Skills Practice Session Sat. 7/17/21 8:30 am @ Riverhead Beach, Marblehead

[Joseph Berkovitz]

Skills Practice Session #2 of this year will take place Saturday 7/17/21 at Riverhead Beach, Marblehead (link to map). Please arrive at 8:30 am, with the objective of getting on the water at 9 am. Getting an timely start is important as this location becomes very busy later in the day. We will be finishing up around noontime.

The topic for a session is selected once conditions are known. This year's topic list includes:

• Basic Boat Control: Edging and turning your kayak are the foundation of making it go where you want.
• Forward and Reverse Strokes: Making your boat move is easy, but doing it efficiently is a bigger challenge. Get the most movement from the least effort. 
• Assisted and Self Rescues: Help each other (and ourselves) get back into boats when on the water.
• Even More Boat Control: Modify your boat’s movement with draws, prys, rudders, braces and more.
• Boat Handling in Wind and Waves: Use strokes that work in your ocean environment to get the results you want.
• Paddling in a Group: How do we paddle in a group in a way that maximizes safety, enjoyment and adventure?
• Rock Gardening: Practice reading and paddling in the dynamic water around our many local rocks.
• Tidal Currents: Practice reading and paddling in dynamic water being moved around by the moon.
• The Surf Zone: Safely launch and land in the surf zone, and assist others in doing the same. 

Most likely, this week's session will focus on Boat Control, edging and turning, perhaps in wind if there is any. (Last week's session was Forward and Reverse Stroke).

Parking: Park in the left hand parking lot (facing the harbor and sailboats, not the ocean) just before the start of the Ocean Ave. causeway. Bring $20 in cash. That makes this one of the more expensive venues, but it is a very ample and hassle-free one and the combination of sheltered and open water is ideal for practice.

Registration and Insurance: NSPN insures participants and facilitators through the American Canoe Association (ACA), similar to club pool sessions. This protects everyone involved. If you’re a regular ACA member ($40/year), you can fill out an annual online waiver once for all skills practices, and merely provide your ACA member number on each signup.  Non-members have to pay a $10 ACA event fee through the NSPN Store, and fill out an ACA online waiver for each session. 

The registration form is here, and will walk you through the insurance steps (links are provided to the ACA and NSPN websites as needed).

https://forms.gle/yJSVYJkQSimWW6neA

We will be limiting the size of this session to about 12 participants (not including the facilitators).

Hope to see you there!

 

[Vladimir Gersht]

I am in, see you on Saturday morning.

[alcoons]

Just checking: I submitted my form yesterday and there was an indication I was entered, but the Google confirmation has not arrived (Monday 11 AM).  

Al

PS. Thanks for the great practice session last Saturday. As usual, very valuable.

[Joseph Berkovitz]

Al, if you get to the end of the form and it says you registered, then you have registered. And indeed, you have registered! Look in your spam folder for the email, it may be there. 

glad last Saturday was valuable. 
 

[alcoons]

Did find it. Thanks.

FYI. I use Verizon mail, but it is handled first by AOL (which was bought by Verizon) and then passed onto my client. Last week's confirmation went through fine. This week's was caught by the AOL spam trap (default settings) with the message: "For your security we disabled all images and links in this email. If you believe it is safe to use, mark this message as not spam."

Al