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  ?

• 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 ?

What don't I like ?

• 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.

Considering that that's my full list of dislikes and disappointments, I'd say that the boys and girls at NRS have done a pretty good job on this particular product so now I'm even considering some pants to go with 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.

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. 



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.

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.

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 have been hit by devastating geological events which are hard for the rest of us to even contemplate. The toll in human suffering is vast and my heart goes out to all those who have lost their homes or worse, members of their family and friends.

It’s a little hard to think about going paddling just at present.

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/

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.