On Saturday Shannon, Christine and I met Dave Isbell at the pool for some rolling practice and lessons. Shannon is just fine tuning her various greenland rolls and trying to learn a few more rolls. I'm still learning the basics from Dave. Christine shot most of the rolling video and while it appears that Shannon was hogging the camera ... that isn't so. Whenever I thought I had perfected my roll and called Christine over for a video I lost my concentration. I guess I'm more comfortable behind the camera than in front of the camera.

Below is a compilation of the various video we shot. But watch carefully. Shannon included some important "safety" messages. When choosing kayaking partners it's important to know that they're as serious about safety as you are. And that goes for pool safety as well!



Afterwards, Dave and I had a chance to talk about the specs for the skin-on-frame (SOF) kayak he's building for me. As I mentioned in a previous post, we're working from the design of the Mystery and scaling it down. But it's not that simple. The hull had to be modified to fit within the constraints of a SOF design. Also the deck had to be modified from a SOF typical design to allow more room for my knees. The paddling position for racing is very different from the paddling position one uses in a tight fitting greenland style boat. So he took some more measurements.



The final kayak will probably be around 18.5 feet and about 18 inches wide. The hull is a stable hard chine hull with a good level of secondary stability ... not the rounded hull which is typical of a racing kayaks. But the waterline beam should be around 14 - 14.5 inches. So hopefully the narrower beam will compensate for the less rounded hull. Dave has been busy working on the design and cutting the wood. I'm anxious to see the kayak frame when he starts putting things together.

-Susanita