tandem rolling

[Yukon]

Working on our tandem roll. No problem to do with bow paddling switching paddle sides but there is better than that. Rapid mag had a very short piece on bow paddling using a high brace roll but i need more info. any one have any good videos for tandem rolls? I will search the slalom world

[avlclimber]

Try this link. We threw two low-brace practice runs then threw the roll on our first attempt. (this is with bowman switching.) Communication was pretty easy. Bowman sets up and waits for the stern to initiate when you feel the roll begin just low brace up.

If this link is inaccessible I can try to post outside of FB.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=697533974191" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Yukon]

We are able to roll when the bow paddler switches to my side and now we want to progress to where the bow paddler stays on his side like the c-2 roll. Was hoping to find a good video on that but not much luck yet. My son is the flexible one so he gets to figure out the bow

[avlclimber]

I'd like to know if you figure that out.

High brace doesn't seem to help much I think mastering the offside lowbrace and maybe even off-side half-roll might be the key. The bowman just has to help a little and have his weight in the right spot/going the right direction.

Some of the Octane 92 footage provides good examples of what does and doesn't work for them.

[hazardharry]

mmm yum my favorite! ttandem rolls.

[xmas0c1c1k1]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHxJdhXN ... e=youtu.be" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
offside low brace in bow need to be flexible for it it can be quite awkward

[John Coraor]

I'm only aware of two reliable methods for rolling tandem:

• 1) One paddler switches sides and both paddlers roll-up on the same side using the standard low-brace canoe roll.
  
  2) One paddler uses the standard low-brace canoe roll, while the other uses a cross-roll (i.e. a cross low-brace roll in which the non-power face of the blade arcs from the on-side up over the paddler's head to the off-side while applying knee pressure to roll the boat in the opposite direction).

The only thing that varies as subsets of these options is which paddler either switches sides or executes the cross-roll and whether or not you include any method for paddler communication (often a tap or taps whereby one paddler indicates to the other that they are ready, often with the roll timed for joint execution at a set interval thereafter).

Most of my tandem paddling I've used the second method, but I have done both. IMO the pros and cons are as follows:

Method 1: Most powerful and consistent roll, but slightly slower and with greater risk of blowing the timing (because of the switch). Best coupled with a "tap" communication method to ameliorate potential for timing issues. Slightly longer recovery period while one paddler switches back to regular side.

Method 2: Quickest roll, but less powerful and less consistent due to one partner on cross. Less risk of timing issues. Quick recovery due to neither paddler having to switch paddle.

It is possible to have either partner switch or execute the cross-roll (depending upon the method chosen). However, if using a communication tap to coordinate timing, it is better for the person who switches to be the person executing the tap as this is the most likely person to experience variations in timing of execution. In addition, it is somewhat easier for the stern paddler to tap the bowman than vice versa and this communication from the stern is easiest to execute when the stern paddler is in the set-up position for a standard low-brace canoe roll (i.e. with the paddle blade already next to the bowman pointing forward at the surface prior to the sweep out, flip, and low brace). Consequently, one tends to see method 1 tandem teams where the bowman executes the cross-roll and method 2 teams where the stern paddler switches.

John

[Einar]

I have used a tandem Caption as a teaching aid for rolling given that it only seems to take half of a sloppy effort by the bowperson to help bring it up, sameside. It seems to help give the bowperson a sense of the needed motion and then they can start to build on it.

And a gracious stern person can pretend it was all his fault just to keep the confidence up and the bow paddler in the game, cutting down on the frustration.

And once they are ready for it a solo-center rigged Caption rolls like a barrel but only from paddle side, it's work++ from the offside.

[coloradopaddler]

The book "the thrill of the paddle" has the best description of tandem rolls that I've found. It is brief but probably more in depth than the other article you read. Good luck, I'm still looking for a partner to try it with.

[mkoeppe]

My husband and I have been consistently river rolling our C2 since 1985. When we were learning we experimented with the various options listed here. I paddle stern and my husband paddles bow. We are both righties but I paddle left. We both roll right in our C1s. So we always roll on the right. In the stern, I switch my paddle and do the standard C boat roll. At first, I would tap twice on the bottom of the boat to signal that I was ready to roll. That worked for the timing of the roll, but took a bit too much time. If we missed our first roll, we would have time for a second attempt, but usually were running out of air for the third attempt. So we decided to work on our roll without the tap tap. We learned that the timing does not need to be perfect to roll up - you both just need a strong roll ie good hip flip and keep your heads down and have your paddles at the surface for initiating the roll. By making this change ie eliminating the tap, tap, our roll became quicker and we had time for up to 3 attempts. Yes we have rolled up on our third attempt. I did experiment with staying on side and doing the high brace roll - I always called it the pretzel roll because I felt that was what it looked like. It's a much weaker roll and I felt I was at risk of injuring my shoulder. So we have stayed with me switching sides from the stern - I've become very fast at doing this, not signaling. The roll as served us well for more than 30 years. I have never lost my paddle while switching sides. We primarily paddle C2 on up to Class IV and have loads of experience rolling - rarely do we swim. Hope this helps!

[wildwaterc2]

My brother and I paddled C2 together for many years - both in a cruising C2 on a range of rivers as well as racing in wildwater c2s. For when we needed to roll, we always rolled like mkoeppe wrote.

Both of us are naturally righty and originally learned to roll that way. In C2, I typically paddled stern left, but not always. Regardless of who was in bow and who was in stern, or who was on what side, we always did the same thing.
1. There person paddling on the right sets up and waits
2. The person paddling on the left switches hands and rolls immediately
3. When the person paddling right feels the other person moving the boat, the person paddling right rolls quickly and the boat pops up

We have hundreds of rolls this way, some in memorable places, such as between 1st and 2nd drop of Lost Paddle during the 1999 Animal race on the Gauley in our wildwater C2. We did a lot of playboating in our Duet, and many many enders with flips common - we did many enders at Slice and Dice on the Ocoee, and if you flip you want to roll fast before you get scraped up over the ledge below the ender spot.

We could roll other ways. For example, we could roll using a cross roll for one person, but that was much less certain and really not appreciably faster. The way we rolled, it was very rare for us to not come up on the first roll - less than 1%. In contrast, the cross roll had about the same success rate as our hands roll, which is to say it worked sometimes but was not one we would rely upon and we really only did it practice rolling or someplace really tame like recovery from enders at Frank Bell's on the French Broad.

We never did the tapping stuff - it is very obvious when the first person hits the low brace part of the roll. It was rare for us to swim - probably less than 10x total, and normally when something else was going on (like smacking the pillow in Pillow Rock, flipping and having the boat stuck on the pillow upside down - also very memorable).