JohnHuth

Thermal regulation is a bear. My biggest problem is sweating. The Inuit have a saying "If you sweat, you die" - but if I dress for 50 degree water, and it's 90 degress out (like it was one day at Bar Harbor), it's pretty tough not to. I've literally poured maybe a liter of sweat out of my drysuit on on occasion - at first I thought it was a leak, but it was just the accumulated sweat. So - a typical problem I had - the day seems warm enough, and I wear just a layer of thermals underneath my drysuit. By mid morning, I'm drenched in sweat - no problem, I'm still warm from my muscles working. Then, we halt for lunch, and a breeze comes up. Despite the the goretex, the wind and sweat conspire to get me cold. Do I layer up? Or...since I know I'm going to be going out on the water again, should keep on what I have, figuring I'll warm up as soon as I start to paddle. In this case, I elected to get a little chilled by the wind, but put on a wind breaking top, and then I did warm up once I started to paddle, but I was really scratching my head about what to do. Still am, really. (I had fleece in my front compartment in a dry bag, so I could've gone to it, but I really didn't want socks full of sweat-water).

Hey, Spider - I pulled that from the current book I'm reading "Across Arctic America: Narrative of the Fifth Thule Expedition." Actually, that quote is pretty typical, and this same guy was quite capable of being the life of the party. You'd have to read it to get a feel. The expedition was probably the most thorough account of Inuit culture just before the pollution of western civilisation, where most of the villages the author (Knud Rasmussen) visited had only sporadic contact with white people. E.g. - some tales of Inuits meeting up with starving members of the Franklin expedition. This was along the Canadian coast, bordering the "Northwest passage" (followed by Amundsen) What you find is that the hunters who went out did experience a lot of isolation. I read one description of seal hunting, where they basically had to stand in one position for maybe 6 hours at a blow hole, waiting for a seal to surface, often with no luck, and having to go home with an empty stomach and nothing to show to the family. On the fllip side of the coin, I read a description of a wife-swapping party that sounded very boisterous and fun-filled. Lots of dancing and singing, and, I imagine, other stuff. Yup, Survivorman is interesting. Actually the most interesting part is that he's doing this *and* schlepping all that camera gear along.

Only slightly apropos of this thread...really, I just liked this quote I pulled from the current book I'm reading. The Eskim....er....Inuit are pretty canny people. "All true wisdom is only to be found far from the dwellings of men, in the great solitudes; and it can only be attained through suffering. Suffering and privation are the only things that can open the mind of man to that which is hidden from his fellows." Igjugarjuk, of the Caribou People

Rick - OK, *now* it makes sense. I guess I wasn't following the thread closely enough to realize that you were talking about the Plum Island incident. So, now it all hangs together thematically for me - thanks for the clarification. You raise an interesting point, that I've heard before. Maybe this is old news, but I thought I'd mention it. There's a book, titled "Deep Survival" by Laurence Gonzales. (spelling may be off on the name). He analyzes the psychological characteristics of people in survival situations - the characteristics of people who don't make it, and those who survive. There are some great examples in there, including the famous Siula Grande accident involving Joe Simpson (Touching the Void). The typical characteristics of people who survive are that they tend to "open up" to what's happening around them. Their perceptions are heightened. Even in times of total crisis, they somehow have a huge awareness that the adrenaline gives them. The flip side of the coin is a "shut-down" mode, where actions are random, the they tend to shut off themselves from their surroundings. I found it interesting how the psychological characteristics went in almost diametrically opposite directions - opening up perceptions versus shutting them down. "Deep Survival" is actually a great read, unto itself. Best, John H.

Congratulations, guys!!! Well done. Now, gulp...I'm 4* assessing next week with Peter Casson (providing the wind gods cooperate - I need to sacrifice a chicken for wind).

I'm not totally sure what you mean by this, Rick. It sounds interesting, but I'm not quite sure. When I read about the accident, my gut reaction was to feel what they must've felt. I've been mildly hypothermic at times, through my own stupidity. I can't imagine ending up in that state where you go through hell of uncontrollable shakes, and then, all of a sudden, feel like it's OK to let go and die. It scares the daylights out of me. I didn't even get to the "oh, I'm careful...and they didn't have wetsuits, tsk, tsk" stage, but quickly recalled the times I got in over my head and Neptune was kind. Then, finally, in reading the posts, we always end up with a search for meaning. There's a great narrative I'm reading, by Knud Rassumssen, who traveled in the 1920's, documenting the last untouched Eskimo culture (I know, we're supposed to say "Inuit" now, but he used that term). These people were always on the edge of starvation or death from hypothermia. If they got too old, they'd just hang themselves. Knud was listening to a story by one of the eskimo hunters, which was an allegory of hardship - in the form of a drama between a fox and a wolf, but he (Knud, the westerner) couldn't figure out the meaning of the story. Here's a quote from his book: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This seemed an odd sort of ending, and I said as much. "what is it supposed to mean exactly?" I asked. "h'm, well," answered Netsit, "we don't really trouble ourselves so much about the meaning of a story, as long as it is amusing. It is only the white men who must always have reasons and meanings in everything. And that is why our elders always say we should treat white men as children who always want their own way. If they don't get it, they make no end of a fuss." I left it at that.

It may be a "joke" - as in "the product stinks", but RipCurl seems serious about it. It was in a featured article in the April edition of Surfing Magazine, and the website seems earnest about it. RipCurl originally listed the availability date as Oct 07, but now says that it should be out in spring '08. As Brian comments, it's probably not too useful for kayakers - personally, I'd go with a drysuit, but I thought it was an amusing product, and the name was also amusing, but, evidently, RipCurl is really trying to market this thing.

I'm really looking forward to this report. That's quite a feat. Congratulations. Don't forget details like "the sunrise looked like..." "we first saw the tip of the Cape ...." "currents were..." Way cool - !!

It is a complete coincidence that this article was in the swimsuit issue of Surfing.

I looked a bit further into it. It looks like Ripcurl is now shooting for a spring of 08 for the h-bomb.

I have no idea if this product is going to be useful for sea kayaking, but I thought I'd mention it, even if it's just for grins. This is mainly aimed at the surfer community, but ripcurl is rolling out the H-bomb this month. It's a battery heated wetsuit. It's written up in the April issue of Surfing magazine (no, I don't surf, my daughter reads the magazine, and I skim it for anything relevant...tasty beach breaks or something, uh...dude...). It sounds like you get a few hours of heating on on charge, it can be recharged in a car, and there are probably 500 charges on one battery. Here's the URL for it - I'm not endorsing the product or anything, know only what I've read in Surfing, and what's on this website. http://www.ripcurl.com/hbomb/

I have an Optio Pentax. It has surprisingly good optics for the small size. It fits into the pocket of a PFD, and I've gotten quite wet, and it works like a champ. I've also used it for extensive "land" photography - e.g. backpacking trips, and it works great there, too. Of course, the optics isn't as good as super-high end models, but for lightness, waterproof-ness and good optics at a reasonable price, I'm pretty happy.

Here's a simple rope trick: http://www.qajaqusa.org/common_images/rg_qajaasaarneq.mpg the idea is to build up strength and flexibility on land. These are part of the Greenland quajaq competition. As stated, they are supposed to help your rolls, but my first attempt on ropes was a hilarious failure.

Funny you should mention this. I'd always heard that a snoot-full of salt water was a good cure-all for sinus problems. Once I was on vacation in the Caribbean and had a sinus infection. I went into the water and deliberately sucked in a big nose-ful of water - maybe two times a day. In about three days, it was all cleared up. In August, I got some sinus problems, so I deliberately went out, rolling, without nose plugs for a couple of days, and made sure I sucked that water waay back. It seemed to clear up my sinus problems in no-time. An odd way to go about this, for sure, but it seemed to do the trick. Never had swimmer's ear, but every so often, I'll have to shake my head to unclog one ear or the other. Now, cold water's another story.

Looks like it could help. I guess the only tricky thing would be that you have to resist the urge to push off the ground with your shoulders, which could lead to bad habits (or expectations). Speaking of back-yard tricks - I got inspired by Maligiaq Padilla's rope tricks and tried tying ropes across some trees in my back yard. The results were hilarious and my wife thought I was crazy.

Ed - That DelftShip program is way cool. I tried downloading some of the greenland models and it was fun. I'm not quite up to modifying them, but I think I have enough info on the Explorer to see if I can put a model in and see if it reproduces the righting moments and such. On the thread - I was trying to figure out all about hull speeds and such. There's a good, simple book called "The Physics of Sailling" - obviously the "sailing" part isn't relevant, but it has a good synopsis of hull shape, bow waves and all that stuff. At Bar Harbor, I was chatting with some folks about hull speeds, and they asked me at what speed do kayaks plane. I had to confess that I didn't know, but - isn't surfing basically planing? So, clearly you can get a kayak to plane - just need a good enough wave and be able to catch it. Anyway, thanks for the pointer to that greenland kayak website. John H. PS - are SOF boats at all robust? I saw one that a guy in Dennis made, and the material looking almost like Tyvek. With the amount of gelcoat I lose in one season, I figured that boat would go to Davy Jones' locker in less than an hour of my mishandling.

Misery loves company. The fitting of my skeg - when it penetrates the glass to the skeg itself, sheared off in May. I've been limping along with plumber's putty all season. It's a major enough fix that I think it will require some glass-work and general mucking around, I'll leave it to whenever I get off the water for a month (February?). Till then, I do a plumber's putty check before heading out each time. (Tempest 170)

Thanks for posting those photos. It was great to see so many NSPN'ers out there. I paddled with some every day. And, boy, did I learn a ton. I have a whole page of notes on new things I picked up - or how to do old things better. Sullivan Falls was great fun - I only wish I could've stayed longer.

Certainly wind velocities will vary a bunch, depending on location. I've seen cases where it gusts way past what is forecast, and other times when it's much calmer. The portable wind gauges work pretty well. If you're curious, get on of those puppies - it's kind of fun- they have barometers, thermometers, wind gauges - all in one tiny unit. Brunton makes them, as well as other companies.

Same problem here - went through 3 bite valves this summer. Two words: duct tape.

QUOTE(Kevin B @ Sep 4 2007, 09:17 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Who's going to the BBQ on Friday and / or the Lobster Bake on Sat.? I'm going to both.

I missed the link - can you repost that? It would be interesting to try the experiment with modern kayaks. I'd bet good money that many people would find that an informative study. This also begins to merge into the "ballast" thread. Stability in roll and yaw are the two most interesting characteristics to me - and there isn't a lot of data published on hulls.

Do you have any place where I could find the statistics of the QCC, Endurance and Romany? In general - there seems to be two important numbers - the ratio of the square root of the length of the hull to the wetted area of the hull is one of the determining factors, but there are funny bumps, deepending on the peculiarities of speed. This article is more than you probably want to see - but if you're interested in the subject, maybe just check out the figures at the end - it talks about the number of wavelengths and planing. http://www.sname.org/newsletter/Savitskyreport.pdf

There are days when you'll feel like that. They usually happen just before you have your "breakthroughs".

OK, I'm trying to figure out your comments, Rick. Do you have a reference for this? I'm trying to see how this aligns with what I know about fluid mechanics. There are two contributions to the forces that will limit the ultimate speed of a boat - 1.) drag caused by turbulence 2.) the waves caused by both the bow and the stern It's the sum of these two that give you the overall force that you have to paddle against. From your description, the formula sounds a lot like the figures of merit for the forces caused by waves - the velocity of the boat divided by the square root of the wet length of the vessel (times a constant). Basically, when a vessel moves through water, the bow wave - and the stern wave create forces. The wave velocity is dictated by the velocity of the vessel - so there is a relationship between the wavelength of the bow and stern waves and the speed of the vessel. Greater than a certain velocity, there will be no waves generated, because the boat is always outrunning any distrubances it creates. If you have a reference for this figure of merit you talk about, I'd like to look further into it. I had the opportunity to paddle on very quiet water the other day - I paddled backwards for quite some distance, and it gave me an opportunity to see how my bow wave and stern wave interact. Depending on the boat's velocity, the bow wave and the stern wave and act to create greater or lesser resistance - depending on whether the bow and stern waves constructively or destructively interfere. (this is known, but it was fun to actually see this in action)