MetroSpective

River Run

Kayaking program preps Auraria students for fun on the water

By Tim Esterdahl testerda@mscd.edu

Photos by Leah Bluntschli bluntsch@mscd.edu

Sitting in the red boat, I purposefully flip underwater, as instructed, to practice a roll. Below water, a feeling of panic immediately forces me to eject. I escape. Relief is short- lived as frustration overwhelms it.

When your boat flips you must react. This is no test. There are no second chances. You can't go back and change your answer. This is real. You must react quickly and correctly in order to survive.

I throw my boat onto the pool ledge, drain the water and latch back in. Hungry for another chance, I push away from my comfort zone into the water, ready to flip the boat again and engage fear.

Outdoor Adventure has put together a three-session, six-hour kayak pool series, which started at 3:30 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 23. In the recreation center pool, located in the Auraria Event Center, students learn the basic techniques used in this fun, yet dangerous, sport of kayaking. The OA will be offering a spring series starting April 14 for $45. Brian Ferguson, current director of OA, inherited the program, which has been available at Auraria for over 20 years.

The first class begins with a discussion about the parts of the boat led by our OA instructor Cassidy Arnold, a UCD student and two-year veteran of the program. Cassidy describes to his six students the parts in exact terms and tries not to use any slang.

The stern and bow are the rear and front of the boat, respectively. The seated area is the cockpit and your legs stretch out inside to the bulkhead. There are adjustable straps to move the bulkhead forward and back, along with thigh braces to keep your legs from hitting the interior of the boat. The kayaks have a shallow bottom, weigh around 40 pounds and range from six to 12 feet in length.

Kayaks range in price from several hundred dollars to several thousand for more advanced models. All of the equipment and kayaks that we use are provided by OA at no extra charge.

Once the parts are covered, the boats are carried to the shallow end of the pool where on-the-water instruction will begin.

Cassidy distributes our first piece of equipment: kayaking sprayskirts, also known as spray decks. The neoprene spray decks are designed to keep water out of the boat while keeping you snugly inside. With little instruction, the two females of the group successfully bring the skirt up from their feet. The males, however, opt to bring them down from their heads. Some of the men are successful. However, I have to have an early rescue as the skirt gets caught across my chest. This is a very humbling experience.

The spray deck is wrapped snugly around the cockpit. A handle, or grab loop, is attached to the front of the spray deck and is meant to serve as an ejector handle. One swift pull on the grab loop and the spray deck releases from the cockpit, immediately freeing the passenger from the boat.

Paddles of fiberglass and graphite are then distributed. Each paddle has two blades that are asymmetrical and curved, creating corresponding convex and concave sides. The blades are offset 80 degrees from each other when a single blade is flat on the water. Blade offsets vary between different types of paddles.

Cassidy verifies that everyone has his or her spray deck secured properly, with paddles in hand, before he launches into the water. While in the water, he stresses that the key to survival and having fun is to remember three things: paddle indexed, hip snap and head last.

Paddle indexing is having the paddle clamped in your right wrist in such a way as to have the power edge, the concave side, of the paddle facing toward you. Keeping your right wrist still and only letting your left wrist slide around the paddle creates a powerful and efficient stroke.

The indexing concept is easy to grasp, yet paddling straight seems to be a problem. The pool turns into a bumper-boat arena as everyone attempts to paddle straight. The problem seems to be letting the left wrist slide and using small paddle strokes before using larger strokes. It is fun trying to paddle straight, but a bit frustrating when I continue to bump into the other boats.

Another key is the hip thrust, which is a muscle response technique used to thrust the abs skyward while underwater. We practice this technique along the side of the pool with our head laying flat on the water, propped up by our hands. Without using our arm muscles, we rotate the boat as far as possible without tipping it and use our abs to move it back into the neutral position. This technique will be put into use later when doing the Eskimo roll and is one of the most important techniques of kayaking.

The last key is bringing your head up last. During the hip snap, the head must come up last. The forces of motion have the boat rocking as it rights itself and the head is the last piece of weight we want added to it. If the head comes up first we are likely to flip again onto the other side, or we may not be able to come up at all due to the extra weight.

We are now ready to learn our first means of underwater escape, the open-water rescue. The open-water rescue entails rolling the boat under the water, pulling the grab handle, doing a forward summersault out of the boat and swimming to the surface. This is a quick lesson. When you are upside down underwater and strapped into a kayak, your first instinct is to escape.

Once we are done with the rescue, time is spent paddling back and forth across the pool in an effort to get comfortable with the boat and to make sure our paddles stay indexed. We also practice our paddling strokes and different ways of turning the boat. After developing a better understanding of paddling, we move on to our next lesson, the T-rescue.

A T-rescue involves using a partner's boat to help bring you out of the water. When flipped over, a kayaker pounds the side of his boat, which can be heard from a considerable distance. This is the kayaker's version of an SOS. Another boater pulls up to the stern of the overturned boat, so that the two crafts resemble a T. This allows the submerged person to grab on to the bow of the other boat and, with a hip snap, fling upright into a neutral position.

The T-rescue forces us to be under the water longer than before and, while it is an easy rescue to perform, the added time spent under water is frightening. During my first attempt, I freaked out and badly bruised my left leg while trying to squirm my way out of the boat. The pain is manageable and the next T-rescue is much easier. I am able to relax better in the water and wait for the rescuing boat to come to me.

Conquering the fear of being underwater seems to be the key to enjoying kayaking.

The last rescue on the list is the Eskimo roll. A series of hand and paddle placements while above and under the water allow the kayaker to be in a key position for a final hip thrust that will flip the boat over and launch them out of the water.

This is much easier said than done. All of us fail at least twice, and only a few successfully execute this tricky maneuver. This will be a long lesson and it continues into the next week.

The bruise that formed on the inside of my left leg during my first T-rescue has gotten worse and forces me from the boat during this next class.

While I am unable to master the Eskimo roll during this class, another class is scheduled for next week. I hope the bruise will heal enough to allow me to finish. If I can learn the Eskimo roll I will be able to kayak outside the pool.

Cassidy reminds us that these maneuvers, while valuable, will not save us from every situation we may face in the water. Kayakers die every year. Faced with the possibility of death, it is the fun and excitement of the sport that persuades Cassidy, along with other boaters, to launch into the water every year.