Kayaktesting and circumnavigation of Noorderhaaks
on saterday 21 oktober
As I am currently busy with testing of the Distance, made bij Skim, I was very eager to go paddling with her today because the wind gave favourable test-conditions.
Wednesday-evening I found 4 other clubmembers willing to paddle saterday. In the discussion following, we decided not to travel to the "Voordelta" in the south of Holland. Although that area is my favorite for testing because I know the area very well and because it is also a safe area where quit a lot of escapes are possible. Also most of the sea-conditions you can think of, can be found there.
However I sensed that evening the wish to stay closer by and to go the "Noorderhaaks": a small, uninhibited island near Den Helder. An area not very well known to myself, but Rob has been there on quit a lot of occasions. So that is what I thougth: This is the opportunity to learn more about this interesting area and become more familiar with it. Besides that: It is much closer by, meaning less traveling.
By the way: the Noorderhaak is is also one of the infamous areas known in Holland´s nautic history. There are more of these places, but On Noorderhaaks quite a lot of ships wrecked on the solid sandbanks, due to the high and pondering surf in combination with strong 2,5 sm/h-currents.
Rob did a good job in planning a circumnavigation and so there we were, saterdaymorning at the shore in Huisduinen.
Ik looked quit impressive and the waves were higher than we had expected them to be. This was not the result of the windconditions from last week being only South-4Bft.
Shortely after arriving, a small sandbeach surfaced and after lounching from there we headed at 330° against the current to realize a 300°course. We entered directly an area with high waves of about 2m. Sometimes with a breaking top. I observed my companions and saw they performed well. It was interesting to see hoe different kayaks performed differently. Some requiring a quick low brace now and than.
I must say that all of my companions were very silent. I guess they were as impressed as I was when I first entered waves like this. Afterwards it turned out that these waves had been new to most of them.
In the mean time I kept being worried about the group. In these condities I did not see very much escapes in case of a capsize of a paddler. So I geared back to the "safe mode of paddling" hanging in the back of the group, observing and not spilling any energy more than necessary. And making preventive low braces when breaking wavetops passed by. My testkayak performed very well gliding over the waves giving me no problems at all with its stability. I must say that I took some precautions in loading 20 kg of sandbags, half of it in front- and half of it in the backcompartment; stowed against the bulkheads. I had earlier experiences with this kayak in strong winds in which I learned that my weigth of 66 kg was a little bit low to paddle the Distance unloaded in strong winds. After today I concluded that a Distance-paddler should weigth at least 85 kg to prevent the long bow to be blown sideways at certain courses comparitive to the wind.
Picture: Rob Goezinne
Anyhow, the waves reduced in heigth gradually as we progressed to the other side. At the other side we entered another essai in an area with waves starting to tumble at the edge af the Island. I noticed that Jos slowed down in speed and I supposed there was some problem with his energy- or stability-level. As there became a gap to the other paddlers more to the front I tried to reach them by accelerating, leaving Jos where he was knowing if something went wrong he would be thrown on the very nearby beach.
I regretted this afterwards, because it happened indeed , and I thougth I should have stayed there. However Rob landed to help and when it took much time for them to start again I suggested the other companions to land as well and perhaps take a short brake. Too late: because, when landing, Rob and Jos just started again. I got a particular high breaking wave in which it was very hard to hang into it while preventing capsize and I leaned further and further into it, almost to become invisible. However I survied. After that we had to punch throug the surf again. But first I launched Annet in her Sirius and I got the doubtful honour of being the last one to break through the surf. Being thrown backwards 3 times I saw the other kayaks gradually move out of my sigth. Probably I had now disadvantage of my extra 20kg-load; a weigth that requires more energy to accelerate. It is lonely at sea.
Reaching the western part of the island, an area of severe surf came near. However nature helped us by having created an extra sandbank around the island there and we could enter a kind of lagune through a narrow gap between both surfzones.
Probably this lagune was a good breeding area for seals because there were at least 25 of them.
Once and a while waves followed us. I was the lucky man to catch a particular big wave on which I surfed down at 18 km/h (as my GPS calculated for me) in a wide arc in front of my companions. So the Skim Distance likes surfing as well, just requiring big waves: big boat needs big waves. Remarkable was that the Distance, by itself, does not hold course well while surfing, even when lowering the skeg. So paddle-technique has to help there.
In the pause on the island we tried to erect several kinds of windshields. Only Wieger's beach-tent survived the strong winds when horizontal rainshowers passed by. We also discussed shortly paddling more closer to each other in this kind of conditions.
The next leg of our tour was easy as we paddled the lagune eastwards. The more east we came the more choppy the sea became with waves coming from different directions. The Skim Distance performed better and better, almost if she likes all this.
Now the hardest part came: passing the channel between Texel and Noorderhaaks, were we paddled against the current and also encounterd breaking waves again. Here I faced the disadvantage again of my 20kg-load, requiring more power to accelerate through the waves, as I saw my companions advance on me while breaking through the waves. Wieger in his Mariner seamed to follow his own idea choosing a course more in the middle of the channel. It seemed at first that he encounterd less waves there but at a certain moment an unexpected big wave-beast arose in front of him. Surprise!
Having rounded the corner Rob offered making some pictures of me in the surf there: nice long breaking and surfable waves, asking for playing. Honestly I did not like playing at all today still trying to keep my use of energy low for the things to come. I just rode some of these waves punching through them for the eye of the camera. Playing would cost much time, meaning giving the other companions the risk of being swept away and also running out of our planning doing so. So no playing today. I respected Rob quit a lot, shooting pictures in his Svalbard in this kind of weather because a svalbard is not as stable as a Mariner for instance.
The last leg: making progress heading home again, the waveheigth increased more and more reaching shore. It seamed a little bit higher than in the morning; may be the wind increased a little bit, but I saw some incidental waves that seamed to be 2,5m in my eyes.
This time I was happy with my 20kg of sandload because, having the wind blowing to me from a 2 o´clock direction, the long bow had the tendency to be blown downwind, causing a little leecocking: The most difficult thing to correct in seas like this because you can not use the skeg. Thanks to my load I could correct it with sweepstrokes and edging. Looking at Annet in her big Sirius HF I could see that she had simular problems now and than. But Jos in his Baidarka seemed to perform better although a Baidarka can be difficult in high winds as well; probably, being heavier,he had an advantage here. Rob´s Svalbard performed very well as far as I could registrate. Rob must have an excellent feel for balance.
Having paddled the Skim Distance unloaded in a simular wind before, I think I would have had bigger problems today in fighting leecocking if I had not taken the extra load with me. All though it was not a pleasure Today to make corrections for leecocking, it was manageble assuring the kayak will not have problem in winds of 6Bft and lower while being paddled by a 85kg paddler.
Afterwards, evaluating, I heard that the Sirius HF, as well as the Baidarka required also quite a lot of work to compensate leecocking.
Rob´s Svalbard had only minor problems and could easily be corrected.
It is a compliment to the Mariner-design that the Mariner under these conditions could still be trimmed with the skeg between leecocking en weatercocking. That is really ideal!!!!!!
Reaching shore a wave catched me causing me to hit one of the kayaks already landed. Being a little bit embarrased because of this, I reacted too slowly in getting out of my kayak. The sea grabbed this chance by sucking me back to sea and trying to throw me upon a stone dam. After fighting a few sets of waves, trying to turn the Distance and preventing to get smashed, noticing that this long kayak is difficult to turn in waves, I escaped and landed after that in the proper way.
This has been a very usefull day with quit a lot of learning points. It was also kind of a worried day for me as I seemed to be the only one to feel really what could go wrong under the conditions of today, having being rescued once.
The whole trip kept me busy for a couple of days in evaluating all the issues and collecting the points that could be learned.
Nevertheless it had been a very nice paddling day in which I was proud of our little paddling group and their paddling capabilities in the seas encountered today.
Allthough we discussed the trip afterwards in a cosy restaurant at the seaside, we will perhaps discuss this trip once more together at the club.
CONDITIONS: Wind average 6-6,5Bft S-SSW; max. 7-7,5Bft.
Distance 15km. Temperature 17°C. Water 15°C. Waves 50cm-2meter