It took me a long time to learn to roll my kayak. I mean a really long time. Evolutionary time long. Certainly the process wasn’t helped by being in a kayak that was way too big for me - I rolled my new Pace the first day I took it out, but kayak size notwithstanding, learning to roll was a long and wearisome process. People gave me all sorts of tips, few of which were helpful. The one tip that did help was starting with a pawlata roll and then gradually moving your hands further and further back along the shaft until you are in your regular paddling position. The brilliance of this is, you have a fall back roll when all else has failed. There is so much lift and leverage with a pawlata roll that it’s actually hard to mess it up. Not impossible. You still have to keep the blade on the surface of the water and sweep the paddle not pull, but as a fall back roll there is not much to beat it.
I heard a paddle story yesterday that made me think about the pawlata roll. Two of my mates were out paddling and they both jumped onto the same wave for a surf. You might argue this isn’t ideal. One pearled (bow buried) because the wave was steeper than they anticipated, hit a rock with his bow, and subsequently capsized and bailed. The other broached immediately (steep waves will do that) and also capsized, tried to roll a couple of times and failed, so also wet exited the kayak. A party of two kayakers both in the water. Normally, if this happens, you are close enough to the beach that you would just swim in. If you can’t manage the kayak, you can let it go as it will make it’s own way to the beach (with the caveat that the kayak is not going to smash on the rocks).
They were off a point so swimming in was not an option. The story teller got out his paddle float, inflated and attached it to his paddle and managed to get back in the kayak using the paddle float as a roll assist, while the other paddler some how managed to scramble back into their kayak. This situation is made for pawlata rolls. A paddle float will work because you cannot pull the float under water (one of the common reasons for rolls failing is that people pull the paddle under water instead of sweeping it across the water) or you can use it as an outrigger but it takes time to inflate and attach, and you have to hang onto all your kit while doing that. Pawlata rolls are quick and efficient. I use a pawlata roll every time I fail a regular roll and every time I re-enter and roll so I have done a hundred or more pawlata rolls.
A pawlata roll is, in a way, a buffer. A buffer, as we all know, is an extra allowance or extra capacity. We needed a buffer yesterday. Although the was only forecast to hit 10 to 15 knots, we had sustained winds far in excess of that for two to three hours. The most important buffer we can have in outdoor sports is physical capacity (and technique). Most of the people who have trouble paddling into strong winds have a very poor forward stroke. Some have both a poor forward stroke and lack of physical capacity. Yesterday, we made up for that by having stronger paddlers tow the weaker paddler, but ideally, every member of the paddling group would have some spare capacity that can be called upon when conditions don’t match expectations.
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