I'm nearly there with my OC roll, but my finish just doesn't work. I sweep out to 90 degrees, rotate up on top of the paddle, shaft hand on forehead, and start the hipsnap. I try to leave my face in the water as long as possible and then brush my nose across both gunnels, but one of two things happens:
1. I keep my face/body in the water, and then the boat just hangs with me still in the water and slowly comes back over.
2. I feel the wrong knee engage as I begin moving my face across the onside gunnel, with the predicted result of pulling the boat back over on top of me. I guess that means I'm lifting my head, but it doesn't feel that way. In fact, I can't figure out how to get my head/body moving across the gunnel without engaging that offside knee. So I guess I'm doing something fundamentally wrong there. Any ideas what? Or descriptions on what it should feel like when I'm doing it right?
The whole time, my shaft hand is plastered to my forehead, so I don't think I'm pushing on the paddle. But it feels like I run out of roatation range before the boat gets past its secondary stability point. At the end of my last practice, I did find that extending my t-grip hand toward the bottom of the pool (like shown in that Foote video) during setup made the snap/roatation feel less strained, but I still was getting hung up with those last few degrees of rotation.
How's your outfitting? Are your knees secure? Is your butt lifting off the seat?
What's your pedestal like? Are you getting a dam effect? If you have a large pedestal, water can pile up on the "uphill" side as you are rolling up and it can stall you at the most inopportune time. I have bored a hole or cut notches through all of my saddles.
When learning to roll my OC-1, I got stuck like that for a while, even with good outfitting. Repeated practice cured it. Can't say exactly what I was doing wrong, I just took longer than most to learn. Stick with it and good luck!
Have someone watch you and see if you are rotating your shoulders too soon. Think like you're going to touch your nose to your onside knee. It's easy to try and sweep across too soon when first starting out. It should feel kinda like you are sliding back into the boat as you are rolling up...which will make pulling up with the onside knee and pushing down with the offside seem natural without thinking about it.
Ditto on Scott's observation about a hole or channel for the water to flow through the saddle/pedestal.
If you can hook up with someone you can probably have it solved in minutes.
it is possible that your saddle is too high. I have 2 Rivals; one of which was coming up every time and I was having trouble with the other one. My seat was maybe 2 inches higher in the 2nd boat (which I bought already outfitted). I cut it back and that helped a lot.
However, after all is said, I am going to guess that you are raising your head. I know that you say that your head in on the shaft and that you are keeping it down to the gunwales but for me at least, when I miss a roll it is almost always because I raise my head.
The suggestion to have someone (who knows what they are looking at) watch is very good. Or, have someone video you.
Chris Kelly
I know that I sometimes bring my head up too soon even though I don't really feel like I'm bringing it up too soon.
When I rolled a friend's Spanish Fly, it would come up so quick and easy that I didn't have time too bring my head up too soon. That's when I realized that I had probably been lifting my head too soon even when it didn't feel like it in my Ovation.
Now I've got some things to focus on tonight at the pool. I'll bring my video camera and tripod to see if I can get some useful footage.
I'm in a Probe with Mohawk's factory outfitting, so the saddle is pretty long. My knees can only move maybe an inch upward when I'm pressed into the retainer strap. Not sure about my butt lifting.
What's the best way to bore a hole? Piece of PVC pipe with the end beveled?
You should have no problems rolling up the Probe if it has Mohawk outfitting. Having some foam glued to the sides of the hull when up and full of water is nice though
Just make sure you are arching your back to the surface, and when you do your snap, stick with the crunch...concentrate on bringing your nose to your knee. You will be swinging down and then forward, but keep your shoulders flat to help keep your head down. The Probe will pretty much want to right itself once you get past the turning point...helping with the pushing/pulling with the wrong knee.
I'm betting you aren't going far enough with the snap before trying to come up and across the rails...in effect lifting your head too soon.
Let us know what you discover at the pool
I had a similarly large pedestal - it started out as a Team Edge saddle that was braced between two thwarts. I took the footpegs off and cut the hole between the front and back attachments. I can't remember exactly how I cut it, but I put a 4" (?) diameter PVC joint in the hole, the kind for butting two pieces of pipe together.
I think taking a piece of pipe and cutting some notches around the end would make a good boring tool.
I think your outfitting sounds mighty fine- Check to see if there is an arch about 1.5" by 4" already notched out for water transfer- my last Viper was factory outfitted and was notched for h20 transfer-
I'm not sure if it was due to rolling too quickly -but when I first started trying to roll the same thing happened- To get the boat up (some of the time) I would do another hip snap as a finale.
Now, when I roll, the only thing I think about is putting my knees/the boat under me.
what helped my very much was to give my body some kind of "picture" ore "impression" (difficult to describe...) of the movement it has to do. To tell him what the komplexe movement "feels like".
I am working with three "pictures", works perfekt - and these are:
1. I pull my onside knee to my onside ear.
2. I push my forehead (on the shafthand) strong into the water.
3. I pull my ellbow of the griphand (along my stomach and then away from the body) over the offside gunnel.
Take a look at Bob Foote's web site. He has an excellent article on rolling an OC-1. Just follow the steps - exactly - and the boat will come up no problem.
I paddle a Nitro, with Mike Yee outfitting. Water build-up around the saddle has never been an issue.
Try getting the roll right before butchering your boat.
Good luck.
Once you get the roll, your confidence and paddling will go to a whole new level.
Geoff
I went to the pool tuesday night armed with the video camera and yall's suggestions. I missed about 6 or 7 attempts at first, then BANG, it all clicked, and I was up. Someone in a past thread said that, once you get it, you'll tell yourself, "this is so easy, how could I have not gotten it before?". They're right. The movement makes perfect sense once you get it right that first time. I still missed a few rolls that night, but every time I knew what I did wrong.
So what was the key? Three things:
1. Making sure to extend my t-grip hand away from my stomach towards the bottom of the pool before starting my knee drive. For me, at least, if I don't do this, the paddle doesn't stay flat on the surface long enough.
2. Making sure my shoulders are squared with the bottom. This, combined with the t-grip hand movement in #1 apparently is what insures that the paddle blade doesn't wind up with a diving angle. You can see this really well by comparing my missed roll clip below with the successful ones.
3. Consciously thinking "read the label on the side of the boat" so that I complete those last few degrees of rotation.
BTW, a good indicator that you are keeping your head low enough is when your nose plugs get scraped off by the offside gunnel!
to change it from a parlor trick to a useful skill when actually in whitewater. I had to, and still have to, fight through the urge to pull and get out. I think I am virtually always better off in the boat than in the river so hang in there and roll...... and keep thinking about your roll basics rather than the river. Chris Kelly
