Yeah, I know the mantras, “All boats are good boats”, “whatever works for you”, and on and on. Heck, most of the time I’m the first to say it. Well, not the “all boats are good boats” thing. That’s just tripe! I’ve always thought you have just a handful innovative kayak companies then an invasion of “REPLIKAYAKS FROM BEYOND THE MOON”.

So since I’m feeling a tad opinionated today I figured I’d dive right in and say I hate rudders. Blasted things anyway!!! You can start lighting the fire under the stake now!! Now, in my more politically correct moments I’m happy to say how rudders can be perfect for some people and for some paddling styles. But man does that hurt to say it. I know, I say it all the time when asked. But when I do, I develop a twitch! Between you and I, (knowing no one reads this drivel anyway) I’d never, ever, ever buy a kayak with one. And this is not one of those “I’ll never were a tuiliq” kind of statements. I really mean it.

Ok, so we all know that a rudder can be great for turning your boat and conversely-wise, keeping it on a line. Ok. . . Yep, I’ll give it that. But here’s the thing. I can do that with my paddle and my skeg with little effort as well. Well, most of the time anyway!! LOL! So I think we’d have to call boat control a tie, wouldn’t you? Other than of course if your rudder breaks and you end up going left for eternity or as least long enough to broadside to the big wave you were just on. . I’m betting somewhere out the Bermuda Triangle somewhere there are 23 lost kayakers all paddling clockwise just out of eyeshot of each other and all wishing for a bit of cable and a nut.

The loose peddles on rudders can be a bit of an issue as well. When rolling you have to keep balanced pressure on both peddles. If you take your foot off the offside peddle your bracing peddle will drop right out from under you. With a bit of time you can get used to that. However if you do any rolling with your feet off the peddles, they are not always easy to locate again when you want to put your feet back on them. One good thing these days is that some creative people have come up with some nice sturdy “gas peddle” type designs that will stay fixed.

The other thing I worry about with rudders is having this black Ron Popeil “Twist & Chop” on the end of a 17 foot axe handle. In choppy (get it, choppy!??) conditions they just scare me. Especially the ones where the owner of the boat has no way to lock it down and it just sits back there banging like a mini guillotine waiting for an errant finger. Yikes! I do hate rudders. I can think back to when we used to teach people during a T-rescue to go to the back of their boat to help with the draining of the cockpit. Even in calm water you’d be a little concerned, but in waves you’d get flashing images of screaming Full Moon Productions horror victims with blood running down their foreheads. Luckily my first ACA IT was already against that move for the most part. I never got in the habit of putting a victim 17 feet away from me under a bouncing stern. Just too many risks, with or without a rudder. (In my crazy opinion of course).

Then there’s the bit in rescues where you tell the victim to mind the rudder, when they are getting on the rear deck to do a reentry, something you needn’t bother with with a skeg.

Alright I know what you’re going to say, “skegs aren’t all that either”. Yeah, your right. They can get jammed up. Older wire designs can kink. True. When I ordered my Acuta I still had an old style rope skeg installed. And in fact, I’ll do you one further. . . How about, you don’t need either!?? Early on I had a couple coaches who did not buy into the “Everyone is Beautiful” view of the kayaking world. They would say, “Don’t get used a rudder OR a skeg”. ” Derrick, learn to control your boat!”, they’d say. I got beat over the head with that one! So I slipped into that old school way of thinking. I’ve never used my skeg in my Explorer. More a testament to Nigel Dennis than to my sketchy paddling skills I’m sure. But I don’t rely on a skeg these days either. But then with experience comes provisos. Some high rocker boats are just a bear to keep on a line without a skeg. My Acuta is a good example of that. Without a bit of skeg in the water, I’m swerving all over the place and that’s not all that fun for sure. On those few occasions where I’m actually going somewhere in the Acuta I do put down just a touch of skeg. But for the most part I’m not going over a couple miles without my Explorer.

Well, I feel much better now. Ranting and having ranted. Having taken that skeleton out of my closet for a good flogging, I will sleep much easier now. Feel free to dispute everything I said here today. That’s cool. Whenever I feel opinionated I always assume that means I’m missing something. Discussion is how we learn. So grab a chair and warm cup. What will it be, biscuit or cake?

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5:23 am. Hmmm. Well, I could say this is a late morning. But, it feels very early and my heads a bit swirly. Been sick for two days now. Some guilty party shared their cold with me. It’s not so much the fever as the “swirly” bit I could do with out.

So if you don’t know of Jeff Allen or Simon Osborne, you must be new to sea kayaking. Welcome! Jeff and Simon are both known around the world for their epic expeditions. Simon both circumnavigated Great Britain (2002) and Ireland (2004) while raising over 35,000 pounds for Leukemia research in memory of his brother Mark. Last year, Jeff Allen was part of the first British team to circumnavigate South Georgia Island in the Antarctic, and in 2004 he made a full circumnavigation of the 4 main islands of Japan with Hadas Feldman of Israel. That’s some serious “butt in boat” time! Now these guys are getting together at Sea Kayaking Cornwall to share their vast experience through a variety of paddling courses & guided expeditions in the UK and beyond. Very cool.

Their new website is up and certainly worth a visit at www.SeakayakingCornwall.com. In the next few weeks you can expect more additions including photos and video as the site is fleshed out a bit more.

You know, Simon is certainly a brave guy. In fact, anyone who hangs out with a guy named Jeff has to be an easy going sort. Because as you know, invariably, some yahoo is going to start calling you “Mutt“.

happy monday

“Halley sits on the Brunt Ice Shelf,
which is not part of the Antarctic mainland,
but is still about 100 metres thick . . . ” – dave down south

I can bet you’ve been wondering what those guys down at the British Antarctic Survey are getting up to these days! Well, the cold, the dark and the penguins were to be expected, the super-hero in fish-net tights was a little less expected.

Read On. . .

Frances – 76 Degrees South

Julius – Travels In The South

Anthony – Life in Antartica

Dave – Down South

Alex – Solid Sea and Southern Sky

. . . I feel this urge to watch “The Thing”. . . “Keep Watching The Skies!!”

* Now I suddenly forgot who took this photo, but it sure makes them look pretty tough eh?

I’m not a river paddler or a white water paddler. My goals are not to run class V’s for kicks. But on the other hand, I can’t count all the really good sea kayakers I’ve heard say you need white water experience to be a better sea kayaker. Ok then, I certainly do want to be a better sea kayaker. And you certainly can’t deny white water is a dynamic environment. Well, it’s a new class room. So don’t worry that my blog is heading off in a new direction. Far from it. When you see my Pyranha, know my heart is still lost at sea, I’m just in training mode.

Here at home we have a tiny little river. I really shouldn’t be mean to it, but it is tiny. Most days you’d be hard pressed to get down it without getting hung up on a couple rocks or a sandy wash. You certainly can’t work on your surf skills! But the river has become popular for inflatable rafting as there is about a 5 foot drop from one end of town to the other. But it’s not really fun unless you’ve had a lot of water. The last few days. . . we’ve had a lot of water. Nothing but rain. The river is getting quick and muddy, and yes, there now are a few little play spots as well. (not in the picture above though. . )

When I first slid into the river at my normal launch point I was quickly whisked off. In a quick flash I couldn’t help but remember all the tales I was told as a kid about how dangerous the river was in flood. Yet as an adult I knew that it averaged 2-3 feet in depth and most of the rapids were normally less than a foot deep. This was not a “big” river. I was hoping that maybe with all the rain it would be, for a day or two, a slightly less small river.

As I had said the river drops about 5 feet through town. Those 5 feet come mainly in 3 small drops. The rest of the river is stone filled riffles with small deeper, wider, bits. Yesterday though most of the stones were far under the surface. All the riffles were mostly gone. Near our town park I found one really nice little spot to play, but no eddies near by, and I was long past it in a flash. Later though I did find another nice spot. Nothing fancy but a solid little wave that was holding together nicely behind a small drop. Right dead center of the river. Again there were no eddies nearby, but I did have time just to go for it. I dropped my paddle in the water, and with a quick twist of the blade, was instantly facing up stream just above and to the right of the wave. I jammed up my knee and ferry glided right into the little hole. Wonderful! I might have learned something on the wolf.

For a moment I was shaky. I’d almost lose the wave, or get surfed too far ahead and start diving. I was tensing up big time. But somehow I managed to stay on the wave and not get blown down the river. Time was indeed passing. The longer I held my ground, the more the tension started to ease and I could think.

You see, the edgings the thing. No, more than that, it’s everything. In a sea kayak I’ve never felt a need to really jam up on an edge so far that my hips were seizing. It was not natural. So in white water my edges were lazy big time. In white water, even baby white water, you want a big edge and to be able to switch edges on a dime. This is the place where you want to be “on a swivel” as they say. With practice I found I could work across the little wave and back again just with the correct edge. Cool. When I would get too far ahead of the wave and my nose would take a big dive into the on-coming flow, I had to remember to edge and slice the nose out. I could not just lean back as my sea kayak brain wanted to do.

I also got comfortable edging back into the wave and not into the current. (Another bad, big water assumption.) I would try to get dead center in the wave and hold my position just by edging the boat. Then, at some point I found myself stern ruddering! Quite unconsciously. Somehow I had sort of floated off and my subconscious brain just took over. Something must have clicked while I was “away”. My mind said, “hey this is just surf” and went into surf mode without my help. Once my brain understood, I mean actually got it, that I was surfing a wave behind me while facing up river, my skills (measly as they are) came back! I had real control. Now I could see I was surfing a puny wave in a little river and I was in control. I was aware of being very relaxed and having fun. Believe it or not I spent about 25 minutes on that wave just lost in the game. Hyper focused and obsessive!? well. .

Realizing I was starting to get a bit dizzy. . . and a bit nauseous from watching the water rush by for so long, I decided to spin off back down the river. I had to wipe big pools of sweat of my face and get my eyes to re-focus on the “big picture”. Luckily I remembered to change my edge when I came off the wave and back into the current. Now I realized my tongue had turned to dust and finally got out some water and about wiped out the bottle.

About a mile further down I came to where an old bridge and was marked by 3 big weedy islands. Here they squeezed the river into faster channels as it slid by. I dived into the eddy behind the middle island. The fast current would make a perfect place to practice my ferry glides. At first I did not put much of an angle on the boat and I’d paddle like hell and go nowhere. I had to feel the current. Then as I brought the boat into more of a forty-five degree angle I’d zip across and behind the next island. Then I’d think about my edge again, set up like the newbie I am and with a crazy edge, blast back out into the flow and glide back over to the center island, then across the eddy and over to the next little island. Back and forth I went across the river. Over and over, and over jumping from eddy to eddy and watching my edge. At one point I broke out with a weak edge and almost got rolled. I braced up. Good thing. The water is only like 2 feet deep there. Luckily it happened fast enough that I didn’t go sliding down the river.

Later I was riding the current past Circus World Museum and looking for any little wave or rock to play in. There was a show going on in the Big Top (which by the way is now a “tiny top”.) The elephants were doing their tricks. Right there, I found a little wave and parked on it. With almost no effort I sat there and watched the elephants. One big guy in a blue shirt suddenly noticed a little red boat in the river facing the wrong way and going nowhere. He turned in his seat to watch the guy in the river. Now I could’nt concentrate. I peeled out down to my jeep just a few yards away.

The moral of my story? Edging is everything?. . . ww/river kayaking makes you a better sea kayaker?. . . I can write 20 paragraphs about nothing? Some dogs like potatoes chips while many animals dislike sauerkraut?

AND a little free whine. . . My god how my hips hurt! Every time I move, the pain makes me giggle, not sure why. What an old geezer I’ve become.

Any more rain and I’m going in for a pair of flippers myself. On the other hand the rain and cool air have made running a bit more of a joy. (in a wet, green, froggy sort of way) Yeah, I’m back at it again. I can’t say I enjoy running so much. But there are times when I’m feeling a bit slow, tired and fat when running seems to get me back on the track. (literally and figuratively) Yesterday I did my little trail run in 40.16 minutes. That’s down from 46.38 last week. I’ve never really measured the distance and cut across a few trails along the way. I’ve always just clicked the chrono and took off. I suposse I should get out the GPS. But I’m not trying to win any races either. When I was running it each day I had it down to just under 36 minutes. So I’ve got a bit to go to get there again. On the other hand if I’d stop fiddling with the camera maybe I’d be further ahead. Thing is, I’m not an athlete or a running machine. People with my body type, I think were built to lift small buildings, not to leap them in a single bound. I’m ok with that too. It’s always fun to help the skinny guys carry their boats.

> Here’s more on trail running from another kayaker.

Somehow that leads me right into my next note. Most of you know that Wes Boyd’s popular “Kayak Place” website is going down soon. Wes has decided to move on to other things. Well, many of us did not want to lose the great resource he put together so I got in touch with Wes, (thanks Richard) and arranged to archive the Kayak Place right here. Cool eh? So if you go to the main site http://www.kayakwisconsin.net/ and look under features, click on “Kayak Place”. Now, Wes had a big site, and we may not be able to get all the contributed articles, and I have much more to add, but we have a good start. Like I’ve said before, Thanks Wes for all your work over the years. Your site helped a lot of us when we were first getting into the sport. CLICK HERE

And somehow that leads me right into my next note. . (did I say that before?) I’ve made some changes to the Kayak Wisconsin navigation. I hope it makes a little bit more sense. It was starting to even confuse me! I’ve probably added a few more links along the way as well.

Which leads me to. . . no wait. . that’s tomorrows’ post. Well, the one you’ll get around 10 pm tonight since I’m teaching my last class of the season at Rutabaga tomorrow. Now that really tells you summer is coming to an end.

And speaking of ends. . . . So JB sent me this picture labeled “I finally found it!”