“The Kayak Roll,” a short one minute and thirty second video posted on YouTube about rolling a kayak is a useful piece of information for those that are first learning to roll, or for someone trying to review a kayak roll that the person may have not done for quite some time. For me the video was useful because I just learned to roll my kayak last summer, and it has been quite some time since my last roll. I figure that as spring comes I should look into getting into the indoor pool sessions at the local high-school so that I can once again master this skill before heading to the mighty whitewater of the Nenana River.
Another interesting point in the video that I was never made aware of is that the same roll is used in rolling a sea kayak that is used in a whitewater kayak. I went sea-kayaking outside of Whittier last summer but figured that if I rolled it I would be swimming in the icy water. This fact leads me to want to practice the same roll that I use in my whitewater kayak in learning to roll a sea kayak.
The roll is more or less the first thing you learn when learning to kayak, it is a necessary and lifesaving skill, especially in the icy whitewater of Alaska where if you end up swimming in the river it is not a nice warm swim like in a lot of other places. Instead the icy rivers of Alaska can turn a nice day on the water into a hypothermic epic in a matter of seconds. When you couple this with the large volume of most Alaskan Rivers in comparison to the lower forty-eight or the rest of the world for that matter, it means that the roll becomes an even more important skill that needs to be practiced and mastered, well before the time comes that you need to use it.
“The Kayak Roll.” Total Vid Inc. YouTube. 13 Feb. 2007. 14 Feb 2008.
1 comment:
That's certainly something important to know!
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