West Coast Sea Kayak Symposium 2008

19. October 2008 · Write a comment · Categories: education/symposiums, kayaking · Tags: , , , , , , , ,

OK, so I am catching up on these blog entries. This one is only about a month old now….

The West Coast Sea Kayak Symposium is held every September in Port Townsend, WA, at Fort Worden State Park. This year we celebrated the 25th anniversary of the event.

I went to my first WCSKS back in 2004, at the end of my first year working as a kayak guide. I took a few classes that year, including a couple of classes that introduced me to the Greenland paddle, which I have been using almost every paddling day since then.

The next year, I thought I wasn’t going to be able to afford to go, until I was invited to teach a few beginner’s classes at WCSKS by Ginni, who was doing the instructor organizing back then. I have been coaching at WCSKS every year since. This year I actually had several repeat students who had taken other classes from me in previous years.

WCSKS is a large event, sponsored by TAPS, the Trade Association of Paddlesports, and includes a beach full of demo kayaks from many manufacturers, on water instruction, retail spaces and awesome evening programs including pieces of the Reel Paddling Film Festival.

I didn’t take many pictures while I was there, but I did get some shots of the rolling demo, and the cardboard kayak race, and I got a bunch of short video clips of the rolling demo, too.

Dubside is famous for making rolling look easy and fun. In the past he has rolled giant sit on tops, rolled with lit incense in one hand and a brick in the other, and rolled up with his trademark “air sculling” roll. This year, he climbed into this giant rubber raft, and attempted to roll it. It didn’t work out so well…


Dubside in the raft





One of the rolls in the Greenland tradition is a hand roll with a brick in the rolling hand. Leon Somme, from Body Boat Blade does all the rolls with the dreaded “Euro” paddle, rather than a Greenland stick. They set Leon up with a giant chunk of cinder block for the brick roll, but it didn’t slow him down a bit.


Leon getting ready for the



In the last few years, Shawna Franklin of Body Boat Blade, and Cathy Miller of South Sound Kayak have entered the demo in a NDK Triton double kayak


Kathy and Shawna rolling the double



Mckinley Rodriguez made herself famous last year for rolling with a bowling ball, and for rolling the cardboard kayak she was racing.


Mckinley



This year the cardboard kayak race had five entries, and the SSTIKS crew built a very sleek looking craft, which was easily paddled to victory by Mckinley. It wasn’t even close!


Start of the cardboard kayak race


Mckinley and the winning cardboard kayak

And of course, egged on by the crowd, she proceeded to roll her craft several times until it starting getting soggy and not holding it’s shape anymore. Marna, of the Humboldt Honeys team also rolled her cardboard craft several times, but the paddler who was paddling what was essentially a square cardboard raft had quite a bit more trouble pulling off a roll. In fact, it took some work to get it capsized in the first place.


Mckinley rolling the cardboard kayak


Not to be outdone, Marna rolls her cardboard kayak too


This one was way harder to roll...


Mckinley and the winning cardboard kayak

2nd annual LoCo Kayak Roundup

12. October 2008 · Write a comment · Categories: education/symposiums, kayaking · Tags: , , , , , , , ,

This event took place all the way back in AUGUST, and I’m just now getting around to writing it up! That should say something about how busy the last few months have been, or I guess it could say something about how disorganized I am as well….

I’m going to try and catch up a bunch of entries this week.

Last year was the first annual Lower Columbia Kayak Roundup ever. It is the brainchild of Ginni Callahan, and it is held on her property, Slow Boat Farm on Puget Island, WA. This event combines a BCU skills symposium with a weekend of classes and tours for all levels of kayaking. This year, we were the event where the new BCU standards were rolled out for the West Coast of North America. We had coaches and paddlers from as far away as England, the Netherlands, Denmark and New York.

The work for setting up and organizing this event started weeks before (months actually!) with menu planning, BCU organizing, mowing pastures, setting up camping and cooking facilities, finishing out the office and installing the broadband internet, putting up the canopies, grocery shopping, setting up the composting toilets, etc etc…


Leon with the frog goggles

Two coaches were brought over from across the pond for this event, Phil Hadley and Ed Christian. Just so folks don’t get the wrong idea about British BCU guys, here’s Phil hefting a Greenlandic seal hunting harpoon, and Ed, partying down in a sit on top kayak.


Phil Hadley and the harpoon


BCU coach Ed Christian on a sit on top

These guys were awesome coaches, and we had a great time with Ed as one of our coaching class leaders, and Phil teaching canoeing skills and running assessments. Phil particularly thought it was very funny that we had brought him over from England to teach North Americans how to use canoes, a North American craft. Lots of jokes were made about the 1776 revolution…

The week started on Saturday and Sunday with the coach update and fun with canoes. The new BCU 2 star award involves basic competency with canoes, something that had not been required before. On Monday, I took the Foundation Safety and Rescue Training, which replaced the old Canoe Safety Test. This was a pre-requisite for the level one coach training that would take up the next four days for me and eight of my comrades.


Amanda in the whitewater boat

We spent some time in the classroom, which was the converted chicken coop at the farm, talking about coaching techniques and cramming our heads full of acronyms of all kinds. The rest of the time was spent practicing skills, such as using throw bags for rescuing swimmers, playing all kinds of games in kayaks, practicing rescuing various kinds of kayaks, assessing different venues for teaching, and practicing coaching each other in various paddling skills, in all kinds of craft including whitewater kayaks and canoes.

On Friday, the last day of our coaching training, we were presented with a half dozen or so real students, recruited from the local clubs and other places, and given the task of running a brief coaching session with them.

In the evenings we ate fantastic dinners cooked by Dave and others, and played silly games like this one pictured below, where two people stand on upturned buckets and try to pull each other off with a rope strung between them. Phil was pretty much the undisputed champion of this activity.


Leon and Phil on the buckets

On Saturday, I had a couple of classes to teach, rather than taking them myself. I taught two balance bracing classes, which is the trick of laying on your back on the water, while still in your kayak, to put it as simply as I can. This trick is a gateway to rolling a kayak, and the young lady pictured below was a super fast learner and quickly mastered the balance brace and went on to quickly learn a basic rolling technique as well.


rolling lessons



Saturday afternoon, we held the second annual “sticks and stones” Greenland rolling competition. Last year we had five competitors, this year we had seven, including Cheri Perry from the east coast, who pretty much swept the field clean and left most of us in the dust, points-wise. But I moved up a few points from last year and had a couple of new rolls since last year as well.


sticks and stones


Cheri Perry with the stone

Sunday was the last day of nine days in a row, and I took the opportunity to take a 3 star canoeing class from Phil. I learned more about canoe handling than I ever would have imagined. All in all, it was a fantastic nine days, and I am already looking forward to next year’s event, August 17-23rd, 2009. Hope to see you there!


Phil and the canoe poles