RESPECT
Published August 25, 2009 | 
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Find out what it means to me
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Take care … TCB
– Otis Redding
I hate nylon kayak skirts. Oh, I get them. I understand why we would use them. When it’s 107F in the shade I’d be tempted to use one myself. Tempted yes, but the temptation would pass. I had to rescue a guy in a nylon skirt once. Well, I should say, he said he had a skirt. But once I had him sitting back in his kayak on a cold December day when Lake Michigan was feeling a bit b*tchy in the 6-8 ft range, there was nothing like a skirt to be found anywhere around him. But hey, it was nylon and really super comfortable! Of course that’s when the fun really got started…
Actually I dig personal choice here. Whatever works, works. Well, I dig “informed” personal choice anyway. That’s exactly where my disdain for these skirts comes to a head. It’s when I’m coaching. When you first coach a class through the wet exit process it can be a fun and often nerve-tingling experience for both you and your students. In the end, the wet exit is a simple process and students are always shocked by how easy it really is. Yet it’s true too that in the real world occasionally things can go wrong and entrapment is a possibility. Stuffing your grab loop inside the combing, skirts hanging up on something, disorientation, or simply not pushing forward a really tight skirt are certainly risks we face. As coaches we teach to the risks to help students feel more at ease with a variety of situations. Hopefully we don’t simply lecture, but we set up tactile experiences as well.
Until very recently I’ve always went through the wet exit with standard neoprene skirts and the “push forward, pull back” method. I was never 100% happy with it as students normally use plastic kayaks and it’s rarely necessary to push forward to release a skirt on a plastic kayak. We can only express the difference with fiberglass boats and ask them to “log” the information. They simply have to imagine it. Still neo skirts, even on plastic sea kayaks, allow students to get a sense of entrapment issues. It’s still a challenge to deal with tucked in grab loops and students do get some feedback as they try alternative ways to remove the skirt. All in all it’s a good experience with much to be learned.
As a coach one thing I really hate is any experience where the student has to imagine an outcome different than the experience they are actually having. My fear is that they simply will be human and retain their experience over the lecture. I.e., forgetting to push forward on the skirts grab loop in a fiberglass boat when you never had to do that in the class you took a year ago…
It seems to me teaching wet exits with nylon skirts just floods students with experiential misinformation, not to mention biasing them against neoprene skirts that they now don’t experience firsthand and may categorize as “hard or difficult” or maybe even “scary”. Almost everything we teach them in a nylon skirt is aimed at neo and yet does not ring true when they experience the loose nylon skirts. It’s hard to really inculcate the concept of “pushing forward” or the seriousness of trapping the grab loop and learning alternative ways to remove the skirt when the bloody thing practically falls off as it is. I’m quite sure a students personal experience and physical feedback will stay with them much longer than a lecture. I wonder if teaching with nylon skirts on plastic kayaks isn’t sending students away a bit too nonchalant regarding spray skirts and entrapment possibilities. I mean it’s great they no longer fear the use of a spray skirt, and yet I can’t help wonder, shouldn’t they still respect it?
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5 Responses to RESPECT
I think I’d rather go for “better safe” routine.
A few years back one instructor was teaching entry level kayaking class. She was using neoprene skirts. Student went over, panicked, started breathing water, bottoms up for him.
Everybody sued everybody. If I recall correctly, the company went under. There was a law implemented about sprayskirts as well, since the student’s spouse was a legislator.
So, I’d rather have students get false sense of security using nylons than deal with issues related to neo. Most of them will never progress to level of paddling that requires neoprene skirts. Those that do will get both instruction and practice required to make it safe.
That’s a very good point and perspective worth thinking about. I guess most of the students I work with are very “big water” focused by default but that wouldn’t always be the case. Point well taken!
Even though Marius’ point is important, I side with Derrick on this one. If a student is to make a mistake, I’d rather it be around an instructor or group with some concept of safety and lots of eyes. This is not a mistake to discover all alone.
Quick story: Get a modern low-rear-decked sea kayak, popular with shorter women paddlers or playful men, start learning to edge, get a wet derriere (behind, back-side) due to the cockpit rim going sub-surface a-la-submarine, then desire and buy a neo spray skirt… and 99 out of 100 paddlers will NOT take specialized lessons on neo skirts if they weren’t taught about it in the first place. Stores don’t have the time for courses (And dislike saying things like, “You could die!) when selling gear. Some paddlers merely want a dry tush. Meanwhile, they’ll keep the neo skirt on their body if a rescue is needed by another nearby paddler, and will resist imploding if waves do come over the deck, making their craft much more seaworthy if conditions grow.
I almost always tell my students a REALLY IMPORTANT STORY story about an awesome slalom whitewater paddler out of Ottawa (circa 1986-88) who was out with his two equally awesome pals in nice carbon-kevlar slalom boats on the Petite Nation (Little Nation) river. The three were well equipped and obviously very able paddlers.
He flipped, mucked his roll repeatedly, a surprise as he’d done it often before. His pals, accustommed to his rolling competence ignored him even after he lost his paddle and attempted several hand rolls. I had already shot out into the stream from an eddy, struggling to catch him downstream. He was now gasping water, choking and desperate!! Luckily I left early as he was struggling to find a “hidden” grab-loop, inadvertently left inside. Boy was he glad to see me, between coughing up solid water columns from his lungs and puking, he thanked me! His eyes were wide like dinner plates! I escorted him to shore, as he had no balance in his boat. His buddies showed up and took him away.
His spraydeck was one of the solid rubber rand** (as opposed to shock-cord) bombproof extreme whitewater ones, hard to get on, harder to get off, and maybe bloody impossible without the grab loop unless one has the lungs and wherewithall to cut open one’s spraydeck FAST.
Yup, there’s the issue of complacency, something the paddlers I hung with never in my whitewater years ever let happen, maybe due to good teachers like Jim Ongena and great paddling club etiquette like at the Club Canot-Kayak d’Eau Vive de Montreal. We looked out for each other, and that was an integral part of the fun.
A well-balanced safety-first and fun a close second type group culture helps. Our culture was, no matter whom capsized, river-god or neophyte, a boat over meant other kayaks acted towards a rescue. Yes we lost our turns at the chute and on the surfing waves, but we all went home smiling at day’s end.
Launchings into the river (and pool and sea) included stretches and very obvious and intentional I-Dont-Trust-You-To-Be-Perfect-Please-Don’t-Trust-Me-Either – “Show me yours, I’ll show you mine” technique. (Show me your grap loop!) I still do this by habit. And ‘Do up your helmut strap’ – ‘oops, oh yeah… forgot’
Marius’s story is hugely sorrowing in that the doomed paddler was likely not lacking in intelligence, but panicked. How the instructor(s) (or fellow classmates) got so far away as to be unable to assist is puzzling. Does anyone know more?
In Canada, we don’t have the lawsuit culture. I hope it stays that way. Still, all the well-intentioned instructors fails to protect the guy with the money from buying himself the fancy spraydeck and drowning. Internet buying complicates that some too.
** See Spraydeck info or go to http://www.mec.ca under Learn, Watersports, Boats and Skirts for more details.
Darn… There’s another spray deck issue… speaking of respect.
Sticky rubber spray decks, maybe meant to help them stay onto slippery rounded cockpit coaming edges found on plastic kayaks that are SO STICKY as to prevent the paddler from getting back onto their boat during self-rescues. The rear deck is found to be full of the gooey left-overs off the deck. I think experimenting has gone too far on that one.
They work at staying on (versus popping off) and marking up the whole boat, but their rescue-hindering features make them a questionable buy.
Another wake-up call for the industry, Derrick?
MarcP
Derrick, I am surprised that you don’t mention Reed skirts.
While not probably as bombproof as some neo white water one, for sea kayaking they are great. As you know they ARE NOT steamy in summer (living in Queensland I know what hot and humid is) and dry very fast.
I have never one come off in surf but I can still rip one off (grabbing a hanfull in the centre and pulling) in emergency.
While Reed is not so popular in USA, a lot of great paddlers are using them in UK and around the world (Freya Hoffmeister is one of them).
Maybe a bit prone to damage if instructing and doing rescues but for the average paddler they are great.
I don’t have any affiliation/sponsorship with Reed; I just want to pass on my findings.
Gnarlydog