Team Pabst

[paddlers_rash]

Aaron (my brother) works graveyard shift at KI working for college money. When he gets done at 6AM, he meets me for flatwater practice for an hour. His spray skirt is in need of a little repair... the tunnel is torn along side the seam almost to the deck. Additionally he does not have any paddling tops, dry tops, or even hydro skins. Needless to say, he takes on a little water.

He has been working on his bow stalls (by way of plowing) for the last couple of days with not much success. The Mr. Clean is not what you would call a short boat at 8 feet long. Toward the end of this morning's session, he started being able to go straight over the top which is a great start to the stall. I was pretty excited for him (and a little jealous as I still can't stall for more than a few seconds and he has been in a boat for three weeks!!).

As the session went on, it kept getting harder and harder for him to roll with the increasing amount of water in his boat. He even paddled up to me to demonstrate through sound how much water was in there. Leaning on my boat, he would put his on edge and I could hear huge amounts of water swishing from one side to the other.

When the alarm clock went off to head in, he was having a heck of a time keeping his bow out of the water. Then just sitting there completely motionless, he leans forward and starts getting a tilt. Then he lost his balance around 45 degrees and flipped. It was fairly amusing though, so he decided to try it again. This time he got his boat to about a 60 degree angle with no head start.

So we get over to the dock and I pull him up onto the landing and we hop out of our boats. I look inside his cockpit and there is a ton of water. So we tip it up on its bow without spilling water. Almost the entire bow was full up to the edge of the bulkhead. The Mr. Clean is a 54 gallon boat (I think) and I estimate it was about 1/4 to 1/3 full.

The next time you want to teach someone to bow stall, put an extra 100 to 130 pounds in the front of their boat and it will be easy.
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It is better to have drank one more Pabst and wish you hadn't, than to not and wish you had.