Jim Snyder

I'm dying to see this based on the lead in but the link is broken Alex.

With the unavailability and high price of Brunton compasses, next time you see my explorer it'll have one of these babies mounted up front...

Outdoor New England in Franklin NH has done excellent work for me at reasonable prices.

https://outdoornewengland.com/

12 minutes ago, Paul Sylvester said:

My concern is where do you park your vehicle?

I wouldn't be concerned. I've done kayak support for swim races a couple of times and they were extremely well organized with a staging area for the kayaks and free food afterwards. The hardest thing about swim support is paddling at <1kt. If they need more kayaks post here, I would go.

I've paddled around Cape Neddick many times. The shore is rocky pretty much all the way around with little or no opportunity to land, and then you have Long Sands beach to the south and Short Sands beach to the north. Like anywhere it can get sporty if there's any wave, probably less so through the gut where her route goes than on the outside of the lighthouse island. Unless of course the waves are big enough to wrap around in which case the swim might get postponed.

19 hours ago, Inverseyourself said:

I particularly enjoyed Peary’s “how not to roll a kayak”.

Looked like he was having a great time though, apart from the not breathing. Reminded me of some rolls I missed...

New as of this date, 20% discount on subscriptions to OnlineSeakayaking.com. See Business forum post for codes.

On behalf of the club's board I'm pleased to announce that Online Seakayaking is offering a 20% discount to club members. Codes can be found on a post pinned on the NSPN Business forum on how to claim your club discount.  Maybe, like me you've seen their videos on facebook or elsewhere. They are very high quality and taken together cover a huge diversity of seakayaking topics. See their introductory video here: 

https://youtu.be/N2xzDDE6ftk

Also see their website here: 

https://www.onlineseakayaking.com/

Additionally Simon and James have donated one annual membership to the club, and the board has voted to match that donation. We will be picking random winners of these subscriptions at our upcoming General Meeting. More details to follow! 

Thanks, Joe. Can you make a version of this available afterwards for those of us who may not be available?

I think the main difference in how we're looking at this is that you're assuming a standalone GPS device and I'm assuming a phone app with additional navigational features. Couldn't hurt to have both. Incidentally, the app I referenced, Gaia, is having some trouble displaying NOAA charts as they are morphing into electronic only. It still works but without the previous chart detail.

I disagree. While I would never recommend relying on GPS  apps exclusively for all the obvious reasons, they can be more useful than you suggest. Let's assume you've been out to visit some islands out of Portsmouth and on your return a fog rolls in lowering visibility to 100 yds. With an app like Gaia you could go to your saved waypoints and select Jaffrey Point, at the entrance to Little Harbor. You then choose "guide me" and the app will show a straight line to the point and give a bearing, let's say 270 magnetic. If you have slack current and no wind, that bearing should bring you pretty close. You could check from time to time to see if your bearing has changed, or if it's calm enough you could secure your phone to the deck and try to stay on the line. 

After say 10 minutes of this you see that your bearing has changed to 275⁰ .This means you need a course over ground that is slightly more northerly because you have drifted to the south on the ebb. You make a correction in course to 280⁰ and paddle on. Eventually you find you can stay on a straight line course of 278⁰  by holding your kayak compass on 285⁰ , having empirically established a ferry angle of 7⁰. 

I can almost feel the breeze from the purists shaking their heads. I know. These things fail. They can't be relied on. You can't deal with a phone in conditions. But neither can you deal with a map and compass in conditions. I've never had to rely on this in a real situation but I have practiced it and am glad to have it as a tool when the fog rolls in.

Maybe we could do an island stabbing trip sometime using GPS only and see how we do. 

3 hours ago, Ricardo Caivano said:

(although little grace).

Don't sell yourself short Ricardo. I've witnessed moments of splendid grace...

They're wholesale only. If you go to their dealer list you're back where you started.

A couple of years ago you could buy Bruntons on Amazon for around $60. Now they're hard to find. I went the cannibal route. 

I can't resist watching these stories and think we should start a single thread specifically for kayak/nature interactions. So many stories with alligators, whales, etc. That being said, this particular rescue looks like a very dangerous situation.

Forecast looks a lot better for Friday. Do we want to consider a "New Year's Eve paddle"?

I'd be in if conditions allow.

Sometimes I have to re-open the track on my phone for the pc version to refresh.

I always use Gaia on the water and rarely have battery issues. When I do, its usually because I've left something on accidentally. Obviously a lot depends on how old your phone is. Also, I think you now need a paid version to get marine charts. I have a free version but was grandfathered in on the charts. I don't think there's an android version yet for Gaia but there are a couple other great apps that do.

Congratulations Jonathan and Kelsey on adding this to your business. I've been thinking of switching from Werner and would like to come demo the Lendals. Will pricing from you be the same as on the Lendal site? 

We ended up being eight paddlers at the beach parking lot, which was more crowded than expected do to a classic car show which was kind of cool. We were Janet Lorang, Stephanie Golman, Jane Cobb, Nick Pearson, Fred Goodman, Vladimir Gersht, Dan Foster, and Jim Snyder. The walk to the water on the ocean side was pretty long and the water pretty surfy so we decided to launch into the river, even though there was some flood current to overcome on the way out.

We decided to forgo surfing until the return and headed out and down the coast. Despite low winds and predicted 1.5' swell, piling up in the shallows made for fairly sporty conditions. Initially the rock play was mostly deemed to be sightseeing only but eventually we found some places that were doable.

Not far down the coast we got an opportunity to practice rescues in bouncy water.

After a second capsize the group went into incident management mode as the swimmer, once back in his kayak, was warm enough but reported feeling like he had lost his equilibrium. The decision was made to abandon the original lunch destination of Cape Neddick Harbor and turn back towards Ogunquit with a lunch break in Perkin's Cove. We decided to raft the kayaker and tow with two kayaks, leaving four of us free to relieve or assist. After a long break in Perkin's, the kayaker having difficulty felt ready to give it another try and made it back to  the launch without event.

Typical of an NSPN paddle, teamwork dealing with a problem was amazing. No disagreements or disappointment about shortening the trip, just teamwork to ensure the safest outcome. Once back in the river mouth some of us got some good rides on the short period surf as the sun came out.

If you didn't see it, Dan Foster posted some charts for this venue in a separate thread. Thanks, Dan. I've always been a little frustrated at how little detail there is on the chart in this area, but as you said somewhere, remembering which side of the boat to keep the ocean on will also serve well.

As an aside, I plan to do this trip at least once or twice more if this date didn't work for you. It's really a spectacular place and pretty easy to get to.

[Link to chart downloads: Downloads - NSPN Message Board]

Forecasted conditions continue to improve slightly. This trip is on, details to follow in the group message. 

Long range forecasts are available now for the 23rd and if they don't change much the trip will be on! Bob Levine, Nick Pearson and I did a dry run yesterday. The surfing was spectacular!

Please reply to the pm for the trip if your availability changes.