How Necessary Is A Roll For Safe Paddling?

By:  Tom Bamonte

With Chicago temperatures in single digits and nearby paddling destinations freezing up a mischievous local paddler decided to warm things up by posting the following poll to the CASKA Yahoo Group:

Please indicate what you think about the following statement:
"Everybody who wants to paddle on Lake Michigan should learn how to roll." 

o Agree 
o Disagee 
o Can go either way 
o Don't know 

To vote, please visit the following web page:
http://groups. yahoo.com/ group/caska/ surveys?id= 2255705 

This poll sparked a vigorous discussion, reproduced below.  Join in via a comment here and join the CASKA Yahoo group and vote.  There is also a lively and extended discussion of the topic in the Qajaq USA forum.

Erik Sprenne-

Perhaps a second statement to vote on would be the same, except for the added word 'solo', e.g.:

"Everybody who wants to paddle solo on Lake Michigan should learn how to roll." 

DM-

Being able to roll your kayak does not guarantee your safety on Lake Michigan.... :-) It's just one thing in your trick bag. 

Humberto Garcia-

Ditto.

More than rolling one should be able to brace, high and low braces.  If you have good braces in your "trick bag" you would never need to roll.  I know great paddlers that cannot perform a roll but their bracing is great and they are super comfortable kayaking in High Water. 

 

It would be great if you can do it but if you can keep your balance, aid by your bracing, why would you have to roll?  I only roll to get cool in a hot day, but in a cold waive day, my braces will help me not to need to roll.

 

Practice Bracing! 

Erik S.-

I'm not going to argue with the opinion about needing only a good brace, except to ask these questions:

 

"Is it possible to learn a 'good' brace without learning a roll?"

"With the brace being such an important part of the roll, shouldn't anyone who has 'good' braces also have a roll?"

Henry Davies-

Erik-- I think that those are fair questions.  I personally am a decent roller (taught at the Michigan training camp this year and have performed many Greenland rolling demos, including Door County Sea Kayak Symposium).  I learned to roll after I had been kayaking for something like 12 years.  I believe that those 12 years gave much experience in boat control which made learning to roll much easier and intuitive, when I actually got around to learning to roll.

Also, the brace that I use most often to recover balance is a low brace.  That isn't the brace that is part of most people's rolls.  The high brace, which is part of most people's rolls, is more often used in surf or extreme loss of balance.

Most of the time when I need to recover balance it is because I was playing around and edging too far and a wave changed the balance of the kayak (or I just edged too far).  You are right that having good braces makes this type of experimentation/ play uneventful and having a roll would make up for not having good bracing.

I didn't exactly answer your questions, but hopefully provided some insight into how it works for me.

Humberto G.-

Hmmm?  For many years I did not have a roll, but my bracing was always good, and as mentioned before, there are many people that I know that cannot roll, for one or another reason, but they are great in big water, better than some that have their roll.  Yes, the roll will develop from your bracing but it is not the other way around, you become a great bracer and then, next time you know, you will have a great roll.  Now is a roll proof that you can be safe in Big Water, no, but being able to control your boat and avoiding it for going over.... I think that this is what make you safe.

 

.... not to discuss it, but.... isn't this right?

 

Just my thought!

John Parker

Speaking as someone who recently ended up counting fish in the mighty Fox River.

The following is my humble inexperienced opinion. Nothing can beat experience. Experience would in my mind mean build bracing skills and then lead to a roll. I always thought having a roll would be cool. But, in reality, the ability to get almost laid out and then brace and come back up and avoid counting fish altogether would be great. Having a roll on top of that would be awesome.

In the spring, I'll be the guy in the yellow boat trying to be a better paddler so Ryan doesn't have to put me back in my boat again.

Has anyone found my glasses or hat or water bottle floating down the mighty Fox... wife is still mad about the expensive glasses, I miss my hat....

Haris Subacius-

The distinction between a deep high brace and a kayak roll is not great.  Like Erik suggests, I am not quite sure how one can have a good high brace but not the roll.  Low brace can stop working with surf that as low as 2-3' high--you can pretty much forget about it when a 4' wave or higher broaches the kayak.

Can we agree to define a roll as any recovery from being completely upside down under water and distinguish it from a brace as a recovery from any angle above the water including the body being parallel to the surface of the water.  With these definitions, no matter how good your braces, it is only a matter of sufficiently angry conditions until the capsize.  No one can brace themselves out of everything that the open water can throw up!

Lastly, as far as safety goes, a paddler with a good brace will have a good sea sense not to paddle into conditions that can overwhelm their skills.  If they do, they will have an exit strategy.  Risk versus ability assessment is even more important than the bracing skills when it comes to high water!  However, if the paddlers with good braces never paddle into conditions that could challenge their skill, how are they to grow, develop and test those braces?  

For me, personally, it is this borderline area where the limits of my skills are exposed and environmental conditions begin to take over the controls where a reliable roll truly pays off for the effort it takes to develop one.

Ryan Rushton-

Well said, Haris.

Jim Tibensky-

I was not going to get into this rather odd discussion, but now that Haris has said pretty much what I was thinking, I will add my voice to say that no one can be sure that they will never need a roll.  I found that my confidence in whitewater improved exponentially when I got my roll down pat.

 

I hope I'm not offending you, Humberto, because I know you are a very good paddler.  But it is not possible to run big whitewater or be out in big ocean conditions without sometimes being knocked over so quickly that you won't be able to brace successfully.  Especially (I know this from painful experience) when you are attempting a rescue in tough conditions.  Once in a while the other boat makes a high or low or any other brace impossible.  A quick roll puts you back in charge.

 

I do a combat roll about once a decade now that I don't run much whitewater anymore, but I keep the skill up just in case. 

 

And if any newer paddlers are keeping score, add me to the side that says a roll is a really, really good to skill to have.

Russ Johnson-

Anyone can learn to paddle safely on lake Michigan when the conditions are ideal. Knowing how to judge the conditions is a more important ability. 

Compared to Humberto, I had the opposite experience--learning to roll quite reliably before I ever practiced bracing. Knowing how to roll allowed me to learn to brace without ever having to worry about wet exiting.

Missing a brace on occasion will happen. Missing a roll can cause greater problems.  Again, neither will matter in ideal conditions.

Bill Burton-

I agree with Huberto that a brace is more useful, more often, than a roll. But, I don't think this is how people learn -- it may not even be possible.

Most paddlers, when they get hit by an unexpected force, will reflexively reach for the sky rather than their friend the water. I think this reflex may best (or perhaps only) be overcome by gaining confidence, probably by getting really comfortable hanging upside down underwater and knowing you can get up -- by learning to roll.

That's the chicken/egg dilemma of kayaking -- it's hard to learn to brace OR roll until you're totally at ease in the water, and you won't be totally at ease in the water until you learn to roll.

One thing I do know for sure -- despite his assertions to the contrary, there was not the slightest chance that Mr. Tibensky was not going to get into this "odd discussion."

Jim Tibensky-

Bill said it very well - at least, in my opinion.  I, like Humberto, have known some very good paddlers who could paddle in crazy conditions without a roll.  But most of the ones I know would say that they are at risk because they don't have that extra, bottom-line, safety tool that is the roll.  The famous adventurer and author Lone Madsen died in 1999 because she could not roll.  This is from an on-line description of her death:

 

A Danish woman, Lone Madsen, died of exposure when her Skerry kayak capsized on the West Coast ofGreenland. Lone Madsen had paddled extensively in the Arctic and was well known for her exploits. Her paddling partner on this trip was Tore Sivertsen. The pair were caught in a sudden gale which quickly whipped up large waves. When Lone Madsen turned over, Sivertsen could not come to her aid because they had never practised assisted rescues. Neither paddler could right themselves with Eskimo rolls and instead depended on paddle floats which would have been useless in the conditions. In any event, Sivertsen reported that Madsen's paddle had floated away during the capsize due to lack of a paddle leash. Sivertsen, unable to turn his Prijon Seayak into the wind, was forced further and further away from Madsen and never saw her alive again.

 

I had read incident reports of this death and Lone had often said that she really didn't want to be bothered learning to roll when her self-rescue skills were so good.  Sadly, the last thing poor Tore heard her say was "Tore, don't leave me!"  I can't imagine the nightmares he must have.  Pehaps a solid roll would have resulted ina very different result.

 

Finally, I also agree, very whole-heartedly, with Humberto's point that boat handling skills should be just as important as rolling or rescue skills.  Makes it that much less likely that the roll or rescue will be needed.

 

[And I swear, Bill, that I intended to let this go on without me.  But I started getting headaches and the voices in my head absolutely demanded that I respond.  And I've learned not to ignore those voices!]

 

Jim Tibensky, et al