out we ran across Cambell who was attending the NSWSKC paddle from Swansea to Catherine Hill Bay with Matt Bezzina and David Fisher as well as Phil who was doing a lightning raid of the sea caves with his son. So with thirteen klanners out on three different trips on one 15 km section of coast line I think we can say that sea kayaking in the Hunter Valley has well and truly taken off.
The sun shone, the seas were calm with a gentle offshore breeze. The water was turquoise, clear and clean with a view to the weed waving gently on the bottom. We got into the smaller of the caves which is always nice. There were whales, dolphins and sea eagles. There were sandy beaches, some rocks to play round good food, good company and good weather.
About twenty kilometres and a brisk finish against the last of the ebb tide through the channel with a light westerly headwind to finish off.
The team on the day were Owen, Anne, Selim, Dirk, Pieter, Marty, Col, Shawn, Linda, Carolyn and myself. While out we ran across Cambell who was attending the NSWSKC paddle from Swansea to Catherine Hill Bay with Matt Bezzina and David Fisher as well as Phil who was doing a lightning raid of the sea caves with his son. So with thirteen klanners out on three different trips on one 15 km section of coast line I think we can say that sea kayaking in the Hunter Valley has well and truly taken off.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
NRS Stampede Paddling Jacket
With winter coming on and a desire for being warm and cosy on/in the water I decided it was time to splash out on a cag. Until now I've been using a Reed long sleeve top as a waterproof layer and that works very well especially when layered with a thermal and the Reed Vest deck underneath. I've also used it as a layer over my 3mm wetsuit and it eliminates the wind chill of the wet fabric lined neoprene. In retrospect I probably should have bought a custom made one as I have very skinny little wrists and a fair amount of water gets up the sleaves due to the poor seal. Reed will do custom made garments, if you send them your measurements, at a very small additional cost. That's outstanding service to go with the excellent quality of the gear. In any case, mea culpa, as I just grabbed one off the shelf so the loose fit on the wrists is all my fault. That isn't a problem in the warmer months or for active paddling. I tend to get a bit cool in winter, particularly when off the water though.
This time I wanted something that would seal really well, cut the wind and keep me nice and dry and warm without being too hot and turning into a personal sauna if the sun comes out.
[Enter the NRS Stampede Paddling Jacket stage left.]
This is a light but quite tough garment, made of Triton breathable fabric with reinfocement in all the high wear areas. It has a smooth finished elastomer punch through neck seal ( a neoprene variant) and latex wrist seals protected by sturdy cuffs. It has a double tunnel waist arrangement to allow it to mate with the spray deck or with a pair of dry pants. The cut has been carefully designed to allow freedom of movement without irritating seams and acres of flapping excess fabric. It also has a water resistant zipped pocket on one sleave.
I wore if for the first time at Rock N Roll at Batemans Bay. My main concern there was that it would turn out to be too warm and dry. In fact that wasn't the case at all. It was very comfortable although the temperature was over 20ºC and the sun was out. I was working pretty hard chasing waves on the Clyde River bar with an unfamiliar Greenland paddle (these aren't really designed for acceleration and my technique isn't that good either so I didn't catch a lot of waves although one or two caught me !) anyway, while I did get a bit warm, a couple of rolls were quite sufficient to cool me off.
I also wore it for a rock hopping session on a cool and overcast morning and it did the job for me there too in terms of temperature and kept me bone dry despite two rolls in a slightly turbulent rock garden. I followed up with a Greenland Rolling Session with Shawn and Rob Mercer and despite spending some considerable time on those long slow relaxed rolls with a lot of immersion time, both I and the inside of my boat remained dry. And I mean DRY. No slop water at all. Bare in mind that this top is rated a "semi-dry" top rather than a dry one. That neck seal isn't supposed to be bone dry, but for me it is.
What do I like about it ?
I also considered the Reed touring cag, which is also an excellent bit of kit. It's a bit heavier, a bit warmer and not having latex wrist seals it may be more robust. If I was doing more serious cold weather touring it would have been at the top of my list. However for the type of paddling I'm doing, the Stampede hit's all the buttons for me.
This time I wanted something that would seal really well, cut the wind and keep me nice and dry and warm without being too hot and turning into a personal sauna if the sun comes out.
[Enter the NRS Stampede Paddling Jacket stage left.]
This is a light but quite tough garment, made of Triton breathable fabric with reinfocement in all the high wear areas. It has a smooth finished elastomer punch through neck seal ( a neoprene variant) and latex wrist seals protected by sturdy cuffs. It has a double tunnel waist arrangement to allow it to mate with the spray deck or with a pair of dry pants. The cut has been carefully designed to allow freedom of movement without irritating seams and acres of flapping excess fabric. It also has a water resistant zipped pocket on one sleave.
I wore if for the first time at Rock N Roll at Batemans Bay. My main concern there was that it would turn out to be too warm and dry. In fact that wasn't the case at all. It was very comfortable although the temperature was over 20ºC and the sun was out. I was working pretty hard chasing waves on the Clyde River bar with an unfamiliar Greenland paddle (these aren't really designed for acceleration and my technique isn't that good either so I didn't catch a lot of waves although one or two caught me !) anyway, while I did get a bit warm, a couple of rolls were quite sufficient to cool me off.
I also wore it for a rock hopping session on a cool and overcast morning and it did the job for me there too in terms of temperature and kept me bone dry despite two rolls in a slightly turbulent rock garden. I followed up with a Greenland Rolling Session with Shawn and Rob Mercer and despite spending some considerable time on those long slow relaxed rolls with a lot of immersion time, both I and the inside of my boat remained dry. And I mean DRY. No slop water at all. Bare in mind that this top is rated a "semi-dry" top rather than a dry one. That neck seal isn't supposed to be bone dry, but for me it is.
What do I like about it ?
- The wrist and neck seals are very comfortable for me and they work very well. Especially with my skinny little wrists.
- It's really dry.
- It's nice and light and not too hot. Seems to breathe pretty well too.
- It's really dry.
- There's no restriction in movement so it's very comfortable.
- It's really dry.
- The little pocket is a nice touch
- It's really dry
- The double tunnel waste is easy to adjust and fits well with the spray deck
- It's really dry
- The reinforcing layers in the high wear areas should keep it waterproof for a decent life.
- Did I mention that it's really dry ?
- It would be nice to have it in a high vis colour. Blue and green are OK but they don't really cut it for me on the sea. I guess this garment is mainly aimed at play boaters so maybe that's not a consideration for them.
I also considered the Reed touring cag, which is also an excellent bit of kit. It's a bit heavier, a bit warmer and not having latex wrist seals it may be more robust. If I was doing more serious cold weather touring it would have been at the top of my list. However for the type of paddling I'm doing, the Stampede hit's all the buttons for me.
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Philadelphia.
Americans have a proud tradition of electing fine upstanding members of the community to represent them in public office. But this time they've definitely elected a right one.
I thought George Dubya had issues but this time they've elected a proper nutter.
Monday, May 9, 2011
A surf lesson on Saturday.
Selim and I managed to get our boats wet on Saturday afternoon at Terrigal Haven. Where against all odds I managed to put myself in the path of a good sized wave. :) The haven at terrigal is a well protected anchorage sheltered by a rocky headland (The Skillion) and a nice breakwall. It's a nice dive site too. The haven is not the natural habitat of large waves but sometimes the refracted southerly swell feels the bottom around the end of the break wall and you get a nice wave that can be fun to surf.
Those of you who know me will understand that I am a surf jinx. Like Douglas Adams' "Rain God" but in reverse. Where I am, the waves are not. The waves do not love me or want to spend time with me. I have spent hours paddling back and forth across river bars with waves breaking all around me and catching nothing but a sweat. (OK, OK I know, there is a slight possibility that I'm just really bad at reading waves and even worse at catching them, but the supernatural explanation is so much better for my ego. Thanks for pointing that out, now let us continue.) This is very handy when doing surf landings as I usually paddle in to the beach and fall gracelessly out of the boat in a fairly sedate fashion. The downside is that I don't get a lot of practice at riding waves and getting trashed.
Anyway to cut a long story short, there were some nice little waves kicking up to about six feet as they refracted around the end of the breakwall at the haven, it seemed like too good an opportunity to miss. Nice steep, easy to catch waves with the option to peel off to the right into deep water. So I paddled out through them and was just turning around to line up when Selim kindly pointed out the one that was bearing down on me.
It had started feeling the bottom about 50m further out so must have been a far bigger wave and was already curled over with the crest slavering white foam in anticipation of the tasty snack in it's path. It looked about 14 feet high to me (although I will confess to the possibility of adrenaline fueled magnifying googles) and it was far too late to turn either way, I was broadside on to the beast. So I decided to roll and let it blunt it's teeth on my hull.
Usually in surf, you brace into the wave, and I automatically (that is without thought) in my innocence and naievety, set up and capsized on the seaward side, rolling into the slavering maw of the wave as it hit me. The result of this was that I found myself lying on my side in the wave, unable to capsize fully, but with the paddle oriented for a roll on the downwave side of the boat ie underneath the boat and catching the full force of the water, pulling me down while the wave pushed me up, it was all I could do to hang onto it. There was no way of getting the paddle back into position for a roll on the upwave side of the boat, so all I could do was hang on and take my chewing like a man. ie with all the good grace of a cat in a washing machine.
Happily the bottom drops off a bit as the wave clears the break wall and the monster soon decided it didn't like the taste of plastic so it was a fairly short mauling. Anyway, if you're going to roll to avoid a hammering, be smarter than me and roll away from the wave. Here endeth the lesson.
Those of you who know me will understand that I am a surf jinx. Like Douglas Adams' "Rain God" but in reverse. Where I am, the waves are not. The waves do not love me or want to spend time with me. I have spent hours paddling back and forth across river bars with waves breaking all around me and catching nothing but a sweat. (OK, OK I know, there is a slight possibility that I'm just really bad at reading waves and even worse at catching them, but the supernatural explanation is so much better for my ego. Thanks for pointing that out, now let us continue.) This is very handy when doing surf landings as I usually paddle in to the beach and fall gracelessly out of the boat in a fairly sedate fashion. The downside is that I don't get a lot of practice at riding waves and getting trashed.
Anyway to cut a long story short, there were some nice little waves kicking up to about six feet as they refracted around the end of the breakwall at the haven, it seemed like too good an opportunity to miss. Nice steep, easy to catch waves with the option to peel off to the right into deep water. So I paddled out through them and was just turning around to line up when Selim kindly pointed out the one that was bearing down on me.
It had started feeling the bottom about 50m further out so must have been a far bigger wave and was already curled over with the crest slavering white foam in anticipation of the tasty snack in it's path. It looked about 14 feet high to me (although I will confess to the possibility of adrenaline fueled magnifying googles) and it was far too late to turn either way, I was broadside on to the beast. So I decided to roll and let it blunt it's teeth on my hull.
Usually in surf, you brace into the wave, and I automatically (that is without thought) in my innocence and naievety, set up and capsized on the seaward side, rolling into the slavering maw of the wave as it hit me. The result of this was that I found myself lying on my side in the wave, unable to capsize fully, but with the paddle oriented for a roll on the downwave side of the boat ie underneath the boat and catching the full force of the water, pulling me down while the wave pushed me up, it was all I could do to hang onto it. There was no way of getting the paddle back into position for a roll on the upwave side of the boat, so all I could do was hang on and take my chewing like a man. ie with all the good grace of a cat in a washing machine.
Happily the bottom drops off a bit as the wave clears the break wall and the monster soon decided it didn't like the taste of plastic so it was a fairly short mauling. Anyway, if you're going to roll to avoid a hammering, be smarter than me and roll away from the wave. Here endeth the lesson.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Rolling with a wing paddle. Part One
One of my role models is Owen. This is a guy lucky enough to have retired and have a bit more time to paddle. He's done a bit of paddling, a lot of sailing, cycling, motorcycling, travelling and has a great attitude to life. He's developed a reliable roll despite some shoulder problems and has adopted the greenland stick for most of his cruising paddling, enjoying it's low impact on his shoulders. He still uses a wing to race and a Euro blade for surfing. He has collected a wide variety of paddlecraft, from sit on tops to home made skin on frame boats. Mirages, Valleys, racing skis, racing kayaks, they all have their place in the fleet. There are not many things that Owen has trouble rolling and he has been engaged in a project to roll every boat in the Hunter Kayak Klan. I've seen him roll completely unfamiliar boats first try. Owen can roll with his greenland stick or with a Euro blade with equal facility.
Imagine my surprise when he missed a roll with his wing paddle and wet exited in flat water. It was a surprise because I'd heard that wings were easier to roll with due to the lift from the aerofoil shaped blade and the powerful catch that this shape offers. Owen tells me that after some experimentation with his wing he finds it is much easier to roll with the back of the blade as it planes better across the surface and doesn't dive. So it was with great interest and a little trepidation that I started playing with my new wing to explore the behaviour of the blade for rolling.
First of all, I went and sat in the pool with my new paddle it's an Epic Mid Wing. A fairly symmetrical shaped wing with only moderate twist. Sitting in the pool I swept the paddle sideways at shoulder height, planing the blade across the surface as you would a Euro paddle. Lots of splash, not a lot of lift. Next I swept the paddle on it's back face, power face up, as Owen suggested and sure enough it was more consistent but still not a lot of lift. Next I tried the sweep with the paddle power face down and kept consistently a couple of inches below the surface rather than planing on the surface. LOTS of lift, no splash. Then as I got the paddle out perpendicular to where the boat would be if I was in one, the paddle blade dived like a submarine. I had let the blade angle shift down just a little; being a wing shape it was slightly harder to judge blade angle as the leading edge is curved over. This looked to me like what had happened to Owen, with the paddle diving just when he was in the recovery phase of his roll.
With a regular Euro paddle or a traditional Greenland paddle it is common practice to reverse the sweep for a brace to lock in the roll and stabilise the boat immediately after recovery. When you try this with a wing, the aerofoiled blade stalls and does some very unpredictable things, so you need to get the roll finished with rotation to spare.
So my conclusion, was that with this particular wing to keep the powerface down as normal and keep careful control of the blade angle while sweeping just below the surface. Next step was to put it into practice in the boat.
Down at the beach, conditions were perfect, the water was warm and clear and I put on my mask so I could monitor the blade angle. So much of a successful roll, comes down to muscle memory. In a real capsize, the water will often be turbulent, aerated and possibly murky, so you won't be able to see what you're doing and you rely on everything happening by muscle memory, just like a guitarist playing a chord. They don't have to look; they know exactly where their fingers need to be. While it's good to practise without a mask to ensure that you can do the roll in real conditions, it's important to learn the roll by repeating the motion as close to perfectly as you can and a mask is invaluable for this. This allows you to develop muscle memory for the process.
So mask on, set up crunched forward as close to the deck as I can get, head to the side and rolling into the water. Allowing the boat to rotate and my buoyancy to bring it around as far as it's going to. Pushing the paddle forward and up to the surface, eyes up looking to the sky, head as close to the surface as I can get it. Rotating my upper body, sweeping out to the side of the boat and bringing my shoulders and face round to look down towards the bottom, watching the paddle and the blade angle, keeping the wing blade just below the surface. Simultaneously lifting my knee to right the boat and recovering in a slightly forward leaning posture, head coming out of the water last. Textbook sweep roll, no problem. Repeated 10 times both sides, then with the mask off to test it.
Each wing is subtly different, and I use a different model to Owen's so what works for me may not work for someone with a different paddle. Some wings are more symmetrical than others and the blades are usually twisted to some extent, again, some more than others. I certainly found it easiest to roll with the paddle just below the surface which allows water to accelerate it's flow over the upper, aerofoil shaped surface generating lift. You will notice that I'm not talking about catching water with that big blade and pulling down on the shaft to muscle up. If you're technique is good, this is not necessary. If you're pulling hard on the shaft and muscling yourself up, you will find the rolling process very tiring and you have a much greater risk of hurting yourself.
Imagine my surprise when he missed a roll with his wing paddle and wet exited in flat water. It was a surprise because I'd heard that wings were easier to roll with due to the lift from the aerofoil shaped blade and the powerful catch that this shape offers. Owen tells me that after some experimentation with his wing he finds it is much easier to roll with the back of the blade as it planes better across the surface and doesn't dive. So it was with great interest and a little trepidation that I started playing with my new wing to explore the behaviour of the blade for rolling.
First of all, I went and sat in the pool with my new paddle it's an Epic Mid Wing. A fairly symmetrical shaped wing with only moderate twist. Sitting in the pool I swept the paddle sideways at shoulder height, planing the blade across the surface as you would a Euro paddle. Lots of splash, not a lot of lift. Next I swept the paddle on it's back face, power face up, as Owen suggested and sure enough it was more consistent but still not a lot of lift. Next I tried the sweep with the paddle power face down and kept consistently a couple of inches below the surface rather than planing on the surface. LOTS of lift, no splash. Then as I got the paddle out perpendicular to where the boat would be if I was in one, the paddle blade dived like a submarine. I had let the blade angle shift down just a little; being a wing shape it was slightly harder to judge blade angle as the leading edge is curved over. This looked to me like what had happened to Owen, with the paddle diving just when he was in the recovery phase of his roll.
With a regular Euro paddle or a traditional Greenland paddle it is common practice to reverse the sweep for a brace to lock in the roll and stabilise the boat immediately after recovery. When you try this with a wing, the aerofoiled blade stalls and does some very unpredictable things, so you need to get the roll finished with rotation to spare.
So my conclusion, was that with this particular wing to keep the powerface down as normal and keep careful control of the blade angle while sweeping just below the surface. Next step was to put it into practice in the boat.
Down at the beach, conditions were perfect, the water was warm and clear and I put on my mask so I could monitor the blade angle. So much of a successful roll, comes down to muscle memory. In a real capsize, the water will often be turbulent, aerated and possibly murky, so you won't be able to see what you're doing and you rely on everything happening by muscle memory, just like a guitarist playing a chord. They don't have to look; they know exactly where their fingers need to be. While it's good to practise without a mask to ensure that you can do the roll in real conditions, it's important to learn the roll by repeating the motion as close to perfectly as you can and a mask is invaluable for this. This allows you to develop muscle memory for the process.
So mask on, set up crunched forward as close to the deck as I can get, head to the side and rolling into the water. Allowing the boat to rotate and my buoyancy to bring it around as far as it's going to. Pushing the paddle forward and up to the surface, eyes up looking to the sky, head as close to the surface as I can get it. Rotating my upper body, sweeping out to the side of the boat and bringing my shoulders and face round to look down towards the bottom, watching the paddle and the blade angle, keeping the wing blade just below the surface. Simultaneously lifting my knee to right the boat and recovering in a slightly forward leaning posture, head coming out of the water last. Textbook sweep roll, no problem. Repeated 10 times both sides, then with the mask off to test it.
Each wing is subtly different, and I use a different model to Owen's so what works for me may not work for someone with a different paddle. Some wings are more symmetrical than others and the blades are usually twisted to some extent, again, some more than others. I certainly found it easiest to roll with the paddle just below the surface which allows water to accelerate it's flow over the upper, aerofoil shaped surface generating lift. You will notice that I'm not talking about catching water with that big blade and pulling down on the shaft to muscle up. If you're technique is good, this is not necessary. If you're pulling hard on the shaft and muscling yourself up, you will find the rolling process very tiring and you have a much greater risk of hurting yourself.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Waves are less appealing today.
"God's choices in inflicting suffering are not satisfactory to us, nor are they understandable, unless innocence offends Him. Clearly, he needs some help in directing the blind fury with which He flogs the earth."
Thomas Harris in “Hannibal
These lines strike a chord with me, particularly that first sentence which resonates powerfully through me and leaves me feeling like a well struck tuning fork. As a younger man I was troubled by the injustice of a wrathful old testament god. (Young people do tend to have a deep or perhaps overdeveloped sense of injustice). These days I have come to an arrangement with Him. I don’t believe in Him and He can believe in me if He feels like it.
The world makes more sense to me when viewed from a rational and evidence based standpoint. I see no need for a god and I don’t require the carrot and stick of the after-life to encourage me to act ethically and morally in the here and now. This planet can be our Heaven and our Garden of Eden if we choose to make it so. Sadly, from time to time, bad things happen, there is no need to go looking for any form of malevolent or wrathful will directing them. Are these Acts of God ? No just the massive and impersonal forces of nature. The important thing is how we respond to these events to minimize the loss of life and support those in immediate need.
Around the Pacific, the people of Japan and New Zealand
It’s a little hard to think about going paddling just at present.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Kayalite by Kayalu
I like paddling in the dark. It's less crowded, you have zero risk of sunburn and the moon and stars are rather cool. There's another big benefit for your paddling too.
When you paddle in the dark your proprioception is enhanced. What's proprioception ? It's a big word for having a sense of where you and your body parts are in space. Or in the context of kayaking an awareness of your boats orientation in space. In the dark you FEEL where the boat is and what it's doing. The more responsive your boat is the more important proprioception becomes and if you can improve your awareness of the boat, your boat control and your feel for the stability of the boat improve.
Of course you're also a lot less visible to other boat traffic and this is where the Kayalite comes in. This was a birthday present and was sourced from Mark Sundin at Expedition Kayaks. It's easy to attach to the boat, securely attached and tethered to the boat, very waterproof (1000 feet !) and being LED based you don't have to worry about the battery going flat for a long time. 2 miles visibility with a 200 hour burn time on one set of AAs. 10,000 hours life on the LED itself.
The only downside I could see was that mounting on the back deck at 18 inches high it is largely concealed from small boat traffic directly in front of you. (There is an alternate model offering with longer mounting poles if this really concerns you). In the real world you're likely to see a boat coming straight towards you from dead ahead and would make a distinct course change to avoid a collision anyway, the light will become visible to the other boat as soon as you change course.
I usually have a C-Light on my PFD, attached just behind the shoulder, and the Kayalite definitely results in less interference to my night vision as it's placed on the back deck out of my line of sight. It's also raised on a short mast which improves it's visibility further.
There have been some excellent reviews of the kayalite in Ocean paddler magazine and at Solent Sea Kayaking. For more information see:
http://www.kayalu.com/
When you paddle in the dark your proprioception is enhanced. What's proprioception ? It's a big word for having a sense of where you and your body parts are in space. Or in the context of kayaking an awareness of your boats orientation in space. In the dark you FEEL where the boat is and what it's doing. The more responsive your boat is the more important proprioception becomes and if you can improve your awareness of the boat, your boat control and your feel for the stability of the boat improve.
Of course you're also a lot less visible to other boat traffic and this is where the Kayalite comes in. This was a birthday present and was sourced from Mark Sundin at Expedition Kayaks. It's easy to attach to the boat, securely attached and tethered to the boat, very waterproof (1000 feet !) and being LED based you don't have to worry about the battery going flat for a long time. 2 miles visibility with a 200 hour burn time on one set of AAs. 10,000 hours life on the LED itself.
The only downside I could see was that mounting on the back deck at 18 inches high it is largely concealed from small boat traffic directly in front of you. (There is an alternate model offering with longer mounting poles if this really concerns you). In the real world you're likely to see a boat coming straight towards you from dead ahead and would make a distinct course change to avoid a collision anyway, the light will become visible to the other boat as soon as you change course.
I usually have a C-Light on my PFD, attached just behind the shoulder, and the Kayalite definitely results in less interference to my night vision as it's placed on the back deck out of my line of sight. It's also raised on a short mast which improves it's visibility further.
There have been some excellent reviews of the kayalite in Ocean paddler magazine and at Solent Sea Kayaking. For more information see:
http://www.kayalu.com/
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
A Friday Night Blast On Tuggerah Lake
With a busy weekend coming up and a busy week behind, Marty and I decided to sneak out for a paddle on Friday evening. We put in at Tuggerawong at 5:15 and paddled across to the Entrance. There was a noreaster blowing as usual for this time of year and a well developed two to three foot wind wave was on our stern quarter on the way across.
I'm in the market for a spare paddle to compliment my beautiful Werner Cyprus so I had a go with Marty's spare carbon fibre Skee paddle. These are a locally made paddle which has a fairly large blade area and are very popular with Mirage paddlers due to their strong catch and light weight. This one was adjustable and the shortest I could get it was 214 cm, just a bit long for me in my narrow beamed boat. I certainly found it delivered with the powerful catch but it felt awkward to me whenever I tried a sweep stroke or blended strokes together. After 5km I had a blister and a sore tendon in my elbow so I swapped back to the Cyprus. A nice light paddle in a ruddered boat but perhaps not suited to a more traditional skegged design where a wider variety of strokes are used. Maybe I'm just spoilled, but the search continues.
We spent a while in the channel, playing in the calmer waters, edging and generally goofing around with draw strokes and rudder strokes. We ran the gauntlet of fishing lines down to the channel entrance, but the tide was very low and we decided not to try and go out into the open ocean.
As the sun was setting, we headed back across the lake and made it back to Tuggerawong in the last of the light. The wind had dropped and the lake had calmed down nicely. My new kayalite did it's job well and kept us very visible to any other boat traffic. Thanks for your company and the loan of the paddle Marty.
I'm in the market for a spare paddle to compliment my beautiful Werner Cyprus so I had a go with Marty's spare carbon fibre Skee paddle. These are a locally made paddle which has a fairly large blade area and are very popular with Mirage paddlers due to their strong catch and light weight. This one was adjustable and the shortest I could get it was 214 cm, just a bit long for me in my narrow beamed boat. I certainly found it delivered with the powerful catch but it felt awkward to me whenever I tried a sweep stroke or blended strokes together. After 5km I had a blister and a sore tendon in my elbow so I swapped back to the Cyprus. A nice light paddle in a ruddered boat but perhaps not suited to a more traditional skegged design where a wider variety of strokes are used. Maybe I'm just spoilled, but the search continues.
We spent a while in the channel, playing in the calmer waters, edging and generally goofing around with draw strokes and rudder strokes. We ran the gauntlet of fishing lines down to the channel entrance, but the tide was very low and we decided not to try and go out into the open ocean.
As the sun was setting, we headed back across the lake and made it back to Tuggerawong in the last of the light. The wind had dropped and the lake had calmed down nicely. My new kayalite did it's job well and kept us very visible to any other boat traffic. Thanks for your company and the loan of the paddle Marty.
Spoon Rocks.
Marty organised this trip and once again we were joined by some fellow paddlers from the Central Coast Canoe Club. Nick Geoff and Dave joined myself and fellow Klan members, Marty, Selim, Brad, Ben and Shawn for a 7am start at Catherine Hill Bay.
Catherine Hill Bay is a nice quiet retired mining village just north of Munmorah State Recreation Area and just south of Swansea. Most of the homes there are old miners cottages and the mine and its associated coal washery were the life's blood of the town. Coal ships were loaded from the wharf, which is still standing and the subject of a petition by the locals to save it from demolition. It could be a nice asset for the village, I could see it with a promenade and maybe a cafe, lots of room for fishing and so on. Of course it's a steel jetty in the ocean, so there would be a continuing cost to keep it in a safe state of repair.
Catherine Hill Bay is also the target of developers who want to develop the old coal washery, which would bring in a wave of new residents and a big increase in population and traffic. The locals don't want it or need it and have been vocal in their opposition to it, but the powers that be have ridden over the top of them roughshod so far.
Conditions were very calm, bearing little resemblance to the predictions from BOM. The sky was blue and the ocean warm and a gentle half metre of swell caressed the beach like a child stroking a kitten. The forecast southerly change with its thirty-five knot wind speed and 2 metre waves was still hours away and we would be off the water long before it hit. We still kept a wary eye to the south though.
Off the beach and on the water. Shawn generously provided the rescue practice for the day after getting surprised by a quick one-two combination of waves from the left and right. He was back in his boat and paddling with no further excitement.
We headed up the coast poking our noses into every cleft, cranny and sea cave we came to. The shark hole is a beautiful circular hole surrounded by cliff lines with a deep cleft at the back that goes some distance back into the headland. On this morning I was the only one who seemed to want to go in and I spent a few quiet moments in the shade checking out the multicoloured growth encrusting the walls below the water line. I came back out and met Selim and cracked a couple of rolls for his video camera. They weren't very tidy ones, but the water was really nice. You can't beat rotary cooling on a hot day.
A little further up the coast is a largish sea cave. You could park a couple of tennis courts in there quite easily and only the very highest defensive lob would hit the ceiling. Even with half a dozen five metre plus kayaks in there, it didn't feel crowded. The roof is beautifully sculpted by centuries of big swell pounding into the rock. Looking up at that roof, one is struck by the power of the sea and how small and fragile we are. The cave is best entered at high tide as there is more depth over the rocks and the water inside tends to be calmer.
We continued up the coast and paused for some morning tea at Spoon Rocks, a break wall that provides good protection for a safe landing. Spoon rocks is just south of Caves Beach and the caves can be seen from the beach. A nice swim, and a snack to keep the energy levels up and we were off again, heading back down the coast to Catho, coffee and a Sno-Cone. The surf was up a little higher when we got back but everyone landed safely but a little sad to have to cut the trip short to avoid the approaching weather.
Thanks All for your good company and another great paddle. Photos can be found on the Klan site.
http://www.hunterpaddler.ning.com/
Catherine Hill Bay is a nice quiet retired mining village just north of Munmorah State Recreation Area and just south of Swansea. Most of the homes there are old miners cottages and the mine and its associated coal washery were the life's blood of the town. Coal ships were loaded from the wharf, which is still standing and the subject of a petition by the locals to save it from demolition. It could be a nice asset for the village, I could see it with a promenade and maybe a cafe, lots of room for fishing and so on. Of course it's a steel jetty in the ocean, so there would be a continuing cost to keep it in a safe state of repair.
Catherine Hill Bay is also the target of developers who want to develop the old coal washery, which would bring in a wave of new residents and a big increase in population and traffic. The locals don't want it or need it and have been vocal in their opposition to it, but the powers that be have ridden over the top of them roughshod so far.
Conditions were very calm, bearing little resemblance to the predictions from BOM. The sky was blue and the ocean warm and a gentle half metre of swell caressed the beach like a child stroking a kitten. The forecast southerly change with its thirty-five knot wind speed and 2 metre waves was still hours away and we would be off the water long before it hit. We still kept a wary eye to the south though.
Off the beach and on the water. Shawn generously provided the rescue practice for the day after getting surprised by a quick one-two combination of waves from the left and right. He was back in his boat and paddling with no further excitement.
We headed up the coast poking our noses into every cleft, cranny and sea cave we came to. The shark hole is a beautiful circular hole surrounded by cliff lines with a deep cleft at the back that goes some distance back into the headland. On this morning I was the only one who seemed to want to go in and I spent a few quiet moments in the shade checking out the multicoloured growth encrusting the walls below the water line. I came back out and met Selim and cracked a couple of rolls for his video camera. They weren't very tidy ones, but the water was really nice. You can't beat rotary cooling on a hot day.
A little further up the coast is a largish sea cave. You could park a couple of tennis courts in there quite easily and only the very highest defensive lob would hit the ceiling. Even with half a dozen five metre plus kayaks in there, it didn't feel crowded. The roof is beautifully sculpted by centuries of big swell pounding into the rock. Looking up at that roof, one is struck by the power of the sea and how small and fragile we are. The cave is best entered at high tide as there is more depth over the rocks and the water inside tends to be calmer.
We continued up the coast and paused for some morning tea at Spoon Rocks, a break wall that provides good protection for a safe landing. Spoon rocks is just south of Caves Beach and the caves can be seen from the beach. A nice swim, and a snack to keep the energy levels up and we were off again, heading back down the coast to Catho, coffee and a Sno-Cone. The surf was up a little higher when we got back but everyone landed safely but a little sad to have to cut the trip short to avoid the approaching weather.
Thanks All for your good company and another great paddle. Photos can be found on the Klan site.
http://www.hunterpaddler.ning.com/
Bird Island
This was Marty's first event. An early morning paddle, starting at 7am. Crack of dawn for most on a Saturday morning. Early or not we still had a great turnout, from both the Klan and the Central Coast Canoe Club. It was a perfect day, flat calm with just a hint of swell and just a breath of wind. We launched off the beach at Cabbage Tree Bay, on the northern side of Norah Head. This is a nice little beach with good protection from the prevailing southerly swells. In a Noreaster the exposure is far greater and in conjunction with the steeply shelving profile of the beach, there can be a nasty shore dump, especially at low tide. This can provide hours of entertainment watching the poor souls trying to get their boats back on their trailers, but I digress.
We paddled out and just inshore of the bomborah. Most of us took a prudent line where the energy of the break had dissipated, but Geoff showed his skill and confidence and ploughed straight through the middle. I was tempted to follow him, but thought better of it, he's a better paddler than I will ever be. We continued on along the beach for a while before cutting out and heading around the island. This little rocky island has no easy landing spots on it. It was used for bombing practice in the second world war resulting in extensive rocky rubble on the sea bed around the island. Above water there is little sign of this abuse after a few decades of constant erosion from wind and waves.
The water was crystal clear and I kicked myself for leaving my mask behind. Next time I'll spend some quiet time checking out the underwater scenery better. After a loop of the Island, the bulk of the group headed back over to the big bommie just east of cabbage tree. Unfortunately I had chores to do with the pool being installed the next day, so I took the direct line back to the beach. Another perfect outing, just too short.
Video of the trip can be found here:
http://www.hunterpaddler.ning.com/
We paddled out and just inshore of the bomborah. Most of us took a prudent line where the energy of the break had dissipated, but Geoff showed his skill and confidence and ploughed straight through the middle. I was tempted to follow him, but thought better of it, he's a better paddler than I will ever be. We continued on along the beach for a while before cutting out and heading around the island. This little rocky island has no easy landing spots on it. It was used for bombing practice in the second world war resulting in extensive rocky rubble on the sea bed around the island. Above water there is little sign of this abuse after a few decades of constant erosion from wind and waves.
The water was crystal clear and I kicked myself for leaving my mask behind. Next time I'll spend some quiet time checking out the underwater scenery better. After a loop of the Island, the bulk of the group headed back over to the big bommie just east of cabbage tree. Unfortunately I had chores to do with the pool being installed the next day, so I took the direct line back to the beach. Another perfect outing, just too short.
Video of the trip can be found here:
http://www.hunterpaddler.ning.com/
Monday, February 7, 2011
Stohlquist Contact Gloves - Good Kit, get yourself a pair.
There are some bits of kit that really impress you. The first time I picked up my Werner Cyprus paddle was one of them. The first time I paddled a Nordkapp was another. This time it was a simple pair of gloves. In the summertime my hands get fried. No matter how much sun block and zinc cream I plaster on, it just comes off and the backs of my hands end up looking like the Chinese flag.
Most gloves I've worn have either left me feeling clumsy with no real feel of the paddle. There are some sun protection gloves that just cover the back of your hand but these feel awkward to me, loose and floppy. They're held on by little elastic loops and I feel them all the time between my fingers. I still end up with sunscreen all over my hands and that makes the paddle slippery and feels awkward. These gloves though were a revelation to me.
You can't really see it in the picture but the whole palm is a thin rubber membrane with no bulk at all. This and the fingerless design gives a great grip on the paddle and yet remains completely unobtrusive. You forget that you're wearing them. Skulling, bracing, rolling it doesn't matter, paddle control is not compromised at all. They let you do the paddling as if they weren't there.
The back of the glove is thin stretchy neoprene protected by a nylon gauze and the index finger is topped with a little terry towelling patch for absorbing stray moisture or that drop of sunscreen and salt that just ran into your eye. The Contact gloves are also comfortably pre-bent to reduce hand fatigue, you don't have to exert effort to keep the fingers curled around the paddle. They're well made and good value for money.
Highly recommended.
Most gloves I've worn have either left me feeling clumsy with no real feel of the paddle. There are some sun protection gloves that just cover the back of your hand but these feel awkward to me, loose and floppy. They're held on by little elastic loops and I feel them all the time between my fingers. I still end up with sunscreen all over my hands and that makes the paddle slippery and feels awkward. These gloves though were a revelation to me.
The back of the glove is thin stretchy neoprene protected by a nylon gauze and the index finger is topped with a little terry towelling patch for absorbing stray moisture or that drop of sunscreen and salt that just ran into your eye. The Contact gloves are also comfortably pre-bent to reduce hand fatigue, you don't have to exert effort to keep the fingers curled around the paddle. They're well made and good value for money.
Highly recommended.
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