C-Forum

So I experienced my first mini thrashing in a hole today, educational to say the least. I went into it and got side surfed pretty quick with my onside down stream. When I flipped I panicked initially when I realized I was getting side surfed upside down but managed to regain my composure and get my paddle in the right spot so the water did all the work getting me back up into a low brace.

My question is, what do you do when your onside is upstream? Will a cross high brace get you up or do you switch hands? My offhand roll is ok but I'm not crazy about the idea of switching hands well getting thrashed.

Sounds like you had the idea during your mini-thrashing. When side-surfing with the onside edge downstream and the boat flips, the onside is then upstream. All you have to do is sweep the paddle around (good idea doing the sweep with the body and paddle close to the boat to avoid catching a lot of the recirculating current), stay tucked close to the bow, and stick the blade out to catch the downstream flowing current that is under you. You will have to feather the edge to slice it below the recirculating current that is closer to the surface. It doesn't take much to roll back up that way--the current does the vast majority of the work. Windowshading stems from flipping upstream and rolling the boat back upright while still in the hole.

Hope this helps