rogerdodger
Nice work. How was the water?
that kayak looks amazingly stable. very interesting to see how hard it looked to capsize, yet easy to turn back over. thanks for sharing the video.
Roger, that is a great video!
I have always seen folks flipping their kayaks in the opposite way. Climbing on top to reach the far side and pulling it back over. You approach looks like it worked amazingly easily. I saw your post about the danger of having it fall back down on you, but it sure looks easy. Have you tried the more traditional way (climbing on top)? If so how would you compare the methods. If you had a bunch of gear tethered to the kayak and weighing it down do you think you would need to change your approach?
Thanks.
It seemed that climbing over the top, with my PFD in the way, was much more difficult at least in fresh water, perhaps in the salt it might be easier due to buoyancy, I did not do any roll back overs that way. A 3' piece of rope would make this very easy, you could toss it over the kayak bottom, swim around and use it to pull and roll the kayak over towards you.
I am not sure leashes would be an issue, ~half would be on the side staying low in the water and the other ~half, on the side being pushed upwards, should be long enough that the stuff connected to them should still be in the water when the kayak passes peak and rolls upright.
I think a key item is not having a big wave or swell hit the back of the kayak while you are rolling it over, thus pushing it back on you, so doing this while correctly oriented with the waves is important. also having nice handles on the side of the kayak really helps...
Pretty spry for an old guy... I can get away with saying that 'cuz I'm an old guy too; though not quite as spry.
I understand the concern of too much gear in and on a PFD which hampers an easy reentry; this is exactly why one should test the prevailing setup.
Good video!