alec

My father always said it as "Sunset at night, shepherds delight; sunset in the morning, shepherds warning." Very true words.

(At the risk of slightly hijacking the thread) Do we know what is driving the "buyer's market" that Ed described. I have seen this, some really quite nice boats offered for prices maybe half of what they were a few years ago. Are people leaving the sport? Upgrading to other composites? Designs have evolved somewhat but I haven't noticed a revolutionary change. Do we know if the sellers of new kayaks are doing OK?

We regularly carry 3 on our roof, one of which is a tandem sea kayak. We have a minivan which has a very long roof and have had an extra bar fixed at the front of the roof. I have replaced the commercial bars with ally bars slightly shorter than the distance between the wing mirrors, which is the legal max width. This gives three attachment points and ample width for three boats. The distance between the front and back bars is over 6 feet as compared to the usual ~3 of factory systems. We use vertical bars if we need to support the boats on their sides. I would urge an abundance of caution in doing this. For us three attachment points that are so far apart virtually eliminate pitching and massively reduce yaw. You may not be able to do this on your roof but you aren't dealing with a tandem. Most commercial rack systems are rated for ~200 lb and you are probably looking at 3x50 lb or thereabouts. I would recommend bow and stern lines, but you are probably doing this already. Finding a good anchor point on the front of most cars is not easy. To me the main purpose of bow and stern lines is to reduce pitching and with it the localized forces on your rack. The bow line also resists the tendency of the boats to lift at speed so it reduces total force on the rack. Wind loading can be a bit of a beast. Where possible mount the boats upside down which reduces the overall height (and so frontal x section), aligns the natural curve of your boat to airflow over the car and is usually more stable because most kayak decks are flatter than their keels. Even so, travel is more governed by airspeed than ground speed. A following wind might be comfortable above 70, a headwind a little lively at 55. i hope this is helpful, sorry if it is late and the thread is a bit cold.

Liz, I had a similar problem with fixing bars to the factory racks of our Honda Odyssey. I had some leftover 48" Thule bars from a previous car but didn't want the high mounting that factory Thule feet would give. So I ordered some 1 in by 1 in ally L section in 3/16 thickness. I found 10mm M8 bolts with low profile nuts fit in the recess of the Honda rack. I drilled a vertical hole in the Thule bar and bolted that onto the L section. I used all SS hardware so apart from the Thule bar it is proof to seawater. The assembly is incredibly rigid though the clearance to the roof is tight when you need to put a strap underneath. If you think this might work for you, I can give you more details. Alec

As the other posters have said, you will not be able to use any meaningful amounts of seawater for cooking. I don't have any views on Bold Coast water supplies but you will find PEI people very helpful, plus much of the coast is developed to the extent you will find sources of drinking water within walking distance of the beach. The rivers are tidal and brackish way inland but you may be able to find streams which a fresh for filtering. In the Maritimes I would count on the generosity and good humor of the population. Plus great messels and steamers.

Here is data from the IOS weather station (from noaa). I averaged the hourly wind speed data for all of 2009. Note the scale. It would appear to support modestly higher wind speeds in the afternoon.ios2009.pdf

You usually have to buy the boat ramp permit ($5) at the kiosk at the entrance to the main lot then u-turn out to 126 and the boat ramp. Also look out for swimmers in the water - it is can be thick with them.

You make good points. I was thinking that it would have enabled the wandering pods to at least agree a bearing. However even had they been on the same course they probably couldn't do much for each other once they were out of sight. Also the hand on the radio is off the loom. We use GPRS radios a lot hiking etc but there you don't need your hands to stay upright (at least generally!).

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My preference too. In these conditions perhaps it is hard to fault the splitting of the group into two pods. The other thing I am learning from this is to get some more VHF practice in unpleasant conditions. This is something we can do in the winter too.

Good video, thanks.

Thanks, I had read your comments. I was more interested in what they had done, but perhaps I wasn't clear. In conditons where the cockpit re-fills, you are absolutely right, it has to make sense to get in and worry about the water later. However I can't image it is much fun trying to empty even a half full cockpit using a hand pump (which is really a two hand pump!). Ed's vid was instructive.

Did someone mention pumping out the boat after the swimmer got in? How was that possible in the conditions? Do you think it would have helped for the free boats to have attempted a tow to keep you end on to the sea? Please write up your thoughts on pod size. Some comments here seem to suggest that everyone should keep together more or less regardless. But that cannot always be true - what if there had been 14 of you, or 28..?! If the group has all reasonably strong paddlers there must be some rough number which is the optimium for safety and efficiency. These things shouldn't be prescriptive but your perspective would be helpful. We have a lot to learn from your trip (at least until we are willing to pop out into a sharp sea of 6 footers to practice our rescues).

I would like to thank everyone who has contributed to this thread. Those who were on the trip may not realise what an amazing lesson this thread is for all of us who were ashore. Not speaking for Emilie, who I don't even know, but I think all of us are trying to understand the conditions (and the sequence of events, the equipment, even the personalities of those invovled) because all are potentially relevant to our next trip. So I would urge everyone to keep talking and reflecting on the contributions of others. I have held back from asking questions partly because of the sense that much of this was still raw. But I'd love to hear more about the rescue and any thoughts on optimum pod sizes in difficult conditions.

That's not a mini, this is a mini... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11167721 (BMW loses its marbles)