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Kayak Journal

Wednesday, September 8th, 2010. Canoe & Kayak's Virtual Coach.

A new short series of instruction videos produced by Brian Smith for Canoe and Kayak Magazine with Shawna and Leon of Body Boat Blade.
As part of the interesting strategy of Reel Water Production to adapt itself to the availability of sport videos, by offering free video production of high quality paid by other media and sponsorships, the project will keep adding new videos of contributor’s articles as new magazine issues are published.
The first one verses on keeping a dynamic edge on turns while the second shows the low brace turn. Great posture. I would go for a more committed lean on the inside of the turn but as it is, it works great as instructional videos with very visual demonstrations while simple, updated and pertinent information on both skills is explained.
The answers from Shawn and Leon to some of the comments add even more value to this resource.

Posted on Tuesday, September 7, 2010 at 10:18PM by Registered Commenter[Ignacio Wenley Palacios] in , , , , , | CommentsPost a Comment | EmailEmail

Tuesday, September 7th, 2010. Ofcom licences handheld VHF DSC radios.

Recently, on January 5th 2010, I wrote in the UKRivers Guidebook forum that the ITU-R Working Party 5B completed and the Study Group 5 approved an update to the DSC technical standard that concerns handheld VHFs. Those recommendations asked for VHF DSC Class H - now named as a subset of class D- radios to include an integral Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) capability, to ensure that distress calls to Search and Rescue (SAR) forces and SOLAS vessels include accurate location information. The inclusion of accurate location information with distress calls should be vital to the rapid rescue of persons in distress, and should add to the efficiency of SOLAS GMDSS vessel responses over current voice distress calls on VHF Channel 16, reducing voice communications associated with the distress incidents.
The reason behind this seem to be and IMO supported this, that since handheld DSC radios could be moved from vessel to vessel, consideration should be given to the issuance of MMSIs to indicate that it is a handheld device. This would help also to identify clearly each terminal as granting a sole MMSI number for ship does not help to single out which terminal was used on deck, liferafts, or perhaps in an altogether different ship.
Another reason is that DSC has not a widespread use as mobile telephones and satellite systems have supplanted DSC for commercial use, and its use on handhelds will perhaps be the future of DSC.
On the matter of MMSI numbering for handhelds, a Joint Group of IMO/ITU experts on maritime radiocommunications drafted a revision of Recommendation ITU-R M.585-4 (IMO/ITU
EG 5/3/3) with considerations of a new MMSI numbering sistem for handhelds, which was approved by Study Group 5 at its meeting on 29 May 2009, taking into account the large amount handheld portable VHF’s with DSC and GNSS which may appear in throughout the world in the coming years.
Ofcom has today announced plans to authorise hand held VHF DSC radio sets. These devices use a type of paging system which can be used to call other vessels or make safety, urgency and distress alerts, triggering other DSC radio sets within the antenna’s range automatically to the message that delivers both latitude and longitude of the calling radio set and the nature of the message.
A draft standard -the UK Interface Requirement- enables Ofcom to authorise the use of these hand held VHF DSC. The draft has been submitted to the European Commission for comments of other Member States. However, as the VHF DSC is regarded as an important aid to safety particularly for those in small boats and kayaks, Ofcom has pressed ahead and is now authorising some sets. This authorization will make hand held VHF DSC available to sea kayakers who have until now had to rely on less reliable voice calling on Channel 16.
Ofcom has made authorisation as easy as possible, showing the desire of the  Maritime Coastguard Agency (MCA) to see greater use of VHF DSC, as a mean to enhance maritime safety for all users. Hand held VHF DSC is authorised under the Ship Portable Radio Licence, available free of charge from the Ofcom website.
Sets will not identified under a ship’s Maritime Mobile Service Identity (MMSI) but with their own individual MMSI, which must start with ‘2359xxxxx’. This is because sets may be carried from ship to ship, so they must not be programmed with a ship’s MMSI. Holders of Ship Portable Radio Licences can go onto Ofcoms’s website and simply add VHF DSC hand held to the list of equipment. As with VHF non-DSC hand held radios, the licence covers only one piece of equipment. So, for five VHF DSC sets, a user will need one licence for each set, each with its own MMSI.
Anyone without a licence can register online and apply, ensuring that they include hand held VHF DSC in the list of equipment. The system will automatically generate an MMSI. Licences are free of charge if issued online.
Ofcom has decided not to wait for a harmonised European standard. So, for the time being, hand held DSC may only be used in UK waters. This means that it cannot be used for Automatic Identification Transmission System (ATIS) that identifies individual vessels on the inland waterways of continental Europe, as ATIS identification numbers still relates to a ship, while the MMSI of hand held VHF DSC relates to the individual piece of equipment. So, legally the new British Ship Portable Radio Licence is not valid beyond UK territorial sea, a reason why Ofcom does not still issue an international call sign with that licence as other countries may not authorise hand held VHF DSC or may do it in the future in different terms. These foreign potencies could regard a hand held VHF DSC as illegal under their legislation. However this, a distress call would still be received and acknowledged by foreigns Coast Guards agencies even if afterwards, this could result in enforcement action by the authorities overseas.
Posted on Tuesday, September 7, 2010 at 04:06PM by Registered Commenter[Ignacio Wenley Palacios] in , , , , | CommentsPost a Comment | EmailEmail

Tuesday, August 31st, 2010. Andrea's first Greenland rolls.

A video of my daughter’s first Greenland rolls. I had to shot some visual evidence for my instructor’s certification for the Spanish Federation of Canoeing. Andrea who is 14 year old grudgingly agreed to participate, but after a short course of six days that involved just 8 hours of Greenland rolls coaching, she did amazingly well.
I believe that her canted turns and leans are far better than her Greenland skills but the latter proved easier to shoot with her Sony Cyber-shot camera which is not waterproof.
The cut on iMovie was done in a hurry as tonight was the deadline for submitting videos and paperwork to the Federation. Perhaps some standard Greenland and Angel rolls, plus a balance brace is not enough to fill 2:37 of footage, but well, she is very much Daddy’s girl.
Posted on Tuesday, August 31, 2010 at 05:08AM by Registered Commenter[Ignacio Wenley Palacios] in , , , , , , | Comments6 Comments | EmailEmail

Monday, August 30th, 2010. Kayak Simulator.

The sheer idea of a personal backyard WaveMaster™ Kayak Simulator… My God…the genius of that. The genius. The will to do that. Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure.
What better way to intimidate a wife by a supreme display of manly confidence?
Considering that the promotional video only shows the smallest model of this wondrous mechanical contrivance , I would be inclined to order to Ocean Innovations LLC the largest of models, one that makes very large waves to better simulate realistic conditions of surf during take off, and white water on the return.
Horror and moral terror are your friends: Before placing the order, suggest to your wife splitting some of the domestic expenses. Leave the energy and water bills on her side. They will be disturbing.
Posted on Monday, August 30, 2010 at 01:03AM by Registered Commenter[Ignacio Wenley Palacios] in , | Comments2 Comments | EmailEmail

Sunday, August 29th, 2010. Assammik masikkut.

Aha! A forward finishing hand roll done right. Holding the off hand against the hull, I had as much as I tried and lifted the torso away from deck, only managed rather ugly recoveries.
For a nicely tucked finish over the deck, I trained rotational flexibility (Turner Wilson) and flexing the transversus abdominis and external oblique muscles as in a crossed abdominal sit-up (vid Dubside’ instructional Dvd), but it was driving head and shoulders towards the sea bed (Cherry Perry), the key to make it the roll smooth and easy.
I know. I have a talent for laying it all out in plain English.
Posted on Monday, August 30, 2010 at 12:15AM by Registered Commenter[Ignacio Wenley Palacios] in , | CommentsPost a Comment | EmailEmail

Friday, August 27th, 2010. Z Force Folboats.

This original footage of the assembly of  collapsible kayak and its launch through surf was probably filmed circa 1942 at the Fraser Commando School on Fraser Island in Southeast Queensland, near to the McKenzies Jetty, where the Z Special Unit, also known as Z Force or the Services Reconnaissance Department trained in water insertion for raids in harbours held by the Japanese Imperial Army.
The Fraser Commando School (FCS) was since October 1943 the main Services Reconnaissance Department training facility after training operations were transferred from the Z Experimental Station, a mile inland from the town of Cairns, North Queensland. The Z Experimental Station in turn had been chosen in June 1942 after founding that the climate at the original Guerilla Warfare School near Foster on Wilson’s Promontory, Victoria, was too rigorous even for part of operatives who had lived for many years in the tropics. The site had been chosen due to its remoteness and the ruggedness of the surrounding terrain. Each of the eight Independent Companies trained under the auspices of the Special Operations Executive and modelled after the British Army Commandos, were trained in this  Guerilla Warfare School whose first instructors were Michael Calvert and Frederick Spencer Chapman.
Chapman had been attached as a ski expert and naturalist to Gino Watkins’ 1930-31 British Arctic Air-Route Expedition and a subsequent Greenland Expedition in 1932–33, where he hunted for supplies in traditional kayaks, experienced cold of such intensity that he lost all his finger and toe nails, learnt the native Eskimo-Aleut language, led a team of three acroos the Greenland ice-cap, and spent once twenty hours in a storm at sea in his kayak. Chapman emerged from the Greenland expeditions, of very tough characters, to be amongst the toughest of men, and an able Innuit kayaker and dog sledger.
The commando proclivity for the use of kayaks was founded in the need for stealth in coastal raids and water insertions. The  collapsible Folboats  consisted of a wooden frame which when assembled was placed inside a rubberized canvas hull which was then tensioned. The long blades of the paddles were chosen for a minimum of splashing and wake.
The second video shows the Type 6 Rigid Limpet Mine. These devices were used by SOE, Commandos, the OSS and the Australian Special Unit. The limpet mine invented by  Major Millis Rowland Jefferis, director of the technical section of the Military Intelligence (Research), a special unit of the British Ministry of Supply which developed unusual weapons. The idea of the limpet mine arose after Jefferis read in the issue of July 1939 of the magazine Armchair Science that the research laboratories of the General Electric Company in New York had developed a most powerful permanent magnet. Only half the size of the eraser on a lead pencil, it would lift a flat-iron weighing 5lb.
Jefferis contacted Stuart Macrae, the editor of Armchair Science who in turn contacted Cecil Vandepeer Clarke, the former editor of a caravan and trailer magazin, and both promptly undertook to perform experiments and to produce prototypes of a new weapon that could be carried by a diver and attached by magnets to the hull of a target ship below the waterline. 
The first versions were put together in a matter of weeks. The innovative design included a ring of small strong magnets for adhesion and the detonator used slowly dissolving aniseed ball sweets to provide the necessary time to get away. The operational limpets were to be fired with an acetone/cellulose timer rather than the detonating cord seen here in the video.
Just before war was declared, Macrae joined the War Office as a civilian, getting a commission in October 1939. Clarke too was soon called up. He served in the SOE with Colin Gubbins and would later be appointed Commandant of one of the Secret Intelligence Service’s schools.
The limpets mines used by the British during the Second World War contained only 4 kilograms (8.8 lb) of explosive, but placed 2 metres (6.6 ft) below the water line they caused a 1-metre (3.3 ft) wide hole in an unarmoured ship.
Posted on Saturday, August 28, 2010 at 03:04AM by Registered Commenter[Ignacio Wenley Palacios] in , , | CommentsPost a Comment | EmailEmail

Thursday, August 19th, 2010. New Valley kayak.

Valley Sea Kayaks has announced the introduction of a new sea kayak. Already two boats has been shipped as prototypes to paddlers as part of a testing program which as far as I know involves Justine Curgenven. The new kayak has been designed as an expedition boat suitable for recreational day paddles, with a slight Swede form, a length of 17’7”-17’8” (540cm) and a beam of 21.5” (54cm), and a bit more volume than the Nordkapp.
The first prototype will be optimal for paddlers with weight between 170-200 pounds. This size will be available in composite and in the good roto-moulded polyethylene, with a composite version of lesser volume available as well.
Details are accessible in Valley’s own blog and in a thread in Paddling.net where Pete Orton speaks out his mind to a devoted colonial audience about the company’s aim to appeal to a wider audience of paddlers by trying to target paddlers that are appealed by the Sea Kayaking UK’s Explorer, P&H’s Cetus and Quest, TideRace’s Explore and Rockpool’s GT.
I wish them dear success. It is bound to be a good sea kayak. However, I recently got my hands of an Anas Acuta with an ocean cockpit and I could not be any happier. Now I coo amorously about it all. For instance: The high stock fiberglass seat gives a fantastic paddling position.
Posted on Friday, August 20, 2010 at 03:29AM by Registered Commenter[Ignacio Wenley Palacios] | Comments4 Comments | EmailEmail

Saturday, August 8th, 2010. Big Mama Thornton.

Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton was born in Ariton, Alabama on December 11st, 1926. The daughter of a Baptist minister and a church singer, she began to sing at a very early age, teaching herself to play the drums and the harmonica.
A sassy, loud, soul singer, Thornton gained prominence outside blues circles when hers songs “Ball and Chain” was sung by Janis Joplin as a regular number of her repertoire. Before, other song, “Hound Dog,” was recorded by Elvis Presley. Thornton who always claimed that she wrote the song, never received credit.
Thornton loved to drink while entertaining her guests in Dionysiac gatherings that often reached a summit of ecstasis where the well imbibed host waved her gun as a 6-foot Alabamian black Bacchus. A colorful character from whom even the police kept a healthy distance, she terrified the white male music executives as she was known to collect her royalties allegedly carrying a pistol in her handbag with a pint of booze. The mere presence of the artist, who weighed in excess of 350 pounds, sufficed to have personnel scrambling for a royalty check as she strutted in the record company.
In the late 70s, the years of hard drinking began to take their toll: She sang at her best. She continued to performance over a deteriorated health, but on July 25th, 1984, she was found dead from a heart attack in the boarding house in which she had been living. 
Listening to this version of Watermellon Man released in 1977, I can see another reason to drink whiskey and eat ashtrays.
Posted on Saturday, August 7, 2010 at 04:46PM by Registered Commenter[Ignacio Wenley Palacios] in , , , | CommentsPost a Comment | EmailEmail

Thursday, August 5th, 2010. Charles Lindbergh's kayaks.

By a chance occurrence, I found a royalty free stock footage of Colonel Charles Lindbergh and his wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh in Greenland. From 00:36 the Lindberghs can be seen paddling with aplomb two traditional seal skin kayaks. Since Anne’s sits high in the water, it can be inferred that both kayaks were built to his husband’s measurements.
Six years after his flight from Roosevelt Field on New York’s Long Island to Le Bourget Field in Paris, France, in the single-seat, single-engine monoplane Spirit of St. Louis, Charles and Anne Lindbergh whose 20 month old son Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr., had been abducted on the evening of March 1st, 1932, from his crib in the second story nursery of his family’s rural home in East Amwell, New Jersey, undertook on behalf of Pan Am an extensive survey for transatlantic air routes to Europe.
In early July 1933, the Lidberghs parted from the place where they their family had been inflicted such cruel bereavemente. They took off from New York and headed for North Haven, Maine. Then they flew Northward, with stops at Halifax, Nova Scotia, St. Johns, Newfoundland, and lonely outposts in Labrador, before crossing the Davis Straits to Godthaab, Greenland, where the villagers turned out to greet them . After visiting Holsteinborg on Greenland’s West coast, Anne and Charles crossed the great icecap covering the heart of Greenland and touched down at Ella Island on its East coast, reaching later within 16 degrees of the North Pole before turning South. They sighted uncharted mountain ranges, before landing at Angmagssalik. There a Greenland boy christened their plane “Ting-Miss-Ar-Toq”, meaning “The one who flies like a big bird.”
The Linberghs kept their Greenland kayaks, and at least, one was mentioned among private family artifacts and souvenirs kept from their flights and travels, in a Major Exhibition held from July to September of 2004 by the Virginia Historical Society.
Posted on Friday, August 6, 2010 at 01:47AM by Registered Commenter[Ignacio Wenley Palacios] in , , , | CommentsPost a Comment | EmailEmail

Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010. Kayakers attacked by polar bear in Svalbard.

Sebastian Plur Nilssen and Ludvig Fjeld, two young Norwegians who had set off from Longyearbyen on July 5th, to attempt the first kayak circumnavigation of the four islands of the Svalbard archipelago: Spitsbergen, Nordaustlandet, Edgeøya and Barents Island, were attacked by a polar bear at midday, last Thursday, July 29th.
The Svalvard 360 expedition came to an abrupt end when a bear ripped the tent and dragged Plur Nilssen 40 meters along the beach before Ludvig Fjeld shot and killed the bear, a male of 360 kilograms.
After having successfully made a extraordinary leg of their journey where the glacier Austfonna impeded them to take land for 120 kilometers, both kayakers had pitched their tent on the north coast of Nordaustlandet on Ekstremhuken, an area of predominantly bad weather that has the thickest population of Polar bears in Svalbard.
After the attack, Ludvig Fjeld who hit the bear with four shots, managed to raise a search and rescue Super Puma helicopter while giving first aid to Plur Nilssen, who suffered lacerations on his chest, head and neck. Nilssen who remained conscious, received treatment at the scene and was airlifted to the hospital at Longyearbyen, where he underwent surgery Thursday night.
Still no one has made it round Nordaustlandet where drift ice often packs. Several kayak expeditions on Svalbard has come to sudden stops after being attacked by Polar bears or walruses.
Posted on Wednesday, August 4, 2010 at 02:18AM by Registered Commenter[Ignacio Wenley Palacios] in , , , , | Comments2 Comments | EmailEmail
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