Our friends at Canoe and Kayak Magazine were kind enough to post an article on The Gales Storm Gathering. Conor Mihell captured the essence of our goals and ambitions as well as our challenges for the Gales. Most of these challenges are weather.
Luckily, due to some 11th hour logisitcs, we prevailed and the Great Lakes yielded their jewels. The photo above is a picture of the conditions the participants were able to paddle in on Saturday.
We will be posting photos and videos of the event soon.
We are headed North. Drive safe, and see you in Marquette, on the Shoreline.
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Call Wikle @269.365.6882 with any questions, or Geneva @630.882.9211
What we love to teach – Fun and Rough Water – Alec Bloyd-Peshkin
“You must be crazy!” That’s the response I sometimes get when I have been out
paddling on a particularly rough day.
That’s not how it strikes me. I have worked to hone my boat control and rescue
skills, leadership , and knowledge of the environment and weather; for me, going
out on a rough day is fun, and I like to make it fun for my students as well.
Having fun when you are paddling allows you to relax and perform better. When I
coach students in rough conditions, I start by working on the skills they need to be
safe and in control. But I really enjoy setting up activities that promote the kind of
unconscious paddling they have already achieved in less dynamic conditions. This
can be as simple as sitting relaxed in your boat to see how little active effort it takes
to stay upright as waves roll by (you may be surprised by how much staying loose
in your hips reduces your need for support strokes) or seeing how much of an edge
you can paddle with in bouncy conditions. These aren’t new skills for most folks,
but often they haven’t tried them out in advanced conditions.
When you realize that a large part of paddling in rough conditions is trusting the
skills you have, then you have taken a large step towards being a competent paddler
in rough water. And you will have more fun.
We wanted to provide notification to the participants and instructors to bring, buy, rent or borrow a plastic kayak for the Menominee River courses. Under advice from Scott Fairty/Ryan Rushton who have run this section of river in sea kayaks, the quote I heard was, “you will most likely damage a composite sea kayak in this section of river”. So if you use a composite boat you might have to repair it while in Marquette.
If you would like to rent a plastic sea kayak for use on this course, please contact Ryan Rushton at Geneva, Todd @ Downwind sports, or if in Southwest Michigan, Lee’s.
What I love to teach: Comfort in Conditions
– Sharon Bloyd-Peshkin
When the wind blows and the waves build, do you get a knot in your stomach? Do you lose your edge—literally—because you’re afraid you’ll go right over? And yet, are you eager to get out in wind and waves and enjoy them?
If you’ve got good boat control on sheltered water, there’s really no reason you can’t handle wind and waves, but you probably need to take it a little bit more slowly than your gonzo friends. There are classes for you at this symposium, too.
Experience is the best teacher, so I try to make those experiences positive. We might start by playing in the “soup” near the beach, seeing how much support we get simply by paddling with good form, making sure we immerse our entire blade with every stroke. Then we might move out and paddle parallel to the beach in small breaking waves, practicing our low braces and occasionally letting the waves push us sideways all the way in. We might practice effective launching (getting out before we get broached) and safe landing (ensuring that we are never between our boats and the beach). Eventually, we might break out through smaller surf and get comfortable turning in waves, then surf or deliberately not surf on the way back in. Or we might take a break, drink some hot tea and see what we can learn from watching the waves and the people who are paddling in them.
Everybody has his or her own pace and destination, both in paddling and learning. I love working with people who want to build up their skill and confidence gradually because each step is hugely rewarding for them as students as well as for me as a coach.
P&H Plays at the Gales – Kelly Blades P&H/Werner Kokatat Midwest Rep
Months ago my friend Keith Wikle asked me if I might like to get involved in a new event he was putting together. With little hesitation I asked him to feed me some details and what I could do to help. In as few short minutes he laid out the formation of the “The Gales, a Storm Gathering” and told me he’d like me do some coaching there and bring some P&H boats. The answer was “Yes”!
P&H offers some of the best sea kayaks in world; that’s no secret. But two stand out boats we have are the Aries and Delphin. These two boats are rough water and surfing machines. At 15’6”, both give the cruising qualities of a proper sea kayaking and the playability of a white water boat in surf, rock gardening, and current. The unique hull design is simply innovative. We started with a midsection that super easy to edge and and was rock solid when heeled over to give the paddler a greater capacity to work will in a secondary position. The conundrum we needed to address is the rocker vs. tracking situation. How do you make a highly maneuverable and playful boat stay straight? For this we had to look outside the box and really have a talk about cause and effect. For these boats, while the paddler is in a static position in terms of forward motion, he or she can take full advantage of the rocker. Once forward energy is applied to the boat, force pushes the bow in to the water and the water pushes back. With most boats that have a sharp entry point at the tip, the water sheds and fires off to the sides with not too much effect. With the greater volume and flat planing hull of the Delphin and Aries, the water forces the bow to rise and almost plane in a sense. This action forces the stern to dig in and lock.That means the more energy you put into the boat, the more tracking you get out of it. However, when you are moving with the speed of the conditions (down a wave) you can take full advantage of the rocker. The last issue to deal with on this kayak was it’s “stickiness” in the water. After reading the above, you can understand that if the boat is moving forward, the tracking element kicks in and you’d have a harder time turning due to the properties of the rocker going deeper in the water. So how did we worked that out? For this we drew from our Pyranha white water side of things and put to use a flat planning hull just ahead of the cock pit. This allows the boat to ride loose on the water and the bow and move easily over the water to dictate direction. All in all, these boats are pretty friggin’ different and pretty friggin’ sweet to paddle! The Aries is in glass and the Delphin is in plastic!
Why did we make these boats? What drives us at P&H? Why are we willing to BBQ a sacred cow or two as we go? The answer to that is really easy. We decided a while ago that we weren’t going to make boats that seem good on paper but rather, make boats we would love to paddle. We do what we do because we love the sport and we are the end users just like our customers. What would you make if you could make the boat of your dreams? We asked ourselves that and we came up with the Cetus, Scorpio, Aries, and Delphin. We love them because, like you, we love to paddle! We love to surf, go out into the rough stuff, bang our boats off rocks, and generally use a sea kayak where it was intended to be used. If you see those pictures in the magazines where people are floating over calm waters wearing no PFD, holding their paddle upside down with a big, floppy hat, it’s most likely not a P&H boat they are rocking. But, if you see a paddler on the water, disappearing behind waves and smiling from ear to ear, you can roll those dice and bet they are paddling a P&H boat.
Sound to good to be true? If I was reading this I would say “yes”. So don’t take my word for it. Come up the Gales Storm Gathering and try one for yourself. I’m one of those guys who is happy to prove what I claim.
See you all up there and I look forward to having some laughs, enjoying some adult beverages, and getting some proper sea conditions with you all!
Until then, Kelly (P&H Midwest Guy and overall kayak nerd)
The Gales Storm Gathering registration is now filling up nicely. We still have open spots for you though!
The lodging is also filling up, Harlow Lake is almost full. The Ramada is also beginning to get a few participants. Lodging options will begin to become scarce, as it became known to us that Parents Weekend for Northern Michigan University is the same weekend as the Gales. So if you plan to use the Ramada, or the Landmark Inn, please be aware that all of the lodging options in town will become scarce in a few weeks when all of the college students return to Marquette.
Check out the Gales Accommodations and reserve today.
Please let us know if you have any questions about lodging and drop us a line, or call 630.882.9211.
More Efficiency Equals More Fun – Scott Fairty
Being an efficient paddler is about two things; using the environment to your advantage and applying the right amount of power at the right time.
When I was just beginning my paddling career, I had the very good fortune to have trained with Linda Harrison, a whitewater paddler and slalom racer (she won a bronze medal at both the ’77 and ’79 World Championships). We were working on ferrying across a particularly swift current, each of the students windmilling their way across using dozens of strokes to make the move. Linda slides out and makes it in 2. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that if you could make that ferry and others like it, in 2 strokes and not 20, you’d be a whole lot less tired at the end of the day (or make 10 of those moves with the same energy we were using to make just one). So began my quest to become the most efficient paddler I could be.
There are lots of ways we can quantify our relative efficiency. Counting strokes, like I did with Linda, is one of the most common. Paddlers are often surprised when they discover they are able to make the same move with half as many strokes. Self-imposed (or coach imposed) limits on the number of strokes you can use to perform a particular maneuver forces you to really think about each stroke and plan for its maximum usefulness. It can become a game similar to the old “Name That Tune” show; Jim says “I can make that ferry in 4 strokes” Dave Says “I can make that ferry in 3 strokes” Jim says “Dave, make that ferry!”
A similar concept is the “stroke allowance.” You are given an allowance of say 50 strokes to use any way you want and there are 100 yards of rock gardens to play in. Once you’ve used your 50 strokes, you have to leave the rock garden and sit and observe the rest of the group. Some paddlers will blow through their allowance in a couple of minutes while others will take 10. Most of us tend to take more strokes than are necessary to do what we want to do, placing an artificial limit on those strokes forces us to get the most out of each one because we don’t have an unlimited supply.
If you want to have the most fun on the water and derive the most satisfaction from it, it pays to plan your maneuvers, to utilize paths of least resistance, and to make the most of every stroke you take.
Sea Kayak Rescues Trailer from Bryan Smith on Vimeo.
So in case you haven’t heard, Shawna and Leon are planning on coming to our Gales Storm Gathering event as guest coaches. Want to know why? Check out this video shot by the very talented Mr. Bryan Smith.
Simply put, Shawna and Leon put a lot of thought into rescues and have developed a lot of new thinking on rescues, and safety that they love to share with students. Rescues always sounds simple until you add wind, waves, or current. This is what the Gales is focused on, and what Shawna and Leon want to share with you in October. Plus we want to buy the DVD too!
Check it.
While we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves in any sense. We do have a long term plan to move the Gales around various Great Lakes locations each year. One of the locations I had in mind was Wawa. Naturally Superior Adventures, cited as the best guide business by Sea Kayaker magazine and the National Geographic Adventure is one of my favorite places in the world. When David Wells agreed to host the 2012 symposium, I was really excited about the future of our fledgling sea kayaking event.
Rock Island Lodge and Naturally Superior Adventures have one of the most idyllic locations on the Great Lakes. A remote spot on the rugged coast of Lake Superior at the mouth of the might Michipicoten river.
