Handling suggestions for following seas?

I am not talking about surfing the shore break. I am talking about open water Great Lakes, wind driven waves of 2 feet or so. I assure you that the bigger open water waves will surf you. If I did not fish in wind, I would rarely get out. I generally use my PA 14 in lower wind, and my Revo 16, with ST Turbo fins, and a sailing rudder in the bigger conditions. For me, it is key to react very early. I stay perpendicular to the wind driven wave. I do not wait until I am way sideways.
Another way that also works is when you feel yourself accellerating to start surfing, push 1 pedal all the way forward, and break with your paddle. This will allow the wave to pass you by, and prevent the surf from starting. Not as fun though.

I have never been turned over by wave action alone except when doing a surf re-entry. That said I play in pretty tidal waters and have been out on many occasions in difficult wind over tide conditions; in these conditions I find the most difficult wave direction is quartering (I.e. Coming at the boat from one or other rear 'corner'). Personally I never pedal and paddle and in quartering seas I wouldn't want to paddle anyway because controlling the boat when being slewed about by waves requires one hand constantly on the tiller handle (you definitely need the larger rudder to counteract the lateral resistance of the hull).

For coming in to shore through surf I made a small Johnson Series Drogue (do a web search) using exactly the same design as for a larger boat but with only 9 drogues in series. It is perfect for coming ashore and even allows you to stop in the surf zone as the waves and surfers on them pass over and round you... as long as you can ride out the bucking of the boat; if you can't and get tipped out I didn't experience much difficulty in getting back aboard because the Drogue holds the boat stationary in the waves for a while. Claims about the Drogue being a tangling risk are absolute nonsense that I believe is being perpetuated by people who have never tried using one but want to make them out as some way inherently risky or life threatening for some reason (remember that if God had wanted us to ride on rails he would have given us iron wheels, steel boats can't float because metal is heavier than water and the earth must be flat because you can see that the horizon is horizontal).

Having experimented with the Drogue I haven't really found the need to use it much - I usually can avoid serious surf - but if you can't then it is probably the only viable solution other than technique and luck. The technique in smaller waves is to slow the boat down perpendicular to the wave and let the wave pass you then pedal/paddle until the next wave approaches; throwing your legs over the sides can help but even that is not enough to slow you sufficiently to avoid broaching and rolling in big waves (this is where the Drogue will help).

If you are really struggling with following seas out in open water then a Series Drogue will undoubtedly counteract and eliminate the tendency to broach and roll at the expense of slowing you down. You would want to experiment to establish how many drogues you will need in your series and if they are the same size as the ones I used, I would suggest that you might need fewer than 9 (it wouldn't be hard to add more/take them away though so that you could have 9 that you just tied up to give you a shorter series on another day)

If you do your research you will find that any boat can be rolled if broached by a breaking wave from behind; this is not a characteristic or a specific risk of a Mirage drive boat - all boats are at risk in a big enough wave (but a kayak is more susceptible because it only requires a tiny wave and they are used in and around surf zones).

Finally, it sounds like you had a near collision with a boat that probably wasn't keeping a good watch, but the col-regs do state that both vessels must keep watch and both must take avoiding action, so if you didn't know he was there either...

The series of small drogues system set up sounds more affective than using a regular drift chute. Any issues with storage on the confines of a kayak?

Any more details on how you made it up and optimum sizes etc

I guess any slowing due to drag is compensated to a degree by the fact that you are being wind assisted by nature of the heading.

What a great post Stobbo - I'd never heard of the Jordan drogue before but it could be a solution for me to the shore conditions you get here on the west coast of Sri Lanka, characterized by steep dumping shore waves for much of the year that limit where I feel safe coming in. How does the Jordan drogue cope with undertows right on the beach after the waves have broken? I'd be a bit worried about being pulled out to sea again by the undertow when trying to beach

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Simon

I can only speak to my experience on beaches with some tow but not really strong tow.

On a surf beach with a tow the Drogue did not extend in a direct line from the back of the boat but went back at an angle as you might expect.

The whole idea of the Drogue is to slow the boat not to stop it so the towing force should not be insurmountable if you make your series with an appropriate number of drogues on it. As I say, mine has 9 - they were sold commercially from Oz if I remember and are about the size of a plastic cup open at both ends with tapes sewn along the entire length of the cup for strength - with this number I can easily tow the Drogue with the mirage drive but the boat gets slowed as a wave passes.

The process should be that as the wave lifts the boat to the crest, threatening to throw it forward down the face in a 'surf', the boat will initially lift and move forward with the wave, but then, as the Drogue bites, the increased resistance will hold the boat back, effectively pulling it backwards through the breaking wave, except that the boat is probably still moving forwards. You can feel this happening on every wave when you sit in the surf.

The initial forward movement is important: if the boat were stationary it would get hit with the full force of the wave from the stern just as though it were a rock or a pile stuck up in the middle of the beach - and breaking waves are very powerful; the forward movement means that as the wave breaks over the back of the boat the boat is moving at very nearly the same speed as the wave and therefore the force of the collision between the two objects, both moving in the same direction, is dramatically reduced. Again, you can feel it on the boat: a monster wave builds up behind you (and you are really aware of how low in the water you sit at this point) and you think you are gonna get absolutely pounded, the boat lifts and accelerates forwards and just as you think you are going to get smashed round the ears by the pitching crest, a firm but relatively gentle force pulls you back and the crest burbles past, sometimes with a surfer on it.

Compared with a 'normal' kayaking experience in waves like this the effect is simply amazing and remarkably benign.

HOWEVER it should be said that the boat does buck like crazy in big waves and it can be quite difficult to keep your seat.

The most tricky part of the whole enterprise was not the stowing - the Drogue is really just like a coil of rope with some knickers sewn onto it - but the deploying. I did not want mine to be attached with a Padeye that could pull out at the critical moment and hole the stern deck of the boat in the middle of a surf re-entry! Also the Hobie rudder assembly sits higher than the deck and I didn't want the Drogue to interfere with or even break the rudder. So I came up with a semi-permanently installed bridle made of strong nylon marine tape (so that it would sit flat against the underside of the hull to reduce drag and present a flat surface to spread load); this goes through the load space scuppers on my Adventure and the two 'legs' of the bridle are long enough to clear the rudder and have loops in the end to which I tie the Drogue. The tricky bit, though,is throwing the bridle out of the back of the boat over the rudder successfully - believe me, it is not as easy as it might seem!

Finally, my Drogue doesn't have a weight in the end, which, if you do your research is one of the design features. Personally I have not found it to be necessary but I really don't use the Drogue that often these days. And, by the way, if you are thinking that a weight at the end of the Drogue would make it easier to deploy you would be wrong: it is not difficult to get the end of the Drogue (where the weight would be) into the water - the tricky bit is getting the inboard end of the Drogue and its bridle over the back of the boat in the right configuration.

Personally i feel that anyone who kayaks regularly on a SOT kayak (especially one with a mirage drive) from a proper surf beach stands to benefit hugely from series Drogue technology. I was stunned by its ability to allow me to come back into beaches that are otherwise the preserve of 'proper' surfers without any real concerns about my safety and no concerns about being surfed and rolled. In these conditions I would be quite happy to take my kayak out through the break knowing that I would get back in without damage or loss and it is quite good fun to stop your boat right in the middle of the surf and watch the surfers surfing round you and generally doing their thing. I only wish I had photos/videos to show (now there's a thought for later in the season when the weather is warmer...)

Hope this helps.

Thwnks Stobbo!

Interesting that you didn't need weights. I like your idea of using taped down line through the scuppers too.

Plastic cup sized drogues was the real surprise. I thought they'd be bigger.

What diamater line did you use? Double braided?

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Simon