josko

I'm looking for a new PFD to contain and organize my collection of 'stuff' and hopefully integrate a tow line. Does anybody have first-hand experience with the Astral 'Greenjacket' and how it works for sea kayaking. I'm also looking at their 'Seawolf' but would be curious to hear about any other PFD folks have found to work well for leading trips.

I'd like to come by and learn what I can for next year's AMC kayaking school.

IMHO, space in front compartment is much more valuable (for camping) than space in the cockpit, so it makes sense to move it as far aft as possible. Generally that means resting feet on the bulkhead when forward paddling ('loose stance') and moving aft to foot pegs when needing to 'lock' the legs. I also use dromedaries for water and find I can always crown a few around the seat, or failing that, at the fore end of the day compartment.

I find the supply of dried soup mixes large enough to preclude me from drying my own. However, drying corned beef hash was a huge success. Just spreading it out on a paper towel in a food dehydrator did the trick. I also dry beef strips to add to soup mixes to make stew. Works very well- dry it just like jerky except minus flavorings and spices if it's intended for stew.

I'm looking for advice on how to carry 3 boats on top of my Jetta wagon. It 'looks like' I should be able to fit 3 Malone kayak racks on a 58" bar, IF none of the bars need to go right over the roof-attachment pieces. I also realize the middle kayak will be a pain to load/unload. Has anybody tried this, with what racks, and how did it work out? Thanks in advance.

So who all's going from NSPN? We're planning to stick around for a week or so after they symposium and are looking for places to paddle. That Shubie river looks interesting, but chocolate water color is of-putting. By the way, they say they still have plenty of room and open sessions.

I tried Astral Rasslers, and they fell apart on me in one weekend of paddling. Astral kind of sheepishly admitted 'birthing problems' and took them back. Replacement Brewers worked out wonderfully for a month camping trip, and I'm even using them as a n office shoe lately. I've had no trouble hiking Labrador scree with them. They hold little enough water so that shortly after wading ashore, they were dry enough to use (with a wool sock) for shoreside wear. They just seem to do everything I'd want a boat shoe to do.

AMC Boston chapter intends to set up a Sea Kayaking school, intended for people with an interest in sea kayaking and taking them to the point where they can take L2 trips by themselves or with local clubs. The school will be modeled on the AMC Backpacking, Winter backpacking and Rock climbing schools which are a huge success with similar aims - to get a novice to the point where they can safely pursue the sport. The format is probably ~2 lectures (at Joy street) followed by ~6-8 trips with increasing demands. We're hoping to work with local outfitter(s) to work out rentals until folks decide whether and what boat and equipment to buy. The goal is to get them to a point where they can sign up for a club SK trip and not be vetted out. Since I proposed this, I get to head it up and have a year to set up a curriculum and logistics. I'd welcome all input, and wish me luck.

I must be looking in the wrong place - where were these 45 trips posted? Are they in 'Trips/NSPN Events' or do I need to look elsewhere? To answer another question, I'd like to introduce more paddlers to the sport. it seems there are adequate paddling trips for L2+ folks, but there seems to be (IMHO) an entry gap between novices with no skills and equipment and the level commonly seen at club trips. Also, I wonder if it makes sense to set up some sort of a collaboration between clubs, say AMC, NSPN, Wild Turkeys, RICKA, etc? I kind of seeing the AMC as helping people with that first step and ten vectoring them to clubs such as NSPN. RICKA already does this quite well with AMC Narra. bay chapter. My current plan is to try to expand AMC entry level/novice instruction and try to help and encourage them to become L2 paddlers.

Thanks again for all the replies. I do run a fair number of trips for the AMC. perhaps my annual favorite is the L2 'Introduction to Woods Hole' where I've found a safe way to introduce L2 paddlers to the very dynamic current environment of Woods Hole. (I've attached my last year's trip sheet.) I'll run it again this year in mid-June - it's VERY dependent on tides. Along those lines, I've been scouting NSPN's forums for a couple of years hoping to find interesting trips to join, and haven't done very well at all. It would seem very few trips are run given such an active web site. Hadleys Harbor Trip sheet 62114.pdf

Warren, well, yeah, maybe, but the whole BCU cert. thing comes to mind. One needs 5* coach to coach that kind of stuff, and all I have is 4* sea. I've already gotten nasty-grams from local coaches complaining I'm coaching above my certification. Not at all sure where clubs fit wrt BCU coaching requirements.

I would like to give back to the sport of sea kayaking and would like some feedback on how to do it effectively., I'm an AMC sea kayak leader and have been running AMC L2 and L3 trips for a few years now. It's a little frustrating to see the same ~dozen people show up for trip after trip, and I get this sense I'd like to do something else, but not sure what. I think it would be good to get more people involved with Sea Kayaking. AMC's huge membership must for a good core of potentials, but I'm not sure how to introduce/involve more people. I'll try more beginner classes and clinics, but am unsure of both how to recruit/find people for these, and how to encourage people to maintain their involvement. AMC could be an intermediary between potentially interested people and paddling clubs, but can't quite flesh out this thought into concrete actions to do this summer. I post this as the annual AMC SK leaders' mtg is coming up, and I'd like to do what I can to not come up with the same trips for the same folks this year as we did in the past. Yes, we (AMC Boston chapter) do run beginner instruction clinics and the annual 'leaders' tuneup' weekend, which is really a 2* class, but IMHO, we're not doing much for the sport. Anyone with ideas?

This was taken by a friend:

Tried out woods Hole passage with 45F air, 31F water, and heavy ice. (Kinda like Labrador last summer.) At one point ALL the passage buoys were submerged, but a few kept popping up through the ice. I didn't have the brawn to play with both ice and current, just spent a great couple hrs watching the ice float by and play ice bumper-boats. It was really pretty awesome. Most USCG buoys in the area have drifted considerably or are just plain gone. One of the outside channel markers was right next to the NOAA dock, a trip of ~1.5 miles. I would absolutely not trust USCG buoys until a Notice to Mariners comes out sayint rthey're all back in place.

What's the curriculum difference between WFA and WFA Afloat?

Yeah, I agree there's waves and there's waves. I'm coming from my usual exercise paddle, 18 nautical miles around Naushon island in a P&H Bahiya. Typically the first leg is 7 nmi into the Cape Cod seabreeze, and I think I get a tenth of a knot or so by getting in sync with the wave troughs. But I fully accept it could be wishful thinking, too. On the way down, it's a glorious downwind surfing leg, but that's another story. I got it up to a 4.5 kt average, and believe me, every little bit helps. It also really helps me tune gear; this year, my goal is to find a wing paddle that helps me get just a wee bit faster; the Stellar wing from two years ago couldn't quite match my Ikelos.

I think it's fascinating, too. I wonder if any of the good paddlers on this board can chime in. Is there agreement on a coaching direction for forward stroke going into chop?

Bill, I try to do just the opposite, i.e. try to plant my paddles in the troughs when paddling upwind, and I've worked to get it to work in an expanding range of wave conditions. The reason for this has to do with wave orbital velocity: when one looks at a float on a (deep water, non-breaking) wave, its' motion is that of a circle. On the peaks, it moves with the velocity of the wave; in the troughs, it moves in the opposite direction. So now if one dips a paddle in the crest, one encounters water moving in the direction of the wave at wave crest's velocity. A paddle dipped in the trough encounters water moving in the opposite direction. If paddling upwind, water in the troughs moves in the direction of the boat, and water in the crests in the opposite direction. I think leong once had a brainteaser that illustrated that it's more efficient to place the paddle in water which is moving in the direction we want to go than in still water and even more than in water moving in the opposite direction. So I've worked to adapt my cadence to dip the paddle in the troughs whenever possible when paddling upwind. It would seem to me that trying to place it in the crests is counterproductive. Of course, there may be added efficiencies in stroke kinetics, but I don't see them. Admittedly, it's frequently easier to revert to a more efficient and regular cadence than trying to time it to place paddles in troughs, but I try to adapt whenever possible and have found it worthwhile. Clearly, when paddling downwind, the opposite applies, and I'd want to plant my paddle in crests. On a related topic, I've learned to note water velocity past my paddle when surfing and use it as an indicator of positioning wrt the wave face. Also, note that water under the bow and stern may be moving at drastically different speeds (wrt the hull) when surfing. Understanding that has helped me vastly to avoid broaching.

Kind of amazing, but they seem to have filled most of their sessions already! Should be a good event!

Bill, I can see the sense in above when paddling downwind/downwave, but not upwind. Could you help me out a little bit?

Nav. buys will definitely change, but I don't see it affecting current timing. Woods Hole current is typically given at 'the Gut' (at the intersection of Broadway and main passage), which will not change.

Agree - for people just transiting the passage, it's no big deal. For the Woods Hole Park 'N Play crowd, it actually makes things a little bit easier, if it indeed reduces traffic in Broadway and reroutes it through main passage.

Do you give partial credit? (Yeah, a sqrt(pi))

2*Sqrt(R2^2-R1^2) Manicouguan was fascinatingly gorgeous when we drove by it last summer. OK, OK, area = pi*(R2^2-R1^2) so dist = (2/pi)*sqrt(area)

I guess my question is still whether a paddle float deserves space in a leaders' kit and in what conditions/circumstances. To stretch the point a little, a femur splint is a very useful, potentially lifesaving tool that IMHO doesn't deserve space in a kayak because the probability of needing it (to save a life) is just too low.