Adam at Sea Kayaking Dot Net told me about this site called KayakPaddling.net. I am glad he did because this is a fantastic site for paddlers and open water kayakers. The site has Finnish and also an European English version.
KayakPaddling.net is a great visual resource for kayakers with animated video instruction of many basic and advanced techniques. The English is a little strange at times but for the most part it is pretty easy to follow. The animated videos are excellent and the site is fantastically interactive. certainly pushing the limits of what the Internet can do to help educate and instruct. Overall an excellent site that you should certainly look into.
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That turned out to be cooler than I thought it would be. The basics are kind of interesting to me, as this was my first year kayaking (despite growing up on this lake), but I didn’t take any lessons or read any techniques at all.
I haven’t been able to get my spray skirt to stay on, so I never use it, but I’d like to at some point so I can attempt a “roll”.
I thought the “how to get in” videos were kind of funny, because I was thinking “I’ve got ya beat!” the whole time. Just for a challenge, and trying to mimic what I did in canoing in gym class in high school, I’ve practiced getting in from a treading water position! It’s a fun challenge that I nail 90% of the time (I’ve only done it practicing though, and close to shore)… If you fail and roll it over, it tends to get loaded up with water pretty quickly… I suppose it might not with the spray skirt, but then you’d never be able to jump out of the water and in with it on either.
BTW, I was scratching my head about the whole idea of “falling out”… am I the only one who’s never fallen out? Sure, it feels a little tippy the first few times you use a kayak, but after that, you’d have to really be goofing off to flip, no?
Hi Randy,
You probably should practice a few of the self rescues as well as falling out of the kayak. Sometimes those concepts are difficult to pick up and it would be the one time that you fall out when the conditions are not optimal. I was pretty impressed with the videos. Very helpful.
Hi Drew,
I’ve been in contact with Niko, the developer, and I’m going to be doing the English localizations for him.
I’ll post a heads up once he’s loaded in the new English.
Adam
That is great Adam, I love the site and the English isn’t that bad, it reminded me of one user manual I had for my motorcycle that was loosely translated from Korean. Let me know when the new info is up.