Online Sea Kayaking - Surf two different effects

[Music] this lesson is about understanding the boat dynamics how a wave capsizes a sea kayak sea kayaks capsized really easily in the surf they're quite big kayaks and there's a lot of force in the wave but if you understand the dynamics you can be prepared for it and know which way it's likely to try and capsize you if the kayaks pointed directly in towards a wave it just goes up and over it there's very little force that tries to twist the kayak into capsizing it if you just point at the wave still it's slight bit of forward speed and you'll go up and over it the extreme of this if you're going over a wave just as it's breaking worst that can happen is you get a little bit of air and there's nothing there that's trying to capsize you the same applies when the wave comes at you from behind as long as you've got a little bit of backwards speed it won't surf you and it'll just go underneath you and carry on along on its way the problem has really started to come when you're either surfing a wave or a wave hits you on the side this is where there's going to be some forces that create a rotation of the kayak capsizing you so if the wave is big enough to move you sideways so the wave hits you picks you up and bounces you sideways towards the beach it's going to try and flip you towards the beach now the reason for that is that as you're being pushed sideways the flat water in front of the wave is going to build up pressure against this side of the kayak and if it does it slows this side down this sides been pushed by the wave and you end up rolling over and flipping towards the beach we'll have a look at a few examples of a kayak balancing in towards the beach sideways where the beach side of the kayak catches the incoming water and then the wave flips the kayak over we slow that down you'll see it a little bit more clearly that the water starts to build up on the right-hand side of the kayak on the beach side of the kayak and it flips it pretty easily the kayak doesn't want to be pushed across the flat water in front of the wave what happens is that water just seems to slow the kayak down the wave pushes it and so all that can happen is that your body goes over towards the beach and you get what's called a power flip if you get hit on the side by a small wave a wave that's not big enough to move you sideways so the wave comes in hits the kayak and then carries on to the beach about you it's gonna have quite a different effect this sort of waves going to try and capsize you the other way so towards the sea or towards the wave side what's happening here is that the water is hitting the kayak and knocking it out from underneath you slow down you can clearly see this happening other waves hitting the kayak knocking it out and taking you off balance when you start surfing in Onaway even add speed to the equation you're gonna flip towards the beach a lot more easily waters going to build up on the beach side of the kayak and the waves going to keep pushing on the other side and tip you over really quickly this filming from a drone demonstrates quite clearly the forces involved that when you're surfing in it'll flip you towards the beach incredibly quickly so now that you've got a better understanding of the forces involved and which way your kayaks likely to capsized during surfing and being hit by waves on the side it's time to get the techniques in place to stop that happening so you can stay upright and have control in the surf [Music]

Channel: Online Sea Kayaking

Views: 122,411

Keywords: sea kayaking, kayaking, surf kayaking, how to sea kayak in the surf, surfing a sea kayak, simon osborne, sea kayak course, kayaking lesson, low brace, low recovery, capsize

Id: gH_CQR4jMo4

Length: 4min 19sec (259 seconds)

Published: Thu May 14 2020