Author: SeaKayaker User Archive

At the beginning of any kayaking trip, it’s important to prepare the equipment you’ll need. You may, like the pilot of a plane, have a preflight procedure that you follow to make sure all the necessary equipment is working correctly and is where it belongs. The pilot checks the engine carefully and so should you—and the sophisticated engine that propels your kayak is you.

A five-minute pre-kayaking warm-up routine can make a huge difference in your kayaking performance. Would you believe that by activating the right muscle groups right before paddling, your strength and power could increase by up to 20 percent? By the same token, doing a few simple post-kayaking exercises after pulling the kayak to the shore could help prevent the nagging pain in your shoulder or the stiffness of your lower back when getting out of the tent the next morning.

Accentuate the Positive
It may be hard to accept that kayaking, like any form of exercise, can have some negative effects on us. Any single motion we make works some muscles harder than it does others. Any repetitive movement, such as running, cycling or paddling, can create imbalances in our bodies that can affect our performance and health. Over time, the muscles that get used the most become stronger than the opposing muscle groups, and an imbalance sets in. Keeping the balance by stretching frequently used muscles will help you avoid posture-related problems and help your body last longer.

A few simple pre- and post-kayaking exercises will help you maintain your ability to paddle effectively and, because they’ll help you maintain a posture conducive to the widest range of motion, also make it easier to develop new skills as you continue to expand your repertoire of kayaking techniques.

Think of your body as a problem-solving machine. Every physical task is a problem your body needs to find a solution to. The efficiency and the quality of the movement depend on the solution your body uses. A healthy body will usually choose the most efficient movement pattern available to execute a given task. An injured or imbalanced body will not.

Muscular imbalances will always force you to use a less optimal movement solution for the task at hand. Take lifting a heavy object from the ground. The natural way to lift a heavy object is to squat down to it with the back nearly vertical. Bending at the waist to lift can be a result of having lost flexibility in the hips and calves, a common consequence of daily routines of sitting in the office, in the car, on the couch at home. Sitting slowly drives our bodies from an upright to a stooped posture and has a profound effect on how we move.

The considerable time kayakers spend in a sitting position in a kayak also shortens and tightens the hip flexor muscles. The result is the paddler slumps forward. Time spent paddling strengthens the muscles of the chest and shoulders, but it also causes them to shorten. Those muscles then round the upper back, contributing further to a slumped posture.

Short hip flexors in turn contribute to inactivity of the gluteal muscles that oppose them anatomically. The glutes, being the biggest muscles of the human body, have a much larger role than that of a seat cushion, even for a paddler. They serve as part of the mechanical link connecting the upper and lower body. They help maintain good posture as well as transfer energy from head to toe and vice versa.

The tendency toward a rounded spine is often the main reason for discomfort in the lower back, neck and shoulder region, but the effects go beyond how well we feel to how well we can paddle. A muscle imbalance that distorts the spine may not necessarily manifest itself as pain, but will certainly result in an inability to rotate effectively during the stroke. As the ability to rotate is diminished, so is the power produced during the stroke. Other postural imbalances caused by paddling can change the paddle’s path through the water, and it is quite possible that your technique will get worse, not better, the more you paddle.

Because of the repetitive nature of paddling, even small muscular imbalances can sometimes grow into unnecessarily annoying traveling companions. Prevention of muscular imbalances is much easier and more effective than dealing with the consequences of paddling your way toward injury or chronic pain.

Five-Minute Solutions
Recent developments in the study of anatomy and physiology have helped us devise better ways to warm up for an activity and to accelerate recovery and regeneration afterward. A pre-kayaking routine activates the nerves and muscles involved in paddling and prepares them to go to work without tightening up. A post-kayaking routine balances the effects of repetitive paddling movement and helps prevent pain and injuries.

Dedicating five minutes to your body before and after your day of paddling will provide you with noticeable benefits and changes in your paddling performance. The routine here will improve muscle recruitment. When a muscle contracts, not all of the fibers in a muscle go to work, and those that do don’t activate at the same time. By using the pre-kayaking routine, you’ll get more muscle fibers activating than you would otherwise and get them firing in the right order. As a result, your strokes will be more powerful and require less effort, and your endurance will improve. Heading out paddling without a routine to activate the muscles can result in poor recruitment—fewer muscle fibers do the work, and they fire out of sequence. Your muscles will fatigue faster, and the decreased strength and coordination will lead to an inconsistent and inefficient stroke.

The issue of muscle activation involves not only the interaction of fibers within a muscle but also the coordination between muscles grouped around a particular joint. During a particular motion, each muscle group has a prime mover muscle and a stabilizer muscle that needs to be “awake” and executing its specific task to control and limit the movement. Muscles that are not activated—“sleeping” if you will—will cause a loss of joint stability. Other muscles may have to work harder to compensate for the poor coordination. Overuse injuries are often suffered by muscles compensating for those that are routinely not being activated.

And finally, by eliminating muscle imbalance and the posture problems it creates, you may find it easier to learn and absorb new skills faster. Restricted movement or posture can make it difficult to execute new techniques properly. If you’re working on developing your sweep stroke and your posture prevents you from properly engaging your core muscles, you are likely to end up using your shoulder muscles much more than necessary, tiring them out faster. If you’ve been kayaking for years but are still struggling to learn how to roll, it may well be that it’s the kayaking, ironically, that has created the problem you’re trying to overcome in rolling. Before you try to learn any new stroke or skill, make sure that you’ve first addressed muscle balance and posture.

Pre-Kayaking Routine
The best timing for the pre-paddling routine is right before you get in the kayak. You can easily perform it on the shore without any other equipment but your paddle. The whole routine should only take about five minutes to perform. If you already have a warm-up routine of your own, by all means continue doing it. You can certainly combine it with these four exercises developed specifically for kayaking. Anyone with a history of injuries or back/muscle problems should consult a physician or physical therapist before attempting any of the stretches.

Exercise: Hip Flexor Lunge
This lunge will improve the flexibility of hip flexors, broaden the range of motion in the shoulder joint and activate the hip musculature and front core muscles.

Start by taking a split stance position and lower yourself into a lunge position. Your back knee should almost touch the ground. Keep your front knee straight above the ankle. Now extend your arms up and back, as shown in the photo. To enhance the stretch, try to tighten the buttock of the back leg. If your hip flexors are very tight or you have trouble with the balance, lower your back knee all the way down on a soft surface.

Exercise: Inchworm
The inchworm exercise targets improved flexibility of the posterior chain of the calves, hamstrings and lower back. It also activates the abdominal wall and creates stability and mobility of the shoulder and scapulae.

Start from a push-up position and slowly walk your feet as close to the hands as possible. Keep your legs straight at all times and your heels close to the ground. When you can’t bring your feet any closer, walk back out—this time with your hands—to the push-up position. Repeat four times.

Exercise: Side Bend
The side bend works on the flexibility of hip flexors, sides and back—the lat muscles (latissimus dorsi) in particular. It activates the sides of the core and increases the range of motion in the shoulder joint. Start by raising your paddle over your head and taking a split stance position. Keep your back foot on your toes (heel up). Bend sideways by letting your hips move to the opposite direction. Bend to both the left and right four times before switching and putting your other leg forward. Keep your arms straight at all times. If your hip flexors are very tight or you have trouble with the balance, lower your back knee all the way down on a soft surface.

Exercise: Squat Rotation
The squat rotation improves the mobility of the upper back, activates the abdominal wall and the muscles engaged in torso rotation and increases the range of motion in the shoulder joint.

Place the paddle horizontally across your upper back and take a squat position. Keep your back flat and abdominals engaged at all times. Keep your head still and make a smooth and controlled rotation from side to side by reaching down toward the ground with the paddle, as shown in the photo.

BCU 5-star sea assessment, day two. I wasn’t feeling so great. I dislike assessments at the best of times, and this one was going badly. I’d already made a fundamental passage planning error in the navigation test and bungled a surf landing. On top of this, I’d not slept well; a thrilling but noisy electrical storm had kept me awake much of the night, so I started the second day feeling out of sorts.

John, Paul, Anthony and I were being assessed by Andy Stamp, a BCU Level 5 coach, at Land’s End in Cornwall—the very southwestern tip of the U.K.—while a Force-7 wind and a swell to match were coming in off the Atlantic. On Saturday, we’d spent five hours going nowhere, paddling our hearts out against the rollers; today, the wind had eased slightly, and we were going to attempt to paddle out to Longships lighthouse a couple of nautical miles off shore.

The journey out was smooth enough, although I found I was feeling unusually unstable in my boat. I just put this down to tiredness. There wasn’t much swell, but the water seemed to be sliding around haphazardly under my boat making me feel slightly seasick. The swell increased as we approached the lighthouse and the string of rocks it guarded. The water was much more turbulent with largish waves breaking over the rocks, but it was nothing exceptional.

We took shelter in an eddy, and our assessor instructed us to rock-hop out along a reef and regroup behind another large rock. I was first to go and headed across a gap between two rocks, aware that a wave was surging in from seaward. As it started to pick me up, I readied myself for a low brace into it, but the wave seemed to explode upward, and suddenly I was in a high-brace position with water and spume all around me. I felt a tugging at my right shoulder, and as the wave passed, I found I was falling to my right and unable to support myself.

Once upside down, I tried to roll and at once realized that my right arm wasn’t working. Panicking that I’d dislocated my shoulder (it turned out I hadn’t—I’d just torn some tendons), I bailed out and broke the surface of the seething water, wide-eyed and spluttering with anxiety. John, Paul and Anthony came to assist me, but even with their support, getting back into my boat was a nightmare with only one working arm. The swell and the proximity of the sharp black rocks made escaping an urgent necessity.

The four of us under assessment set up to tow me the two miles back to shore. I certainly couldn’t paddle—I was too shaken even to keep myself upright. John rafted up against me while the others arranged the towlines and I flopped against him, sniveling and crying from a mixture of pain and fear. John kept me upright and reassured me. I knew that everything would be fine—this was the sort of incident that we had trained and trained for, and I knew I really couldn’t have been in more capable hands—but I was still surprised at just how scared and anxious I had become.

Our assessor had decided to treat the situation as an exercise and let the four of us set up the towing system. We had chosen Paul as the leader for the first part of the morning, but he and Anthony had linked themselves up to tow me and John, who was rafted up with me. Progress was appallingly slow. The tide was running against us, and the swell seemed to have picked up. I was feeling nauseated with the pain in my shoulder and slumped onto John’s deck.

Paul quickly realized that he couldn’t direct the tow and keep an eye on me from his position at the front. Because he was in charge, he swapped positions with John, which gave him a clear view of the situation: of me, the assisted kayaker; how well the tow was working; and the state of the other two towing kayakers.

Because we had to pick our way out through a fairly narrow gap where a fan tow would have been awkward, we had gone for an in-line tow—John towing Anthony towing Paul and me. Paul had rafted up to me on my right so that my injured shoulder was against him. This was far more comfortable for me, as my shoulder was immobilized and supported, and it left my good (left) hand free. All our energy and attention was taken up with keeping the raft together. In training sessions, I had always assumed that a paddler with an injury such as mine would be able to support himself and even help paddle with his uninjured arm. There was absolutely no way I could have done this. I was wholly incapacitated from shock, fright and pain at first, and then from the cold that was starting to take an all-consuming hold on me.

At this time of year—the end of September—British coastal waters are almost at their warmest. I was well dressed for the conditions, wearing neoprene shoes, neoprene shorts, two long-sleeve thermals, a neoprene spray deck with a full waist tube, a dry cag and a helmet. I hadn’t been in the water that long either, two or three minutes perhaps, and much of my torso was still dry. But the cold crept over me insidiously, slowly, until I was shivering all over. The wind had dropped off as we approached the shore, and the sun was shining warmly, but I was getting chilled through and through. Paul wasn’t much better off, and he hadn’t even been in the water. I was completely surprised by just how quickly I cooled down and how disastrous the whole episode could easily have become.

It’s very easy to assume that once the assisted kayaker is out of harm’s way and is being towed back to shore that the danger has passed. This is profoundly not the case. Had we not continually assessed and reviewed our situation, our problems would have worsened considerably. Having Paul monitor me and evaluate the progress of the towing kayakers was crucial to our success in getting ashore, which—after what seemed an age—we did.

I was stripped of my paddling gear—another excruciating experience, but I was adamant I didn’t want my expensive clothes cut away. Newly wrapped in layers of fleece, I began to warm up. While the others went off to finish their assessment, I was left ashore to consider just where everything had gone wrong. I have also been on the sharp end of a tow. Once, on Poole Harbor near my home in Dorset on the south coast of the U.K., I had taken a group of students out on a short day trip. One of them capsized and, despite being well dressed for the conditions, she started to cool off and became hypothermic quite quickly, to the point of losing consciousness. I rafted two other students alongside the assisted kayaker to keep her upright and confidently set off towing all three of them back to shore, a mere couple of hundred yards away.

Having practiced rafted tows regularly as a BCU coach, I was certain I’d easily be able to tow three boats the short distance to shore without much effort. I made no progress whatsoever. Towing a healthy paddler role-playing an incapacitated kayaker on a training exercise is one thing, towing a genuinely incapacitated and unstable paddler in real conditions is quite another matter.

The two students I’d rafted alongside the assisted kayaker were wholly engaged with keeping her upright and preventing her spray deck from popping off as she swayed from side to side; there was absolutely no other assistance they could provide. Any notion I’d had of their being able to paddle with one hand while supporting the assisted kayaker with the other was complete nonsense.

It only took me a few moments to realize how futile my efforts were and that the situation was very likely to deteriorate drastically if I didn’t do something quickly, so I called the coast guard. They sent a lifeboat and helicopter to our assistance. Having this experience in a location I was so familiar with affected me deeply, and I still mull over what might have happened had we not been so near assistance of the Royal National Lifeboat Institute. Its headquarters were just round the corner from where we were paddling.

The lessons of both these events have informed and altered my approach to towing and teaching towing considerably. Both incidents showed me that towing is an extremely difficult and arduous exercise that requires considerable training, practice, experience, good group management and determination to succeed. It is tempting to think�and certainly prior to these events I always did�of towing as something that can be rehearsed once on a training exercise and then remain a tool for use in dire circumstances only. My experiences have taught me that such an attitude leaves the potential towing kayaker largely unprepared when these skills are needed the most.

Tow System Methods
I�m not going to dwell on equipment for towing or different towing systems because there have been articles about both before and there are plenty of books and films to inform paddlers about the range of tows and towing equipment available. Suffice it to say that for sea kayaking, most long-distance towing systems divide into two main categories: waist mounted and deck mounted. Each has its devotees and its detractors. I use waist-mounted systems so I can move into different boats and have the same towing system with me.

Familiarity with whichever system is used and ease of deployment is far more important than the differences between the two systems. However, I will add a couple of points I�ve discovered through my experiences�first, repacking 50 feet of wet towline can be a nightmare, especially in wind and swell when you�re feeling tired and harassed. The easiest method I�ve found is to use a towline with a nice, roomy pouch to stow the towline in and then adopt the cavers� system of packing ropes�flake it all in loosely so that each loop lies on top of the last (this can in fact be done one-handed if necessary). This method will usually allow the towline to be paid out again without tying itself in knots, but it is as well to beware that it can still snag and to pay it out carefully and patiently.

The second point is that anything and everything on the back deck will obstruct the towline�hand pumps, spare clothes, water bottles and especially split paddles. It�s a good rule of thumb to store as little as possible on deck because it increases windage and might well be lost overboard or get in the way of some maneuvers, but obviously such things as split paddles need to be readily available. Some paddlers get around this problem by permanently stowing paddles on the foredeck. I�m not a fan of this, as it disrupts the nice, clean lines of my boat and sends spray up into my face when paddling into a headwind and a wave washes over the deck. Instead I keep them on the rear deck like most paddlers but have fitted plastic loops and elastics on my foredeck so that I can quickly and easily switch them from aft to fore as occasion demands.

Training and Practice
Regular training and practice are crucial; until towing a number of different paddlers in a range of conditions has been tried, it�s not possible to always anticipate how any towing system will operate. As part of my expedition training for students, I try to introduce the notion that rather than just an emergency technique, towing is a useful expedition skill that can be used to keep a group together physically and working together emotionally and psychologically.

Before an expedition, particularly as part of the training when a group�s paddling skills can be quite disparate, I will often coach my students to link together in an in-line tow to slow the paddling gazelles down and bring up the tail-end Charlies. This technique means that those paddlers with bags of oomph can share some of their energy with those who are flagging. The side benefit of this is that should a real towing need arise, everyone in the group already has experience of what to do.

I make this approach a mandatory part of expedition preparation, even though it�s not always popular�paddlers with plenty of energy often want to steam ahead, not be held back. However, I feel that the practice and experience of how exhausting towing is and the maintenance of the group dynamic and attitude justify this. It does of course mean that each paddler has to carry a towing system, and for longer or more exposed paddles, I treat this as standard practice. Should I ever be in a genuine towing situation again with a group of my students, I want them to be able to tow the assisted kayaker and me so that I can constantly assess the situation as Paul did when I was injured. Furthermore, such training provides an ideal opportunity for rehearsing group leadership. If you establish the rule that whoever is at the back with the assisted kayaker is the group leader, the paddlers have to rotate as the towing kayakers tire, and the leadership role naturally rotates among the group.

In-Line Tow 
Within an in-line tow, swapping positions can be a logistical conundrum. There are numerous permutations, but through trial and error, I�ve found the best to be as follows (remember waist-mounted tows are used throughout, and obviously this is for a tow involving two or more towing kayakers):

1. The group leader starts the tow alongside the assisted kayaker.
2. When it�s time to rotate positions, the group needs to stop (and have a breather, snack, etc.), and the front towing kayaker disconnects from the tow and repacks his or her towline.
3. The front towing kayaker replaces the group leader�the assisted kayaker should never be left unsupported.
4. The (former) group leader moves in behind the rearmost towing kayaker and inserts into the system�tricky! In effect, everyone moves forward one place. The kayaker supporting the victim has the best position to evaluate the progress and becomes the acting leader for that rotation.
5. When the towing kayakers begin to tire, the whole exchange reoccurs. It may seem like a cumbersome process, but it assures that everyone gets a chance to have a rest and a chance to lead the group.

Fan Tow

For fan tows, the swap-over is much easier; again assuming waist-mounted tows are used, any member of the towing group can drop his or her towline while leaving it clipped in to the assisted kayaker�s boat and swap places and roles with the group leader. The leadership role can either be circulated throughout the group or just shared between those with appropriate experience.

Role of the Leader
From the start, the leader needs to make not only an assessment of the state of the assisted kayaker but also an overall assessment of the situation�the morale and energy of the other paddlers within the group, their equipment and experience, the weather and forecast, the sea state, the tide and conditions, location, opportunities for egress, getting help and signaling�and quickly formulate a flexible working plan to get everyone to safety as quickly as possible. After any necessary first aid is administered, the leader needs to keep an ongoing assessment of the assisted kayaker and the towing team as the tow progresses, remembering always that those being towed will be getting colder, and those doing the towing will be subject to -exhaustion.

Communication with VHF radios or a prearranged system of whistle blasts will make it easier to attend to needs for various items such as snacks, drinks, spare clothing or adjusting the length of the towline to suit the conditions.

Constantly reviewing and revising the plan based on the changing state of the conditions and the group is one of the toughest jobs and will require a combination of good leadership and group consensus. Being willing and able to lead and to follow a leader�s instructions is absolutely crucial, particularly if the leadership role is going to move from one individual to another. A towing situation is no time for alpha personalities to try to assume dominance, but for everyone to work together to an acknowledged plan. The �leader� is simply a role that any suitable paddler can adopt wherein they have access to the most information and are best able to judge the situation and make appropriate decisions.

Another duty of the leader is to manage the rotation of the leadership role. A leader may have to overcome his or her own unwillingness to relinquish the role and to counter the tendency of people in stressful situations to soldier on in spite of exhaustion. Some recognition that leadership has been handed over may be required even if it�s only to say: �Okay, you�re in charge now.� The new leader will also need to be made aware of the latest developments in the assisted kayaker�s status and any changes to the plan as well as being put in charge of any communications.

Of course the leader is not the only person with responsibilities; all the team members (including the assisted kayaker) have a duty to work to support the team and any group decisions. Paying attention to details, such as having everyone paddle at the same speed and listen for instructions or signals, will make all the difference between a successful and unsuccessful tow.

Group Mentality
All this can and should be practiced in protected waters first and then in choppy, windy and tidal conditions to get a real feel of the difficulty involved and aim to make each stage as effective as possible. Everyone should become as comfortable as possible with all the different roles involved. Obviously, it�s easier to rehearse these skills with a regular group of paddling friends, and it can add spice to evening paddling sessions or day trips and boost confidence about being able to cope with events when things go wrong. Most paddlers tend to go out with either a club or a fairly regular set of friends, so there�s always plenty of scope for practice over a period of time.

I have found that training and working together is excellent for group cohesion; it gets people thinking about the demands of group leadership as well as developing the bond within the group and crucially prepares paddlers for the rigors of towing as well as reducing the complacency which surrounds the -exercise.

With enough practice, setting up for a long tow becomes second nature, and all the little niggles that can add stress to an already stressful situation can be more easily considered and solved. Having been on the receiving end of a tow, I know how reassuring it is to trust my safety and well-being to confident and practiced colleagues.

It is well known by most sea kayakers that hypothermia is a serious risk. Getting chilled by exposure to water even as warm as 70°F (21°C) can eventually lead to a number of serious and even life-threatening physical and mental symptoms. Many kayaking books focus on the various stages of hypothermia, and while it is important to recognize them, the most serious and dangerous effects of cold water aren’t in a slow deterioration of abilities. For kayakers, a more realistic approach to the risks of cold-water immersion is to focus on the effects that happen in the first seconds of immersion and the following few minutes.

Water does not need to be drastically cold to kill you. You can drown very quickly if you are not mentally and physically prepared for sudden immersion. Since early times, the Inuit understood this danger. The waterproof paddling jackets—tuiliqs and kamleikas—used by early kayakers sealed together with their kayaks to provide full body coverage. Inuit whalers even developed dry suits. They consisted of sealskin or seal gut stitched together to form a complete covering that was worn by harpooners hunting whales from umiaks. The danger of exposure to cold water was well understood by the Arctic maritime peoples.

The Greek author Herodotus wrote about hypothermia back in 450 BC during the Persian/Greek wars commenting on mariners who died in sea battles in the Mediterranean Sea: “Those who could not swim perished from that cause, others from cold.” The first human experiment in cold water to test out the value of protective clothing, however, was not done until 1922. A doctor working for the Merchant Shipping Advisory Committee on lifesaving appliances, named Dr. Hill, immersed his laboratory assistant, Mr. Pergarde, in 62°F (16.6°C) water and concluded: “That the coverings wet or dry, protect a body from cooling down, and also that a rubber skin outside such coverings is a further great protection.”

The four stages where death can occur as a result of sudden cold-water immersion have been recognized by the scientific community since before World War II. These are: Cold Shock—kills in 3–5 mins. Swimming Failure—kills in 5–30 mins. Hypothermia—kills after 30 mins. Post-Rescue Collapse—kills during or hours after rescue.

The first two stages of immersion—cold shock and swimming failure—kill more than half the people who drown. It’s especially important to protect yourself from those first two stages, and to do that effectively, you need to know something about cold-water physiology and survival psychology. It’s also important to understand the denial of risk that is built into us all and causes many sea kayakers to paddle without wearing protective clothing or fail to make good plans and preparation prior to -launching. Up until about 50 years ago, no one really understood the reason why people suddenly immersed in cold water died. It was attributed to an inability to stay afloat and vague terms such as “exposure.” The steady loss of lives was simply accepted as fate and an occupational hazard.

As long as cold shock and swimming failure were considered only of academic interest, mariners and government regulators—and later survival training schools, outdoor-sportswear manufacturers and PFD manufacturers—concentrated their efforts on protecting people from the more protracted process of hypothermia. As a result, hypothermia is widely recognized and understood; however, even with today’s well established teaching programs, good regulations and much improved life-saving equipment, the two stages of immersion have often been overlooked. These are what I want to address.

Cold Shock
Over 15 years ago, Moulton Avery wrote an excellent article in this magazine (“Cold Shock,” SK, Spring ’91), noting that “immersion in cold water kills more sea kayakers than any other factor in our sport.” Cold shock has been observed in people sensitive to cold at water temperatures as high as 77°F (25°C). In water below 60°F (15°C), the effects of immersion become significantly life-threatening to everyone. The lower the temperature, the more severe the symptoms. The effects of cold shock are completely out of your conscious control. If you don’t protect yourself from cold water, they will happen to you whether you like it or not. If you really don’t believe that it will affect you, the next time you take a shower, turn the cold water on full blast and aim it at your belly button. You will soon be a believer.

Cold shock is caused by rapid skin cooling and can kill within three to five minutes after immersion. On initial immersion, you make a huge inspiratory gasp. Being immersed in near-freezing cold water is also extremely painful, and the sudden sensation of acute pain can accentuate the inspiratory gasp. The gasp is followed by severe hyperventilation: a fourfold increase in your breathing rate. It is not uncommon for you to be panting at a breathing rate of up to 65 times a minute in this critical stage, so there is no chance to hold your breath. Indeed, in water below 60°F, your breath-holding ability is reduced by 25–50 percent. If the water is near freezing, even after the effects of cold shock have settled, you’ll only be able to hold your breath for about 12–17 seconds.

The rapid breathing rate on its own can cause muscle spasms of the limbs and chest. All of these breathing irregularities increase the risk of drowning if you dip underwater or have a wave splash over your face. It only takes an inhalation of about five ounces (150 ml) of water to cause drowning. Drowning is a combination of cardiac arrest and suffocation. Your heart stops beating within one to two minutes after you have inhaled a significant amount of either fresh- or seawater. Water in the lungs compromises your ability to exchange oxygen, and because respiratory movements may occur for up to five minutes when underwater, water can continue to be drawn into your lungs.

Cold shock also causes a massive increase in heart rate and blood pressure. These cardiac responses may cause death, particularly in older, less healthy people.

The intense effects of cold shock last two to three minutes and will settle down after about five minutes of immersion. This period of involuntary reactions is just at the critical stage of sorting yourself out after your kayak has flipped and you’re working to adjust to the wind and waves and avoid inhalation of water.

Rolling purely as a self-rescue technique is like jumping off a high dive without doing any twists or flips. It has a tendency to get boring once the initial intimidation is overcome. Kayakers who master the basic rolls often have an inclination toward creating more difficult tricks. “Because I can,” is often the only rationale for rolling a kayak in ways that have little basis in real-life capsize situations. With the growing popularity in the U.S. of traditional kayaking techniques, and the continuing activity of Greenland qajaq clubs, new ideas and innovations have advanced the state of the art in much the same way as the sports of skateboarding or BMX biking have evolved.

Yet unlike other relatively modern sports, kayaking has a much longer history, most of which was generated outside the purview of modern media. You could argue that at one time or another, some seal hunter probably already executed any “new” roll recently created. Whether today’s cutting-edge techniques in rolling are genuine innovations or merely reinventions of the past, they are fun to try, and they renew our appreciation for kayaks and Arctic culture.

Rolling without Reason
In the mid-1980s, the Greenland Kayaking Association (Qaannat Kattuffiat) organized national kayaking championships and compiled a selection of 30 rolling maneuvers for competition. Much of the input on the selection came from Manesse Mathaeussen, the legendary kayaker and seal hunter who lived from 1915 to 1989 and was largely responsible for keeping interest in traditional kayaking alive. (See “Manesse,” by John Heath, SK, Spring ’90.) It is clear that the variety of competition rolls was not intended to be all-inclusive. The balance brace, one of the most basic skills and one that Mathaeussen is known to have valued, is notably absent.

Looking further back into history, one of the earliest European descriptions of specific Greenland rolls is a list of 10 maneuvers made in 1767 by David Crantz, a missionary from Moravia (the eastern part of the present-day Czech Republic). Among the 10 were rolls that can reasonably be deciphered as: the standard Greenland roll; rolling with the paddle held behind the neck; rolling using the throwing stick (norsaq); rolling with one end of the paddle held in the mouth; rolling by sculling with the paddle “held fast behind the back”; sculling up with one end of the paddle “under one of the cross-strings of the kayak”; and rolling by sculling with the paddle held under the kayak. Not all of these maneuvers are in the current competition repertoire.

And not all of the rolls Crantz lists are useful. In his description of the under-the-hull sculling roll, Crantz attempts to provide an explanation for the circumstances that might call for this difficult technique: “This is of service when they lose the oar during the oversetting, and yet see it swimming over them, to learn to manage it with both hands from below.” Although Crantz clearly had an appreciation for the skills and dangers involved in seal hunting, I am inclined to discount this particular bit of analysis as uninformed speculation. In my experience, the under-the-hull sculling roll has no realistic application other than a demonstration of advanced sculling proficiency. I think anyone who has tried it will agree that sliding the paddle to one side and doing a standard roll is a much faster and easier way to recover. The inclusion on Crantz’s list of the under-the-hull sculling roll, as well as the roll with the end of the paddle held in the mouth, proves that kayakers in Greenland have been making up fun rolls of dubious practical value for centuries.

In 2006, in response to the rising skill level of the top competitors, five new rolls were added to the competition. The new rolls include variations on the closed fist and brick rolls previously used in competition, plus one of the rolls Crantz mentions, sculling with the paddle held behind the back, now known as isserfikkut aalatsineq. Even with the list of competition rolls now at a total of 35 maneuvers, it is still far from an exhaustive collection of all the rolls that have been developed in Greenland.

Naming New Rolls
In April of this year, I had a chance to attend the Pagaia Symposium Internationale in Llança, Spain. Greenland kayakers Maligiaq Padilla and Pavia Lumholt also participated in the symposium. Pavia, a surgeon now living in Denmark, is a past club president of Qajaq Nuuk. He has attended traditional kayak symposiums in the U.S. for several years. Maligiaq’s name is familiar to anyone who has followed the recent growth of interest in traditional kayaking. In 1998, he won the annual Greenland championship at the age of 16 and has proceeded to take the title five more times. He is an impressive athlete and worthy ambassador of the sport. A very unfortunate accident and injury shortly before the 2006 championship left him out of the competition that year. He has recently said he wants to follow other athletic pursuits such as adventure racing, yet he maintains an involvement in kayaking activities and was an enthusiastic presence during his visit to Spain.

The symposium lasted a full week and gave us a chance to exchange ideas and experiment with different techniques. By the end of the event, we had thought of more than a dozen rolls that are not done in competition. They range from familiar and easy to quite difficult, if not borderline impossible. As I was keen to know the proper Greenlandic names, Maligiaq and Pavia determined what these new ones would be called in the native tongue.

Butterfly Roll—This is the easiest one, known by a number of Greenland-style paddlers as the “taa-daa” roll or one-hand roll. It can be thought of as an adaptation of the balance brace. For a reasonably flexible paddler using a kayak with a low back deck, it can be taught as the first roll. Maligiaq named it pakkaluaq, which is the Greenlandic word for “butterfly.”

Set up by holding the paddle in one hand at the center of the loom. Cross your arms in front of you with the free arm closest to your chest. Lean forward and capsize toward the paddle. When you feel yourself start to surface on the far side, draw the paddle away from the kayak, moving it along the surface while keeping your elbow straight. Simultaneously drive the kayak up with your inside knee. Continue the arm and knee action while bringing your torso from a forward leaning position to a full recline on the back deck.

For fine-tuning, make sure the paddle blades are flat to the surface when you initiate the sweep, keep your head tilted back and down as you come up, and try to drop your upper shoulder so that your chest is parallel to the sky. If there’s a secret to doing an effortlessly smooth butterfly roll, it’s the same secret for all the other rolls—a limber, supple body honed by regular stretching, yoga or rope -gymnastics.

Scarecrow Roll—The Greenlandic name is tunusummillugu tallit illuttut siaarlugit (touching one’s neck with the paddle with both arms stretched out). This can be thought of as an adapted behind-the-neck roll. The paddle is held across the shoulders with a blade equally extended on both sides. Set up by twisting sharply from the waist and turning the paddle parallel to the kayak. Capsize face-first. Only one blade actively contributes to the righting action. The hardest part is being able to twist far enough for the setup. That’s where flexibility training pays off.

Alternate Storm Roll—Maligiaq and Pavia decided to call this siukkut pallortillugu killormut—which translates roughly as “storm roll the wrong way.” The regular storm roll is a forward-ending move in which the paddle sweeps from bow to stern while head and shoulders turn downward, finally coming to rest facedown over the front deck. In this alternate version, the paddle goes from stern to bow, and you must cross your forearms to finish the motion.

Set up with the paddle held at the gunwale, extended rearward with the aft hand reversed so the thumb points toward the stern. Rather than extend the paddle all the way, leave a little exposed past your forward hand. Capsize toward the paddle and recover by prying the extra bit of paddle against the gunwale and ending leaning forward as per the usual storm roll. Note that the competition roll known as the reverse sweep also begins with the paddle extended toward the stern and ends facedown on the front deck, but you would capsize onto your back to initiate it. In this killormut roll, you capsize face-first.

Sculling Rolls
Several of the new rolls we came up with in Spain are sculling rolls, a category that is often neglected by intermediate rollers. The most common cause of failure of any sculling roll is trying to right the kayak all at once with a bracing action and neglecting to keep the arc traveled by the paddle blade wide enough. For an effective technique, initiate the sculling movement first with no hip/knee pressure so as to concentrate only on a wide smooth scull. While keeping the stroke wide, ensure that the wrists are angling the paddle so lift is generated in both directions. Drive the kayak upright using the hips and inside knee, not as one forceful burst but with steady and continuous pressure. Most importantly, don’t struggle and rush the sculling motion—this only leads to shorter, inefficient strokes and sets up a vicious cycle of increased muscle tension and decreased flexibility.

Reclining Sculling Roll—Although all the competition sculling rolls are forward-ending moves, there are several layback sculling rolls. Nerfallaallugu aalatsineq involves lying flat on the back deck with the paddle across the chest and sculling completely around. Using the full length of the paddle helps when first attempting the roll, but the technique can also be done without extending the paddle. Twist the blades 90 degrees for a smooth capsize, then flatten them to begin the scull. Stay relaxed, and keep the stroke nice and wide. Practice until the paddle loom remains roughly parallel to the deck throughout the roll.

Reclining Behind-the-Neck Sculling Roll—Performing the previous roll but with the paddle behind the neck is called nerfallaallugu qungatsip tunuatigut aalatsineq. Hands grip the paddle palm-up and a few inches from each ear. You will need a clear unobstructed deck area so as not to get the shaft hung up in midstroke. Good technique is essential because the paddle can’t easily be angled up to cheat with a hard brace followed by a few phony sculls for appearance. Incidentally, if you’re having difficulty doing a layback all the way onto the stern deck, you can lift yourself out of the seat a few inches as long as your knees and thighs remain anchored securely enough to control the kayak.

Reclining Crossed-Arm Sculling Roll—Whereas sculling in general is a tricky motion to learn, doing it with your arms crossed is very disorienting. It’s like having a dyslexic paddle. To minimize confusion, think of one arm as completely passive and the other as doing all the work. Focus on the hand that submerges last. With a little trial and error, the roll will start to come together.

Having never hunted seals myself, any conjecture I could offer on the practical application of a reclining crossed-arm sculling roll puts me in the same league as Crantz. Nevertheless, let’s say the harpoon line gets tangled around both forearms and pulled toward the stern, pinning the hunter to the back deck and pulling him under. If that sounds too farfetched, then we should just consider this roll—assaat paarlatsillugit kingukkut aalatsineq—another sculling proficiency feat.

Forward-Ending Behind-the-Neck Sculling Roll—Holding the paddle on the front deck and sculling around is already a competition roll. But it can also be done with the paddle behind the neck for siukkut tunusummillugu aalatsineq. I find this to be a good test of proper form because if you try to forcefully brace instead of scull, your shoulder is terribly vulnerable to dislocation. Yet if the righting action is applied incrementally with sculling strokes kept wide and driven by a flexible torso, there’s minimal risk of injury. Practice the regular competition forward-ending sculling roll masikkut aalatsineq until you can keep the paddle flat to the deck throughout the roll, bearing in mind the advice on sculling I mentioned earlier. Then, and only then, apply the same technique with the paddle behind your head.

Crossed-Arm Forward-Ending Sculling Roll—Maligiaq thought of an additional variation of a sculling roll, masikkut paarllatsillugit aalatsineq. I had previously tried this one at length and could never get it to work unless I braced hard at the end, which more or less turns it into a crossed-arm roll, one already done in competition.

Like all forward-ending rolls, the closer you can get your head to the gunwale as you come up, the better. But in this case, the crossed forearms are in the way, and additionally there is limited mobility to maintain a wide, efficient scull. None of us could do this roll. Maybe someone with the right combination of kayak and flexibility can succeed, but it’ll be a real challenge to do it without any bracing—that is, without pushing down forcefully on the paddle instead of sweeping it from side to side.

Opposite Arm Rolls
This category of rolls does have a plausible real-world application. They are done without using the last arm to surface. In other words, if you are rolling up on your right side, you must use only the left arm. The combat scenario is a dropped paddle in a strong beam wind blowing against a dislocated shoulder. Admittedly this would be an awfully bad day, but it could happen. In such a situation, a normal hand roll with the good arm is being opposed by the wind. So the way out of the dilemma is to recover on the upwind side with the “opposite arm.”

Using a norsaq makes the roll easier. With the kayak overturned, swing the good arm across your body and make a wide windmill motion going from the knees, across your chest, and up around your head as you drive the kayak up with your hips and do a layback on the rear deck. When you near the completion of the roll, the arm is flung over to the high side of the kayak in the counterweight orientation, as it would be if you were using the disabled arm for a normal roll.

Maligiaq and Pavia didn’t settle on a final name for these rolls, but norsamik nerfallallugu killormut for the throwing stick version and assamik nerfallallugu killormut for the hand version will suffice. Another way to do these is by ending on the front deck—masikkut—rather than ending on the aft deck—nerfallallugu. They are considerably more difficult and I have yet to see anyone succeed at the hand variation.

Throwing Stick Spine Roll—The regular spine roll is a competition maneuver that also appears to be one that Crantz lists, although his description could be interpreted differently. Norsamik aariammillugu is an amusing variation that may take the honors for most useless but entertaining roll. It consists of holding the norsaq instead of the paddle along the spine and rolling without letting either hand go. Like other advanced layback rolls, this requires a Greenland-style kayak with a very low back deck. The technique is similar to the competition elbow roll wherein one hand is held against the back of the neck leaving only an elbow in lieu of a paddle. However a norsaq held along the spine can be shifted diagonally during the recovery to give the upper elbow a little more reach.

Wrong-Way Spine Roll—Another spine variation is called aariamillugu killormut. This came about when Cheri Perry, a renowned traditional paddler from Connecticut, and I attended Greenland’s 2004 National Open Kayaking Championship in the southern town of Qaqortoq. We were practicing in the harbor a few days before the start of the event and had an opportunity to watch the head of the local qajaq club assist his 16-year-old daughter as she worked on rolls she knew and some she had not yet mastered. I noticed he had her set up for the spine roll and capsize toward the upper hand, which alarmed me, as Cheri and I had always done it by capsizing toward the lower hand. We had both spent the better part of a year honing our competition routines to judging standards we thought we had confirmed. For the next two days, I practiced until I could do a spine roll high hand first, although it was much more difficult. When the rolling competition began, I saw, to my relief, that everyone was doing it low hand first, the easy way. To do aariamillugu killormut, the extended blade ends up on the wrong side of the kayak. It doesn’t feel like a regular spine roll. The action is mostly like a straitjacket roll with the extended blade only functioning as a slight -counterweight.

Elbow Crook Roll with a Throwing Stick—Another fairly pointless but intriguing roll is to use a norsaq instead of the paddle held in the crook of your elbow. The regular elbow crook roll comes near the beginning of the competition routine and is not too difficult. Doing it with only a norsaq, however, is much harder. Set up twisted to one side with an end of the norsaq tucked into your inside elbow. The other hand holds the opposite end. There is no official norsaq length—I have seen some as short as 15 inches—but for this roll, a 19- to 20-inch length is recommended. The norsaq has to stay in place for the duration of the roll.

Air Scull—Rolling by sculling with the paddle in the air is called silaannarmi aalatsineq. I have been doing this stunt at symposium demonstrations for some time. It is pure showmanship and gives the appearance that the paddle is getting sufficient purchase on the air alone to drive the kayak upright. What’s really driving the kayak up is the perfectly timed hip and knee pressure, unseen by the audience, happening inside the kayak. When I showed it to him, Maligiaq was able to do an air scull without much trouble in the skin-on-frame kayak he used in Spain.

Like all other advanced layback rolls, it’s essential to finish by draping your head and shoulders over the gunwale and sliding your torso up onto the back deck. If your PFD or your head gets caught against any deck rigging, day hatch edges or objects stowed on the deck, that’s good—you’ve got the right technique. Eliminate the obstructions and fine-tune the timing until you achieve success.

A Living History
Without the noble efforts of Crantz, Mathaeussen, Edi Pawlata, John Heath and others, the technique of rolling a kayak could well have become an obscure and poorly understood legend. In an alternate reality, we would be pondering the logic of designing a watercraft that capsizes so easily. Fortunately the use of the Greenland skin-on-frame kayak never died out completely, and living kayakers steeped in tradition can tell us what museum artifacts cannot.

I can’t say whether or not any of the rolls described here will ever find their way into the official Greenland competition, but there’s no doubt that the well of new ideas is hardly dry. In recent times, a few serious devotees of kayaking have attempted to catalog every known roll, including whitewater and canoe moves. The task is challenging in that many rolls are variations of or alternate names for the same thing. Yet judging by how often these cataloging efforts must be updated, it’s clear that creative minds are at work constantly reinventing and rediscovering more rolls, and that the effect of outside interest in Greenland kayaking has raised skill levels throughout the traditional paddling world.

Dubside lives in the Seattle, Washington, area and has twice competed in the Greenland National Kayaking Championships. He has two instructional videos: Greenland Rolling with Dubside and Qajaasaarneq—Greenland Rope Gymnastics to his credit and appears often at paddling symposiums across the country. His website is: http://www.dubside.net

The original 1767 work by David Crantz is a two-volume set titled The History of Greenland: Containing a Description of the Country and Its Inhabitants and Particularly a Relation of the Mission, London: Brethren’s Society for the Furtherance of the Gospel. The relevant text is quoted at length in Eastern Arctic Kayaks, John D. Heath and E. Arima, University of Alaska Press, 2004.

Recently I’ve been developing and teaching a rescue technique for righting a capsized kayaker who hasn’t been able to perform a wet exit and needs help getting upright for air. Dubbed the Bow Roll Rescue, it addresses many of the shortcomings of other common rescue methods. The technique was discovered during a pool practice session and has been refined over more than a year of application and introduction to others in the incident management and rescue courses I teach.

Conventional Rescue Techniques
For many years, I’ve been dissatisfied with some aspects of several well-known rescue techniques for assisting capsized kayakers who, for whatever reason, remain underwater. I believe a rescue technique should work for paddlers of all sizes, strengths and levels of experience. It should also be effective even if the rescuee is panicking or otherwise unable to cooperate. Some common rescue methods have presented difficulties to the students in my rescue courses:

1. Hand-of-god: This rescue method assumes an inverted and unconscious or panicked paddler. You place your boat parallel and adjacent to the rescuee’s inverted boat, then by reaching over the inverted hull, in stages, roll the rescuees boat upright. In cases where you’re smaller than the rescuee and have shorter arms or lack sufficient strength, righting a beamy boat or a heavy paddler can be almost impossible. The struggling may lead to partial success followed by the re-immersion of the rescuee. That could be fatal if the rescuee is gasping for breath at the instant of re-immersion and aspirates water. The hand-of-god rescue also places you immediately next to a panicked rescuee who may be thrashing wildly. Again, in the case of a larger, stronger rescuee, this may not bode well for you.
2. Spraydeck Release, Float and Scoop: This rescue method also assumes an inverted and unconscious or panicked paddler. It may be utilized when you know that you likely won’t be able to perform a hand-of-god rescue. You reach down to release the spraydeck of the inverted paddler, then grab the paddler to float him out of the cockpit and to the surface. After ensuring that the rescuee is breathing and relaxed, a scoop rescue slides the rescuee back into his kayak. This rescue can be challenging in rough water. Its several stages are labor intensive for you and expose the rescuee to full immersion, which, in cold water, can take its toll. This method also places you immediately adjacent to a panicked and potentially dangerous rescuee.
3. Bow Presentation: The inverted paddler signals that he needs help, usually by slapping the hull and/or waving his hands. You place the bow of your boat near the hands of the inverted paddler, and he uses your bow to right himself. This rescue only works for conscious paddlers who are familiar with the technique. In rough water, your bow may run into and cross over the hull of the rescuee’s boat, or the rescuee may have difficulty locating and getting a hold on the bow in heaving seas.
4. Paddle-Across: This variation on the bow presentation rescue places your boat parallel and almost adjacent to the inverted paddler’s boat. You place a paddle across the deck of your boat and the hull of the inverted boat, then grasp the inverted paddler’s wrist and guide his hand to the paddle shaft. The inverted paddler can then right himself. This rescue method works fairly well for conscious paddlers who are familiar with the technique. It can put some stress on paddle shafts and blades, so care must be used to place the paddle safely and keep the boats properly spaced during the rescue. There is some risk, especially in rough water, of the rescuee hitting his head on your boat. Here, too, the close proximity to the rescuee leads to risk if he is panicked. You also have lost some control of your own paddle as it has been placed directly in the hand or hands of the rescuee.

The proposed road route would cleave the fragile delta at the head of the bay.

Berners Bay, a bit of Eden in Southeast Alaska, has long been cherished by kayakers and other outdoors enthusiasts. It lies on the west side of Lynn Canal, 35 sea miles north of Juneau, and is accessible only by boat or seaplane. Its biological richness and unmarred coastline offer unsurpassed opportunities for a true wilderness experience; however, a contentious plan to rim the bay with a major highway development could spell big changes for both the place and the people who love it.

Garbage and Gold 
My partner, Rosemary, and I shoved off into an ebbing tide at Echo Cove, at the south margin of Berners Bay. Our fully laden kayaks were sluggish until we settled into our paddling. Dozens of salmon leapt all around us as we made our way toward more open water.

As we moved out of the cove, we could see the six-mile-wide expanse of Lynn Canal, North America’s deepest fjord. To the west across the canal was the jagged spine of the Chilkat Mountains. A cliff to the east buckled the waves into a cold chop. Harbor seals broke the surface into the clouds’ woolen light to stare at us.

At Cascade Point, a fresh three-mile-long road swath cut through the forest, linking Cascade Point to the highway at Echo Cove. Spent rifle cartridges, empty beer cans and spoiled toilet paper littered the woods along the roadside. A trail of orange survey flags marking the proposed continuation of the road led deeper into untouched stands of hemlock and spruce, opening the forest to the prospect of more of the same abuse.

The politics of the proposed pavement are murky. Former Alaska governor, Republican Frank Murkowski, through his “Roads to Resources” initiative, sought to connect Alaska’s capital, Juneau, to the continental road system in Skagway. Murkowski’s “Juneau Access Road” would pave 65 miles of wilderness coastline in the upper Inside Passage at a cost of $300 million. He claimed the road would meet demands for improved access to the state capital from nearby communities Haines and Skagway, both of which relied on state-subsidized ferry service.

But Murkowski’s proposal raised the ire of the residents of Juneau, Haines and Skagway. In nonbinding referendums, voters opted to improve existing ferry service instead of developing the road. They believed the ferry was more cost effective, reliable and safe and feared that hazardous winter road conditions—the proposed road would traverse 61 avalanche areas—would frequently make the road impassable and pose considerable risks to human safety.

Map by Christopher Hoyt

Murkowski then defied common sense by proposing to discontinue the existing mainline ferry service connecting northern Southeast communities and dead-ending the proposed road 18 miles short of Skagway, making it a gargantuan road to nowhere that would require new shuttle ferries to link it to Haines, some three miles across the waters of Lynn Canal from the road’s end.

Letters of opposition poured into area newspapers. Wildlife managers chimed in with concerns over the road’s impact to critical habitat for Stellar sea lions (listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act), brown bears, bald eagles and salmon. Still, the Murkowski administration remained cemented. “We need people who don’t understand to get out of the way so we can move forward,” said Department of Transportation Regional Director, Gary Paxton (Juneau Empire, Sept. 17, 2003).

Locals wondered if the “we” Paxton was referring to included mining company Coeur Alaska. This subsidiary of Idaho-based precious-metals giant, Coeur d’Alene Mines Corporation, was planning to reactivate Kensington Gold Mine above Berners Bay. Since taxpayers would pick up the road’s multimillion-dollar construction bill, the proposed road would be a burden to the citizens of the state and a boon to Coeur Alaska; a state-subsidized means of transporting workers, ore and equipment to and from the mine site.

Gulls feeding on eulachon with the Chilkat Range beyond. Photo by Ronald L. Dunlap

Conservation groups including Southeast Alaska Conservation Council (SEACC), Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) filed lawsuits against the mine and the road project. One suit contends that Coeur Alaska will violate the Clean Water Act if allowed to dump 4.5 million tons of waste into as yet untarnished Slate Lake, which drains into Berners Bay. The other suit asserts that the Federal Highway Administration failed to thoroughly consider ferry alternatives for Juneau access. It also claims the Forest Service inadequately assessed the road’s impact to wildlife in Berners Bay and Lynn Canal. Both suits are awaiting court hearings.

In the interim, some local residents took more direct action. Haines High School swim coach, Steve Vick, swam 92 miles along Lynn Canal, paralleling the road’s route to raise awareness; a protest camp sprang up at the road’s proposed terminus on the unmarred Katzehin Delta.

Alaskans deplumed governor Mur-kowski in the 2006 primary election, voting for Republican Sarah Palin by a 32 percent margin. But before leaving office, the lame-duck governor tried to commit the new administration to building the road by pledging $30 million in state funds to blaze a one-lane “pioneer road” to Slate Creek beneath Kensington Mine. Murkowski also tried to sidestep the permit process by taking bids for the road’s construction before the Army Corps of Engineers had issued the necessary permits. However, Governor Palin axed the pioneer road until the new administration has fully reviewed the project. Palin supports increased Juneau access, but whether she believes that should be accomplished through a road or better ferry service remains to be seen.

The Natural State 

The delta is an important stopover for thousands of migrating shorebirds each spring. Photo by Ronald L. Dunlap

The Coast Range rises to the east high above the barnacled tidelands of Berners Bay. Four major rivers flow through dank rainforest valleys before spilling into the bay. In spring, when the tiny smelt-like eulachon and herring arrive, the bay and the massive delta on its north end become a central feeding point for thousands of shorebirds, some 900 Stellar sea lions and dozens of humpback whales.

Though the eulachon had already come and gone by the time we arrived, the salmon were there in full force. We entered Sawmill Cove where thousands of pink salmon stacked up before making their final push to their ancestral spawning grounds. The sky whirled with eagles, ravens and gulls, while on the water marbled murrelets, sea otters, porpoises and seals churned as they gorged on fish flesh.

I raised my binoculars toward Sawmill Creek. Along its western bank, coastal grizzlies had worn deep troughs leading from their resting places in the old growth to their preferred fishing spots along the creek. I knew that behind the cove, the orange survey flags hung from tree branches, signaling the changes that might come. I wondered how the architects of the road felt as they walked the survey line. Sheltered by the coniferous green of the Tongass, with all of Berners Bay sloshing at their feet, did they ever feel hushed by this landscape and consider keeping it intact?

During our seven-day trip, it didn’t surprise us, given the bay’s close proximity to Juneau, to see other kayakers, fisher folk and a guided group of paddlers. But the places visitors go ashore are free of the usual dross of civilization that you might find alongshore near a major population center. The surprising absence of trash in spite of the area’s many visitors gives the distinct impression that the people who go to Berners Bay care deeply for it. Small primitive sites are established at different haul-out points along the coast. At one beach, a half dozen tent spaces are nestled inconspicuously beneath the cover of giant trees with but one central fire ring shared by all. Even the creek running through the site seemed so pure that I risked sipping from it unfiltered and never had to regret doing so.

On a Road to Ruin 

Humpback whales are frequent visitors. Photo by Ronald L. Dunlap

Farther down the south side of Berners Bay, a Forest Service cabin sits open for public use. It’s cheery inside with an oil-burning stove, several bunks and cupboards stocked with food donated by campers. A logbook rests on the kitchen table. In it, words of adoration for the bay fill the pages.

What makes Berners Bay an anomaly is simple: It doesn’t have a road. By and large, the people who go there know the risks of traveling by boat in an area where conditions on the water can become downright dangerous. The same respect they have for the water applies to the places they come ashore. Neither campground hosts nor citation-issuing rangers have been necessary to maintain the primitive sites. The campers who use them attend to them out of a sense of personal responsibility. Their understanding of the wilderness sets them far apart from those of the car-borne crowd who can’t differentiate one party spot from the next.

Proponents of the road would be happy seeing that changed. They say the road will be a conduit for recreational opportunities sought by RVers, ATVers and snowmobilers. In their vision of Berners Bay, gas stations, resorts and drive-up campgrounds would occupy beaches where now bears are the only regular traffic. But greater access will only grind Berners Bay down from a cornerstone of Southeast Alaska’s biological diversity, where the human and nonhuman worlds interface in a rare delicate balance, to a place overpowered by the roar of motors.

A quiet beach at the head of Berners Bay. Photo by Rosemary Jackson

On the last night of our trip, we stayed out late, paddling silently in the midnight sun’s dimming light. Far from the clamor of years of public outcry, far from the courts where attorneys will argue the fate of Berners Bay, we heard only the sound of the tide lapping a barnacled shore.

On the Sunday afternoon of Columbus Day weekend in 2003, Mary Jagoda, 19, and Sarah Aronoff, 20, kayaked into a thick October fog from Ayer’s Beach in Harwich Port, Massachusetts. Before going out into Nantucket Sound, they told their boyfriends that they were going to paddle around for 10 minutes. When they hadn’t returned 40 minutes later, their boyfriends called for assistance. Two days later, the Coast Guard found Mary’s body floating in Pollack Rip, several miles off Monomoy Island. Sarah’s body was never recovered.

I was kayaking in the sound within a few hundred yards of them at the precise time they left the beach, but I couldn’t see farther than a hundred feet in those conditions. That wasn’t unusual. Anyone who has kayaked in New England for any length of time will have stories about fog. It’s unavoidable, and the farther north you go, the more fog you’ll encounter.

There must be a measure of luck in being handed the good fortune to come home wiser where others have perished. In part, this is the story of my passage from a foolish neophyte to a kayaker who is at least knowledgeable of the risks. I have to confess to having “backed into” sea kayaking, and in retrospect, I took many risks that I shouldn’t have taken while using my first kayak to go fly-fishing. I often ended up with dinner on my stringer, but I found that more and more, I just enjoyed the paddling.

First Paddle in Fog
In the summer of 2002, the year before the drowning deaths, my wife and I rented a house on Little Cranberry Island. The island is several miles off the coast of Maine, and the only way to get to it is by mail boat or water taxi. On one afternoon, the house was full of guests, and I was climbing the walls, looking for an escape. I rented a recreational kayak from an islander who had a small fleet of kayaks. She supplied a life jacket and paddle with the kayak but was out of compasses. She swore she’d get new ones in a couple of days, but I’d have to do without for the time being.

My circumnavigation of Little Cranberry involved crossing a narrow neck of land that connected the island to nearby Baker Island. The hourglass-shaped constriction can uncover at an extreme low tide and only allows a cautious passage for shallow-draft boats at high tide.

It was quite sunny when I started out, but when I began crossing the exposed southern bay of Little Cranberry, a thick sea fog suddenly rolled in. It was the first time I was fogged in on the sea without a compass. I was entranced by the mist blurring, then obscuring all landmarks, but I had to improvise quickly to keep from paddling out to the open ocean. I needed something to keep me pointed in the right direction, so I quickly took note of the orientation of wind, waves and swells relative to the last glimpses I’d had of the land. Within minutes, I was completely enveloped and could only make out the waves, swells and an occasional lobster buoy.

I could hear the waves crashing on the rocky beach a mile away. I could hear each wave crash, followed by the sound of rocks grinding together as the water receded. Landing there would’ve been foolhardy, but the noise gave me an auditory reference for direction.

As I approached the gap between Little Cranberry and Baker Island, I could hear the breakers in front of me. The lobstermen set traps only so close to the rocks connecting the two islands, and at a certain point, I passed the safe zone of lobster buoys into shallow water. I made a slight detour around a shelf with waves breaking over it, then saw some rocks to my left. Somehow, I slowly made my way through the maze by pushing ahead into the calmest water I could find, always trying to get past the next 50 feet. Beyond that, I couldn’t see a thing.

I approached a zone full of ledges, and the fog parted long enough for me to make a passage through waves breaking there. I noted the wind and swell directions before getting hemmed in again. I followed the line of lobster buoys around the island. When the wind dropped, I saw that the buoys had little wakes behind them and used them to follow the direction of the flood current back to the harbor.

Back in the harbor, I saw a couple who had jet-skied to Cranberry. I noticed that they were both wearing wetsuits. It dawned on me that my outing was fraught with risks. The water temperature was 50˚F, but I was wearing only cotton, and I was sitting on, not wearing, my PFD. I had no compass and hadn’t listened to the weather report. When I got back home to Boston, the first order of business was to buy a wetsuit and a compass.

Columbus Day
The following year, on that unfortunate Columbus Day weekend, my family and I were staying on the beach in Harwich Port on Nantucket Sound. The water temperature had started dropping into the mid-50s, and it was my last chance to fish for striped bass. On Sunday at noon, I put on my wetsuit, launched from the beach heading southwest past the entrance to Allen Harbor, and paddled out to fish for stripers. The sound was shrouded in thick fog, and visibility was perhaps 100 feet. I only saw one other boat out on the water—a small outboard carrying three guys. They waved to me then vanished into the fog. As I rounded the light off the point at Allen Harbor, I tried to stay in sight of land, but it disappeared from time to time. Noises were muffled and deceiving.

I’d promised to take my kids out to the movies that afternoon and checked my watch. I had just enough time to get back to the beach. This jarred me out of my reverie, and I headed back to the put-in. I came ashore with the mist blowing over the water.

Overnight, the wind picked up from the north, and by Monday morning, it had blown the fog away to reveal clear blue skies. I went out paddling and saw the harbormaster’s boat near the mouth of Allen Harbor. As I got close to it, its lights flashed and its horn sounded.

The guy at the helm asked me, “Have you seen two girls in kayaks?” I said, “Nope, I haven’t seen anyone on the water this morning; when did they go out?”

“They left Ayer’s Beach yesterday at three in the afternoon in two plastic kayaks. They’ve had the Coast Guard and everyone out in helicopters and boats searching for them all night long.”

I had been within a quarter of a mile of Ayer’s Beach at that precise time on Sunday, chasing stripers and enjoying the fog.

“I’ll keep my eyes out and call if I see anything.”

At that moment, the Coast Guard came crackling over the -harbormaster’s VHF radio. It was one of the search -helicopters.

“Woods Hole, Chopper Three, we’ve found two kayaks in Pollack Rip, will launch a diver, over.”

“Chopper Three, Woods Hole, we copy, over.” I could hear the helicopter noise over the radio.
The guy in the boat immediately got distracted. We parted company, and I paddled home. I got on my laptop and checked the Cape Cod Times website. In the article I read there, a witness had indicated that they’d seen one girl paddle along the shore, the other out into the sound. Mary’s father was quoted saying that she had taken kayaking lessons, and there was no way that she could have drowned. He speculated that since the kayaks were found near Monomoy Island, they surely had landed and were walking for help. Dogs were dispatched to the island, and people were searching the beaches and dunes for fresh footprints. I had a sinking feeling he was fighting against the inevitable bad news.

All afternoon, I sat on the porch overlooking Nantucket Sound. It was warm, and the sky was clear blue, with only traces of high cirrus clouds. I watched the Coast Guard helicopter flying a search pattern back and forth across the sound. It would swing close to land, turn around and nearly disappear over the horizon, then return again. It was agonizing to watch. I had written an email to a friend on Sunday night saying, “I felt so alive out on the ocean.” Those words were now hard to swallow.

The next day, Tuesday, I read in the Boston Globe that the Coast Guard found the kayaks over eight miles away from where the girls had launched. They later found Mary’s body. She hadn’t been wearing a life jacket. The search continued, but Sarah was never found. Reading about Mary and Sarah, I felt guilty about the exhilaration I’d experienced that day. I wondered if things could have been only slightly different, I might have run into them in the fog, and I could have helped them find the shore.

What May Have Happened
We know very little about what took place that Sunday. The girls only wore bathing suits and T-shirts. They didn’t have a compass or life jackets. The kayaks were small and not very seaworthy; they were found tied together with a bungee cord.

We can only guess what happened. Mary and Sarah went out to have some fun. The fog was already quite thick when they launched, and they lost sight of shore quickly. It’s not likely that they noted the wind direction or other natural signs that would have helped them orient themselves. They were still together and may have paddled for a while, with panic rising. The fact that their kayaks were found about eight miles from where they launched suggests that they had headed east—out to sea—in the fog.

There’s a whistle buoy at a place called Kill Pond Bar about two miles offshore. When the wind is blowing from the southeast, the sound from the buoy carries very far inland. The girls may have heard the sound and, thinking it was a harbor entrance or something close to shore, followed the sound out toward the buoy. I was out at the same time in the same area, and if I did hear the buoy, I didn’t really think about it. I’ve heard it so often that it’s just part of the background.

Their T-shirts must have been soaked from the spray kicked up by the wind. At some point, the wind dropped off, but they got colder and colder. They started to shiver, and they may have tied their boats together when one of them became incapacitated by cold. That night, at 11:45 P.M., the fog cleared and the wind shifted to the northwest. The wind started to pick up, and waves began to build offshore.

Weakened and dazed by hypothermia, they eventually would have lapsed into unconsciousness and fallen from the kayaks. The flood tide would have carried their bodies southeastward, and the kayaks would also have been pushed that way by the wind. Mary’s body may have been swept through Pollack Rip at least twice in the cycle of tides between Sunday and the recovery on Tuesday.

Imagine that you’re paddling your fiberglass kayak on a long trip in a remote area. On your way in through the surf, the bottom of your boat meets with an unseen rock—Wham! One minute you’re paddling a seaworthy boat, the next you’re taking on water. You’re miles from your car, and something needs to be done to keep the water out. A hasty patch of duct tape might do the trick for a while, but for a durable and reliable repair, there’s only one solution—polyester resin and fiberglass.

Resin needs a warm environment to cure in, so if you’re traveling in cold weather, you may wonder how you’ll get the resin to harden. Adding a little outside heat is the answer. Armed with a hydration bag full of hot water, you can put a solid patch onto the hull of your boat, even in adverse conditions.

You needn’t be intimidated by the prospect of working with fiberglass. Rudimentary fiberglass work is straightforward and easy to do. The polyester resin you’ll use for repairs is fairly tolerant of imprecise mixing and variable temperatures. It’s worth practicing with fiberglass a little bit at home to develop a familiarity with the process, but you don’t need to be an expert to make a quality repair.

Materials Compatibility
Polyester resin is easy to work with, but it’s not compatible with some other types of resins. What this means is that if your kayak was built with epoxy resin, polyester won’t stick to it. Your patch will pop off. Polyester resin will stick to hulls made with vinylester if you prep the surface with sandpaper very aggressively, but it still isn’t as safe a bet as polyester repairs on polyester kayaks.

The good news is that virtually all fiberglass kayaks use polyester resin in their construction. If you have a Kevlar or carbon-fiber kayak, it’s more likely that one of the other resin types was used. Check with the manufacturer of your boat to determine its resin type. Polyester won’t stick to epoxy, so repairs to epoxy or vinylester hulls should be made using marine epoxy resins. (This type of repair falls outside the scope of this article.)

Epoxy will stick to polyester, but if you need to make subsequent repairs in the same area with polyester or want to restore the gel-coat, the epoxy must be removed. Epoxy requires precise mixing to ensure a proper cure and is usually slower to cure than polyester resin. All of these things make epoxy resins ill-suited for use in field repairs for fiberglass kayaks.

Safety Precautions/Environmental Concerns
Polyester resin is not healthy stuff. Avoid getting it on your skin or breathing its vapors. You’re unlikely to be carrying a respirator in the field, but take whatever precautions you can when doing your repair. Wear latex or nitrile gloves from your first aid kit. Set up your workplace where there’s a breeze, and stay upwind of the vapors. The materials are also toxic to the environment, so pack out any waste from the fiberglass repair process, regardless of how small it is. Never burn your fiberglass waste—if you pack it in, pack it out.

Repair Kit
The materials for a fiberglass field-repair kit can be found at your local hardware store and supermarket. Polyester resin usually comes in metal cans that are quart sized or larger—more resin than you’ll want to take on most trips. You’ll want to take a smaller amount, but small metal canisters are hard to find, and the polyester will melt most plastics. At many marine and auto supply stores, you’ll find a Bondo fiberglass repair kit. It comes with eight ounces of waxed resin—enough for a basic field-repair kit—in a bottle made of a special resin-resistant plastic. The kit also includes hardener and woven fiberglass cloth. Chopped-strand fiberglass mat can often be found near the kits or at the hardware store.

I use a half-gallon, wide-mouth Nalgene bottle as a materials container for my repair kit. These bottles will fit behind the seat of many kayaks, and they are absolutely watertight, so they’ll keep items like sandpaper from getting damp.

Surface Preparation
The damaged area of your kayak has to be dry and free of salt residue to get a patch to stick. This means getting out of the rain and under a tarp if you’re traveling in wet conditions. If possible, rinse the damaged area with fresh water. Dry the boat thoroughly inside and out. This can be a real challenge in some conditions. You might have to add heat to the boat to help the drying process. You don’t want to risk burning the kayak by using the flames of a stove or campfire, so the safest way to do this is with a hydration bag filled with hot water.

Use your camp stove to heat a couple liters of water. Seawater will work fine if fresh water is scarce—just remember to rinse the bag before using it for drinking water again. Pour the water into the hydration bag once it’s hot to the touch but not boiling. Both MSR Dromedary Bags and Cascade Designs Platypus bladders are approved to hold hot liquids. Both are also available with wide openings for easy filling. Use care when transferring the hot liquid so that you don’t scald yourself! Set the bag inside the hull in the area to be dried.

Once the kayak is dry and clean, you’ll need to sand the inside of the hull where the patch is to be applied. You want a rough surface for good adhesion, so use 50-grit paper and be aggressive. Make sure that you sand an area that’s larger than the patch you intend to apply. After sanding, blow or wipe the resulting dust out of the way. In a more controlled environment, you would wipe the site of the repair with acetone or denatured alcohol, but there’s really no need to go to the trouble of carrying these solvents in your field-repair kit.

You’ll be applying duct tape to the hull of the boat in the next step, but you may find that your tape won’t stick to a cold surface. The hydration bladder full of hot water again comes in handy. You can warm the boat by placing the bag on the damaged area. Try not to get the outside of the hydration bladder wet, and avoid getting water on the hull of your boat. Your kayak needs to be dry for the repair to cure properly.

Leave the bag in place long enough to warm the kayak’s hull. The elapsed time will vary depending on the outside temperature. You can throw a sleeping bag or fleece sweater over the hull and water bag to speed the process. It also helps to heat up the duct tape to make it stickier, so put it inside your clothing layers or on top of the water bag. Do the same with your bottle of polyester resin. In cold temperatures, resin becomes more viscous and more difficult to paint onto a patch. Once the hull and tape are warm enough to stick, remove the bladder and wrap it in the sleeping bag or sweater to keep it from cooling rapidly.

Use the tape to apply a piece of plastic (cutting up a large Ziploc bag works well) to the outside of the hull over the area to be patched. The plastic is to keep resin from seeping through the damaged area of the hull. Make sure that the plastic covers the repair area and overlaps out onto the undamaged portion of the hull.

Turn the kayak so that the area to be repaired is down—you’ll avoid having resin run across the hull. You may need to use some ingenuity to get the kayak to stay in this position. Consider digging a hole in the beach across which you can set the boat, or propping it up on driftwood or boulders. You don’t want the kayak resting on the area you’ll be repairing since that would cause a flat spot in the boat. As you position the kayak, you may want to wrap a layer of insulation around the outside of the hull in the area of the repair. A sleeping mat, fleece sweater or sleeping bag can be used to insulate the hull and keep the patch warm.

Applying the Patch
Cut a piece of chopped-strand fiberglass mat that is slightly larger than the area to be repaired. Mat is excellent for repairs because it holds a large amount of resin. A high resin-to-glass ratio is considered bad form in kayak manufacturing, but it works well for making a stiff, waterproof patch in the field. Cut a second piece of mat that’s about a half-inch larger than the first. If you’re repairing a large hole or tear, a third patch of woven fiberglass cloth, cut slightly larger than the second patch, will improve the strength of a patch.

Put on a pair of protective gloves and mix up your resin. Follow the directions printed on the resin or catalyst. These typically call for 15 drops of catalyst/hardener for each ounce of resin, which is a ratio approaching two-percent catalyst. This ratio is a good one for field repairs. Waxed resin has a wax additive that rises to the surface of the repair as it cures. This wax creates an oxygen barrier that makes the resin cure with a hard, dry surface. Using unwaxed resin may result in a sticky patch.

Mix up enough resin to complete the repair. Three or four ounces should do the job for a small patch. You’ll need a container to mix it in. I put several eight-ounce paper cups into my repair kit for mixing. These are the same cups that you would find at a coffee shop, convenience store or grocery store. Both waxed and unwaxed cups will work. If you packed a stirring stick, great; if not, use a smooth stick from the beach.

Set a Ziploc-type plastic bag on a flat and firm surface, and begin “wetting out” your patches. Paint a little resin onto the bag, then lay one of the precut pieces of glass mat onto that resin. Use your paintbrush to work the resin into the glass fabric until it becomes translucent. You’ll have to add more resin as you work to get the patch completely wetted out. Follow this process for each of your patches. Working with the resin will be much easier if you have prewarmed it by tucking it in with the hot water bag. If the resin is cold and super-thick, you can still complete the repair, it will just be a little harder to work the resin into the glass patches.

Once your patches are wetted out, paint a layer of resin onto the inside of the hull where the patches will be applied. Place the smallest patch onto this area, and paint it with additional resin to make sure that it’s fully saturated and adhered to the hull. Use the brush to work any air bubbles out of the patch. Repeat the process with the second patch and the woven glass if you have chosen to use it. Once you’re satisfied that the complete patch is fully saturated, cover the repair with the plastic bag that you used for wetting-out—sticky side down.

Apply Heat
If you’ve worked quickly, your hot water bag will still be warm. If the water has cooled too far, pour it into a cook pot, reheat it to lukewarm and fill the bladder again. Even on a cold day, you shouldn’t use a bag that is hot to the touch—if you do, your resin will cure too quickly and may develop cracks. Water near your body temperature will be warm enough to do the job.

Put the water bag inside the kayak over the patch, and sit back to wait. The plastic on the inside of the hull should keep the resin from contacting the hydration bladder. Cover the bag with a fleece sweater or sleeping bag to help contain the heat. If the hull and bag are insulated, this technique will cause the polyester resin to cure even with air temperatures near freezing.

While you’re waiting, clean up your work site and double-bag the fiberglass waste. Monitor the hardening process by putting your hand on the hull near the repair. It should not be hot to the touch. If the patch is giving off too much heat, remove the hot water bag and let the repair continue to cure on its own, insulating it with the fleece sweater again. Give the patch 20 minutes to cure, and take a peek. Remove the hydration bladder and peel up the plastic. If the patch is hard and dry, you’re done. If it’s still sticky, add more heat. Reheat the water if you need to.

Once the patch is fully hardened, you can remove the covering layers from both the inside and the outside. The outer patch may be a bit rough due to seeping of resin underneath the plastic. Use some coarse sandpaper to take down any major bumps. Don’t worry about cosmetics—you can do a nice gel-coat repair when you get home (see “Gel-Coat Repair for Mortals,” by Brian Day, SK, Feb. ’06). Make sure that the patch is smooth enough on the inside that it won’t damage your dry bags. Sand the inner patch to take down any rough spots if necessary. Pack away the last of your waste materials and relax—you’re back in the paddling business.

Special Situations
Certain areas of a kayak’s hull may be difficult to reach for internal patching. The most obvious spots are underneath the seat and at the extreme ends of the hull or near bulkheads. In these spots, it’s probably best to apply your patch to the outside of the hull. You’ll also have to apply heat from the outside, and you may have difficulty backing the patch with a piece of plastic. The resulting repair will be cosmetically unattractive, but structurally sound. Proper repairs can be completed at home or by a professional fiberglass repair shop.

Practice Makes Perfect
Field repairs on fiberglass kayaks are easy to do if you have the right materials and know the right tricks. A bit of practice with fiberglass materials will improve your results when it counts and boost your confidence—and even cold-weather repairs are possible if you apply a little heat to the job. Take the time to put together a basic fiberglass repair kit and learn how to use it. One day, it might help you or a paddling partner make it home.

Sequence of Repair
1 Heat water, fill hydration bladder
2 Clean, dry and prep hull
3 Warm tape, resin and hull
4 Tape plastic to hull
5 Cut out patches
6 Mix resin
7 Wet out patches
8 Apply patches to inside of hull
9 Cover with plastic and water bladder
10 Wait 20 minutes
11 Remove plastic, sand inside and outside of hull

Fiberglass Repair Kit Contents
Waxed Polyester Resin
Catalyst
Fiberglass Mat
Fiberglass Cloth
Disposable Paint Brushes
Stirring Sticks
Paper Cups
Plastic Sheet or Freezer Bags (1-gallon size)*
Duct Tape*
Small Scissors*
50-Grit Sandpaper
Latex or Nitrile Gloves*
Watertight Container
*These items need not be specific to your fiberglass repair kit. They might be a part of your first aid kit or general camping gear.