Month: July 2024

Words by Doug Cooper

For over 30 years, I have been happy paddling Diolen construction sea kayaks, many of which I have chosen to get made up in a more robust ‘heavyweight’ layup for work and expeditions. This has all changed now, though, with my current mantra being ‘light is right’, and with the new P&H Ultralight construction option available to enjoy, there has never been a better time for this paradigm shift in my sea kayak construction choice!

What has led to this change of thinking, though, and could light be right for you as well? It has certainly revolutionised my sea kayaking experience, and as we’ll go on to explore, it will allow me to continue sea kayaking a lot longer into my ‘twilight’ years!

Sooner or later, a lifetime of ‘exploring my boundaries’ in the world of kayaking was always going to take its toll on my (now) ageing body. With the benefit of hindsight, it is only too easy to offer advice to my ‘younger self’ with regards to taking it easier, warming up more, caring for the body and allowing injuries proper time to recover; however, reality proved to be different!

An ongoing back issue led to 4 months of relative immobility last year, with a constant question of whether I would paddle again always present in my mind during this period. As things slowly got better, the physios prescribed gradually getting back out paddling – this was music to my ears!

During this period, it quickly became overtly obvious that the paddling was the easy thing; that was actually feeling good for my back. However, the moving, loading, unloading and lifting of my trusty sea kayak was the biggest challenge and thing that was stopping me from getting out – it was just too difficult for my recovering back.

I have used sea kayak trolleys for many years now, along with easy load roof rack systems, but even with all that – the kayak still needs to be lifted, and that was a problem for me. I couldn’t help but think – has all this lifting and carrying been the root cause of my back problems as opposed to the actual paddling? Also, for all those people out there who are similarly challenged lifting and carrying their sea kayak (for many other reasons as opposed to purely injury), is this perhaps the biggest barrier to enjoying getting out sea kayaking?

A shout out to my long-term friends at P&H, and a lightweight construction sea kayak was on its way – with the hope of solving all my problems and getting me back out on the water doing what I love to do!

I was still a bit sceptical about how much difference a lightweight boat would make, but I can now say the difference between carrying a 15kg Ultralight kayak and my previous 26kg kayak is nothing other than remarkable. Whether it was me loading/carrying my kayak with a friend or with the trolley or doing it on my own, it made it easy.

This ease of carrying suddenly encouraged and enabled me to get out more; popping down to the water for an hour’s paddle suddenly became easy to do as opposed to ‘more hassle than it was worth’. My bad back still needed looking after, but the paddling was pretty good for it, and now getting to the water was possible; this new lightweight ‘wonder’ boat not only enabled me to get out, but I am convinced will allow me to keep getting out into the future.

As my back recovered and my paddling increased, I soon discovered other advantages of my new ‘light is right’ toy. On expedition, I had previously thought there was little point in a lightweight boat as you just fill it with heavy kit anyway – how wrong was I! I can now carry my empty (or nearly empty) light boat to the water or up to land and then carry my expedition kit to and from it in a not-too-heavy kit bag. A little more walking, yes, but a lot easier on the body – which I now know is important!

I still always use a trolley with my sea kayak when possible, but again, pulling a lightweight boat is so much easier, and there is always some twist in the body when doing this, so my back is thankful!

As my body continued to recover, I could start getting back out in the more advanced environments, enjoying sessions on the Falls of Lora, surfing at the beach, a downwind run or tidal race play. In all of these environments, the lightness of the boat and the stiffness of the hull did nothing other than put a smile on my face. It was more responsive, felt easier to manoeuvre and seemed to want to just ‘dance with the waves.’ Suddenly, my new kayak, which was initially acquired to enable me to get out paddling, was now enabling me to perform better as well – something I didn’t think would be happening at my stage of paddling!

Having been enjoying my move to a lightweight construction for over 6 months, a final previous concern of ‘going lightweight’ is also starting to be dispelled. That being the kayak will be ‘fragile’ and have the potential of breaking!

I’m always careful with my kayaks, but that said, they do get a lot of use in often advanced conditions with awkward landings; this is both empty and fully laden. Despite its weight, I’ve now got complete confidence that my kayak is far from ‘fragile’; the lightweight construction is certainly tough enough for all I am going to be using it for. It will indeed be serving me well for many years to come, as I now believe my body might be as well.

So, if any of the above resonates with your own experiences of sea kayaking and you are in the position to consider investing a fair amount of money, then I can assure you the benefits can be life-changing. You may well end up joining me in my mantra that ‘light is right’!

RESCUE TRAINING

By NORTHSEAKAYAK

On July 9, 2024

In Trip Reports

As you may know, we get to train a lot on rescues and if possible, we like to do this with external partners. We are one of the few that gets to train with professional, non-SAR shipping. For that we have to thank our social media and the network that comes with it. At this point we are befriended with some captains and their crews, who are actually sharing the same interest in safety at sea. We let the videos of our two last exercises speak for themselves, two different ships from the same category, both dredgers but with a different approach. There is always the “why”, obviously. To be short, safety is our priority. In case of emergency, it will not always be the Search and Rescue assets that will be first to arrive at the scene. In our particular case and venue, there is some commercial traffic that will respond fast to a mayday call. If we train with them, we know the possibilities and also the restrictions and dangers of such shipping and their crew. People tend to be afraid of the unknown, and therefore we sometimes get negative reactions for us being that close to such big ships. The opposite is true. Once in visual range, you are not going to be overrun! They will slow down and make their final approach slower than we paddle. Also, and that is a question we get a lot: no, you will not be sucked under water by the propellers. With these ships, the props are meters under the surface, and they can be turned off. If not, and in case you are in the water, you will be pushed away from the stern of the ship. This is information that comes directly from all the captains we are working together with, and rest assure, they know what they are doing. They will not, and I say again, they will not take unnecessary risks for the benefit of an exercise.

Rescue training dredger DC Brugge

Also, rescue training has become an important part of our sport. Besides the safety reasons, we just like doing these things and it is interesting to experiment different approaches. We hope that the day never comes, but should we find ourselves in such an emergency situation, we will know what to do… and what not. Let’s have a look at some details of the DC Brugge exercise. We are tethering ourselves to the bow or stern of our own kayak. This has two reasons. First of all, to avoid losing our kayak in the event the rescue and winching goes wrong. Secondly, bringing our line under tension will avoid the kayak from spinning around during the winching. Against pilot ladder protocol, we specifically asked to lower the pilot ladder below the surface. If not, it becomes hard to climb on the ladder when in the water. Having a few steps below the surface makes things amazingly easy. It’s a detail, but a particularly important one. We will always try to form up on the lee side. This big ship just blocks wind and waves like it’s nothing. It is a personal choice, but we will mostly opt to let the team leader board first. He/she will have an oversight on everything, he/she will have solid comms with the ship’s crew, and he/she can help the others to board swiftly. It can be done the other way around as well; team leader goes last. This will make a more difficult comms with the ship’s crew. Again, personal choice.

Rescue training dredger SCALD

On the DC Brugge, we
boarded via the pilot ladder and our kayaks were winched up with a big crane.
Very spectacular, it looked like we were special forces making a tactical
boarding. And all of this make this great fun, both for us and for the ship’s
crew. Every time we think that we have reached the limit of what is possible in
rescue training, we suddenly come up with something new! That was the case with
the dredger SCALD! Care for an exercise? But yes, off course! And how do you
want to board? Hmmmm…. what can you do with the drag head? The SCALD crew had
given this some thought of their own, when seeing us doing all these exercises
with their colleagues from other hopper-dredgers. And so, we went on, boarding
the SCALD dredger in a very, very unusual way. We got a solid explanation on
how the drag head works. There were no separately moving parts on the place
where we would board, which was important. They anchored the whole ship in a
matter of about a minute, just for this exercise. We experimented on how to
climb onto the drag head and in a matter of a few minutes we found it the
perfect way of boarding together with our kayak in a swift and responsible way.
The kayak was positioned between two tubes, and resting a rubber inserts of the
drag head. This means that we didn’t have to worry about scratches on our
boats. The whole team was lifted out of the water in no time. Same here,
everything was done in a responsible and safe way.

At this point, rescue
training takes it rightful place among other parts within sea kayaking in our
NORTHSEAKAYAK team. Like surfing, rock-hopping, touring, rolling …. rescue
training is equally fun, and it certainly highlights the way we manage
emergencies.

We do hope to shed some light on the way we train, and on the safety precautions we undertake before heading on with these big exercises. Before every exercise, we had a safety briefing with the captain of the ship.

Have fun and take care of each other on the water!

Sea Kayaking Articles from P&H Staff, Team Paddlers, and Friends

Month: July 2024

Why go light? Considerations for getting a lightweight construction sea kayak…

RESCUE TRAINING