Monday, February 01, 2010

From the Upper Left Hand Corner
That's an old musician's expression to mean from the beginning. And so it is with rolling a new boat, especially if one is going from a Romany (which almost rolls like a SOF) to a Cetus (which does not).


I was in the pool yesterday rolling the afore mentioned Cetus. First I used a Greenland stick so I could work slowly and with control. I wanted to just concentrate on how the hull moved and how much in control of it I felt. Then I inserted my rectangular neoprene portable Masik to bring my thighs more in contact with the boat. After a while I switched to a Euro paddle, and things went well. 


Sherri (pictured above) watched and told me I was sweeping too fast and that the boat didn't have time to finish. I slowed things down and things improved even more. I soon found my self practicing the sweep motion while sitting upright as if starting to learn from the beginning. To be continued.


I have successfully made a rodeo re entry twice on this boat, something I haven't been able to do with the Romany. This is surprising since the Cetus is Swede form and the entry requires sliding past the wide part of the boat located behind the cockpit.


Perhaps I will take the Romany to the next pool session and just play.


Paddle safe...
DS

1 comment:

Sherri said...

With rolling, I find it's so true that whenever things aren't working quite right, it's just a matter of going back to those basics. More often than not,the problem rests with failing to do one of those basic points like keeping the head down, focusing on rolling with the knee and not pulling down on the paddle, putting some snap back in the hip snap, etc. When my hand roll fails, it's almost always that I'm lifting my head.