Recently - I ran a waterfall cascade upside down. This is just after i hit the best line ever had on the same drop. I just missed my line by a foot, and got blasted by some side current, which flipped me to my offside. I immediately went into a tuck as I knew I was about to drop 25ft over a rock cliff upside down. I had one good hit on my shoulder which gave me a bruise and got a blackeye, either from the cliff or from a gunnel.. I do not know. It will now be known as..."The Incident"
I was originally going to ask the question... Is it better off to go into a foward tuck when going upside down over cascades or is it better to open ur body up in sort of a backdeck roll...with your hands out in front of ur body and face...hands and paddle taking the blows(theoretically)...
Then I started thinking...its probably better to go into a backdeck type of situations...but what if you piton somehow....i dunno? What do you guys think? I figure this would be a good topic because it probably hasn't been covered yet...and its good stuff to know. cuz ya never know when ur gonna go over a cascade in a canoe right? and we all have an offside...
I'd prefer that the back of my pfd and back of my helmet take the brunt force blows... then again there's always a chance of spinal and neck injuries.
I see no reason why wearing this kind of "stuff" under your drysuit/drytop should or would be frowned upon for serious runs where you might be getting an upside down thumping... even though it might seem a bit over the top.
Nice suit Craig.... And I, with you on tuck and kiss the deck, I think you protect your vital organs beter that way!! And they don,t call them vital for nothing...
Craig Smerda wrote:I see no reason why wearing this kind of "stuff" under your drysuit/drytop should or would be frowned upon for serious runs where you might be getting an upside down thumping... even though it might seem a bit over the top.
even just for paddling, not sure about offside stroking/trunk rotation with these robocop suits.
With good practice a backdeck roll is really fast and snappy but if you don't think you're sure / don't have time to nail it then I would probably also kiss the deck...
I'm going to vote "tuck" as well. Like Craig pointed out, there's not too much exposed on your back. I don't think it's been covered because most people assume you want to expose as little vulnerable area (ie, your face) to rocks as possible. It's the first thing we covered when I taught kayak school.
Body armor- I know some people who have started wearing it, and for a while I had a drytop with built-in/removable shoulder and upper spine pads. Basically, you only need to cover the parts not covered by your PFD- lacrosse pads seem to work well, and seem to have good range of motion. One thing to note though- if you plan or wearing it under your drytop/drysuit, avoid hard plastic armor (or cut off the hard parts)- otherwise, you'll be spending a lot of time aquasealing your gear back together after the first rock hit. You might also need to up-size your drytop.
A few years ago I witnessed a paddler flipping on his way down Particle Acceleratoron the Upper Black in Ontario (25-30 ft steep shallow slid drop with a roostertail at the bottom) and trying to backdeck roll. It was ugly, He numerous stitches to his face and does not paddle much since. I had an offside flip on the same drop 3 years ago and tucked. A bruise on my shoulder and a small tear in my drysuit was all.
Conmcerning the bady armor, I never tried the MTB armour on the river, but they sure feel restrictive. MTB rides simply don't need the upper body mobility us paddlers need.
I am using elbow pads regularly and have some shoulder pads that I use once in a while.
TGG!
Everyone must believe in something. I believe I'll go canoeing - Henry David Thoreau
i'm going to out on a limb here, but wouldn't your energies be best spent on learning to avoid flipping before the drop?
if plan A continues to be too elusive, you really ought to be tucking. the 'back deck roll' position scenario is a bad idea. you're just looking to get hurt badly and end up looking like daffy duck after his beak has been blasted around to the other side of his head. the tuck ain't exactly great, but it makes the best use of your available protection, if you insist on running drops inverted.
Yah - I had an offside flip on the Watuga too. Those are the only two this year... Has more to do with being off-line than it does the boat.
With that being said, it's less likely I would have flipped in a L'edge yes - but then I'm in a boat that is not near as fun to paddle the other 98% of the time. It's all apart of the learning process and remember, this is my first 'spring' creeking season, and I still have yet to paddle for a full 2 yrs on WW. It's going to happen no matter what boat I am in. Just need to minimize as much as I can, and keep on runnin!
Ok - so it seems to be the general consensus is going with a forward tuck. Which is good, because that is what is instinct at this point. I have thought about implementing some kind of shoulder pads under my gear for protection. Also - with hitting my eye, the thought of a full face has crossed my head once or twice at this point.
