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lways check the yacht club calendar before barging into the dining room on a weekday evening, even if the lights are off. I was just on my way from the bar to the kitchen to grab some leftover chips for the football game, when suddenly I found myself interrupting a slide presentation to a room full of people. And I had just turned on the house lights, blotting out the image on the screen. “Whoops! Sorry!” I said as I quickly turned the lights off again, then tiptoed across the room to the galley. Sure enough, there was a big bag of corn chips left over from the last postrace party. But while I was collecting this, I couldn’t help overhearing some of the lecture: “Surf should be taken with the boat parallel to the beach,” advised the voice with the microphone, speaking to what was apparently a class of beginning sea kayakers being taught how to get to
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the beach through breaking waves. It sounded to me like a very unorthodox surf tactic, to say the least. “Hold your paddle firmly inside the wave, on the ocean side. The forces on the paddle will keep you from being rolled over by the wave.”
"I always wondered why ebb tide water was rougher." Fortunately there was a sailor in the class who asked the question I would have asked. “In a power or sailboat caught in a breaking inlet,” he said, “the only way to survive is to avoid getting turned crosswise to the wave. Are you really saying we should start out in that position?”
“Sea kayaks are different,” explained the instructor. “We have long narrow ends to control, and we don’t worry about water over the deck if the skirt is on properly. We also have a large paddle blade compared to the size of the boat, and there are no other fins or rudders.” This led to a discussion of why the rudder, if the kayak has one, should be retracted for dealing with surf, and more explanation of how the paddle could be used to prevent being rolled by a breaking wave.
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y this time I had found two large bowls for the chips and headed back to the bar, again tiptoeing across the darkened dining room on my way out. “Current can add a whole new dimension to breaking waves,” stated the instructor. “Take the Golden Gate, for
