I went out for a short paddle in the new (to me) boat. At first I tried to paddle it in the lake, which I’d chosen because if I had to swim, a nice beach with clean sand and a gentle slope was the way to go. But there were breaking waves there, and I got swamped a couple of times just trying to get into the boat. And as I paddled out into the waves, the waves would come into the cockpit. I hope this isn’t normal for this boat, otherwise I’m going to have to get a spray skirt for any sorts of waves. It’s also really hard to get all the water out of. It’s been suggested by a few people that I try to install some bulkheads or at the very least put in dry bags. The boat had these foam “beams” front and back to brace the top deck up, but they’ve come away from the boat, and the back deck oil-cans a bit when I’m trying to get in, so a bulkhead might be just what I need.
After a few minutes of trying to paddle in the surf, and a lot of swimming, I decided to try the other side, and paddle a bit in the bay. At first I couldn’t seem to steer anywhere, until I went back to shore and discovered that with the tiller bar centered the rudder was hard over to one side. Once I straightened that up, things got a lot better. At first, I had to (and this is absolutely true and no exaggeration) brace when I got hit by the wake from two passing swans, but after 10 minutes of paddling, I felt pretty comfortable in flat water in the boat. I had no trouble at all getting it up to 7 mph. I’m not sure if it’s any faster than my current boat, but you can feel the lightness and I suspect that it would be less fatiguing to paddle at that sort of speed than my Looksha. Unfortunately both the bow and the rudder are magnets for weeds, which is a problem in the bay.
I’m eager to get more experience in this boat and get comfortable in waves. I’d be tempted to try it on Tuesday’s team work out since we’re doing a time trial on the canal, but I think I need to concentrate on the Looksha since that’s what I’m going to paddle at Small Swells and Long Lake.
Now all I have to do is name it. I didn’t use the names much, but to me my Skerray was always “Mary Ellen Carter”, after the song by Stan Rogers, because it enabled me to “rise again”, and the Looksha was “Gideon Brown” after the song by Great Big Sea, because she can “punch ahead in any gale”. I’m thinking maybe “Anne-Marie” after the boat in Stan Rogers’ song “Acadian Saturday Night” because it has “wings on the water”.