I’ve been trying to get my roll down and to build a bit more confidence. While playing in the shallows, working on the hip snap, Kurt said “that hip snap was pretty weak” so I did another and promptly went all the way over. I guess that one was strong enough.. Now to find a happy middle ground.

After going to deeper water, I nailed 3 more rolls. On the last one, my paddle was not set for the sweep and I noticed it was starting to dive. I stopped the attempt and got the paddle in the right position and ended up with a very nice sweep, snap, layback and recovery.

Information I learned / had reinforced, was:

1) keep your head in the water as long as possible during the roll, it is the last thing out.

2) Hip snap, do it with a bit of conviction.

3) Make sure your set-up for the sweep is good *before* you start to sweep/roll up.

4) You have pleanty of time while inverted to do all this, take your time and get everything figured out. Same as: Dont rush the roll, you have a better chance of coming up if you take your time.

That’s about it for now, headed out to kayak with Anton tomorrow.

Tony

On August 12th, seven of us set out from Sea Wolf park for a 12 to 13 mile circumnavigation of Pelican Island. Of the 7 kayaks, 3 were strip built wood kayaks and of the 7 paddles used, 4 were Greenland style.

Our launch site was the slippery rocky Northwest side of the park. At about 9 A.M. we headed North to the old concrete ship, the ‘Selma‘. After looking that over for a while, we noticed a pretty large thunderstorm headed our way, so we made for land to wait it out. After raining on us for a bit, the cell moved off to the north and we were once again on our way. We headed North to the intercoastal waterway where we turned West across the top of the Island. After Looking at a bunch of Barges and Tugs, we exited the ICW and turned our kayaks South along the Western side of the Island. At about 11:30, we stopped for lunch on a sea shell beach, well past the half-way point. Sitting around, eating and shooting the breeze, it was a very nice and relaxing lunch break. The wind was picking up a bit as we headed on South to go under the Pelican Island bridge and into the ship channel. The water conditions just before the ship channel was pretty choppy with reflected waves confusing the situation.

Things calmed down a bit as we crossed under the bridge and proceded into the ship channel. Boy, there are some big ones in there!

In the picture above, you can see a Cruise ship. We evedently got too close, (gotta stay 150 yards away) and the harbor patrol stopped a couple of us to let us know that bit of information. It looks to me like 150 yards would mean that we might just have to portage around it on the other side of the channel. Clearly, pleasure boats and shrimp boats were gettin’ much closer than we were. I think we were just easier to catch up to. I guess we were just too busy watching Dolphins to really worry about stationary vessels.
Further along the channel, there are resturants, other ships and tour boats to see. A lot of off-shore oil rigs were in various stages of being overhauled and re-build. After passing the Yacht basin, we again crossed to the north side of the channel to stay clear of the ferry boats. They were pretty busy and kicking up some pretty big chop with their wakes and reflected wakes. This was just across the channel from the park. Proceding on around, we hit the launch area at about 2 P.M.

Great day with great people to paddle with!

Take care..

Tony Olsen

I saw quite a few kayak racks on the trip.  My old home town of about 5,000 had quite a few cars and trucks with racks on them and I saw a few SOT’s on some of those racks.  I haven’t seen many racks or kayaks here in St. Louis though.

A little more on the Sea Ranger stripper:  When I glassed the hull, I didn’t do any fill coats.  One reason was that I wanted to save a bit of weight and the other is that I wanted to see if it would slide through the water a bit easier as in ’shark skin’ hulled boats.  Not having anything to compare to, can’t really tell if the departure from laminar flow is helping any, but suspect it is.  When I taped the shear, I used a scraper to even it out and applied a very thin coat to get back to transparency.

That’s about all the news that isn’t from here, catch y’all later..

Tony

1.) bungee on the front end with a bead to hold the paddle.

2.) 4 bungees just ahead of the cockpit to hold lord knows what

3.) hip and knee pads in the cockpit

Still to go is bungees behind the cockpit and one on the tail end with a bead… Actually a wooden ball. I knew a guy with a wooden leg once, but….. oh never mind..

Here’s a picture with more if ya want just by clicking on this one.

Later.. Tony Olsen

All in all, had a great time, came back tired and pumped to try it again. Thanks Kurt!!

We both had a chance to try each other’s boats, my sea ranger and Kurt’s outer island. The OI tracks like a train compared to the sea ranger. It also has more initial stability and I think just a bit more secondary. The sea ranger accelerates a bit quicker and turns better while underway and edging. One thing about the sea ranger is that I have room for me, a bottle of water, and a sponge in the cockpit. I have to paddle it bare footed because of my size 11 feet. I need to put a bit of 1/4 inch padding in the knee brace area and about 1/2 inch at the hips. Also needed is a paddle park and some more deck rigging. The boat seems pretty sensitive to load distribution, I had 3 bottles of water in a small cooler in the front hatch and it slid forward. this bit of weight added out front caused a bit of a bow wake that I hadn’t seen before. As far as paddling, I like this boat a bunch! Great little go getter.

I think I have talked Kurt into writing an entry for the blog, so if you see anything in his that contradicts what I said, he’s probably right. Here’s one of the better pictures of Kurt paddling the boat with a link to more.

Tony

Good paddling all,

Tony

Haven’t got the pictures from today ‘developed’ yet, so here’s one from Friday.

Take care all..

Tony

Speaking of hitting the water, Anton and I are planning a triple new boat launch Friday, Hence the bit of urgency to get it ready. It will be one proven design, the Sea Pup and 2 non proven designs, one being his modified Sea Tour and the other being the first ever Sea Ranger stripper. Friday will be 5 days short of 2 months on my build, and Anton has built 2 sof’s in that time. Should be an interesting day! Suppose we should call the Media??

Here’s the picture, you can click on it for a few more..

Tony