Kiptopeke Sea Kayak Symposium

The Fourth Annual Kiptopeke Sea Kayak Symposium is coming up next weekend and it’s sold out!  Looking forward to teaching some great courses and I thought I’d share the descriptions. If you see something you like, but can’t make the symposium, contact me and we can schedule a private coaching session this fall.

Advanced Rescues and Scenarios
Bringing a swimmer in through the surf on your back deck? Doing a rafted tow through surf with a drogue? Trying a scoop rescue in chop when the swimmer really can’t help at all? These and other challenging scenarios will be part of this course that is designed to test your improvisation, planning, safety-consciousness and paddling skills. The exact level of difficulty will be dependent on the conditions we encounter, but this could approach L5 stuff! You need to have very strong paddling, rescue, and assisted rescue skills to do this course. You need to have a helmet. You need to have chutzpah!

Life on the Edge
Take your boat control to a new level and find out just how far you can edge your boat. This session is all about building confidence and boat handling skills, and discovering new ways to maneuver your kayak, particularly as the conditions get rough. We’ll spend the first part of the day with edging and blending support strokes together to help with seamless transitions and efficiency on the water. We’ll also cover bracing in conditions, rough water rolling (including the surf zone) and rescues. Not for the faint at heart, or newer paddlers.  A reliable roll is encouraged; self- and assisted-rescue experience required. A helmet is required.

Advanced Sea Kayak Surfing
Now that you know how to get through the surf zone and ride the waves, learn how to maximize the experience. Learn how to get the ideal on-wave positioning, how to adjust your speed while surfing, recovering from side-surfing, turning on the wave and how to deal with close-outs. On-land discussions will include different wave types and strategies for each, like how to use the shoulder of breaking waves and the peak of spilling waves.
We’ll be going to a place (Metompkin Inlet) that often has great surf . We can’t guarantee those conditions but, while this class is better with larger surf, the strategies can be learned and developed in smaller waves. You need to have some previous experience with surf. You need to have a helmet and be able to do an unassisted re-entry. Having a roll is helpful, but not required.