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Our group, 3 of us, with the old man being a Maine guide all use Necky Looshka's, 17' sea kayaks. Our major trips are week long paddles on Superior or off the NE coast ( Maine and Cape Brenton Island). As to the stability, when you are braced, the boat is incredibly stable. In fact, in 10 years of kayaking in all kinds of conditions only one of us has ever gone over... and that is the Maine guide, but he loves to play in and around rocks/waves more than us. We do practice rescues and wear submersion gear, but we generally just have near misses... from either a rogue wave that hits off center from a blind spot or from a paddle dragging from a crest or missing in a trough. The sea kayaks are made to cut through the waves and handle rougher conditions.The struggle comes from just fighting to stay on course against the wind, tide or currents... I swear by a rudder... I love them and it makes tracking in rough conditions with a full boat so much easier... the damn heavy boat wants to align with the wave troughs when it bottoms out in them. While they are made for touring,, they also turn like a barge as compared to your 8 footer, but they bow does not swing back and forth as you paddle. I have a little Dagger that is always I bought both of my boats used, ebay, for ~$700 which is a great price for a boat. We use plastics boats for 2 main reasons.. 1. they are cheap 2. you can be rough with them. We play in rocks or land on rock beaches all the time... something you would not want to do with a fiberglass or carbon fiber boat... Anyway, good luck!

Fred Sylvia Cool! Interesting to hear about your adventures! 😀 Thank you for all the info!

That was incredibly reckless behavior. Both the adults would have likely survived without the burden of the kids. I'd imagine the father got to watch his two kids die before his eyes before he gave up himself.

5 humans on a 13.5’ sit-on-top. Even these are17’.

Indeed safety is paramount and crossings like this should only be attempted if you have the experience, ability and gear. To be clear our group consists of experienced paddlers with a minimum >8 years, including a certified Maine guide of >20 years. We are all wearing wet suits, PFD's and know our limits. We are all strong paddlers and routinely practice rescue skills. For this crossing we planned to test the open waters outside of the cove and if they were too much we would have headed back into shore. The biggest danger, beyond the cold water, in these conditions is becoming physically tired due to the headwind, but we were ready and more importantly know our limits. We made the crossing in about 35 minutes, had a lot of fun playing in the swells and rested on Sand before going on. To put this crossing in perspective our group takes trips where we are on the water for 7 days off the coast of Maine or Canada. We consistently have 6-8 hours of paddling in a day with distances greater than 10 miles. So yes, I posted this video, but we did not do it with out great preparation or care.

Cookie?

I've seen videos where people paddled across Lake Michigan on a kayak. This can be 60-80 miles. Manitowoc to Luddington (ferry route) is 60 and that is the route they took. There was a guy who crashed a single engine plane in Lake Michigan and managed to swim a couple miles to shore in some pretty cold water once. I have no clue how that guy survived... quite the miracle. I wish I saved the article as it happened in the 80's or 90's pre-internet news... Would love to read that story again.

Indeed safety is paramount and crossings like this should only be attempted if you have the experience, ability and gear. To be clear our group consists of experienced paddlers with a minimum >8 years, including a certified Maine guide of >20 years. We are all wearing wet suits, PFD's, rescue gear and know our limits. We are all strong paddlers and routinely practice rescue skills. For this crossing we planned to test the open waters outside of the cove and if they were too much we would have headed back into shore. Our trip that day was between 9-11 miles were we used the leeward side of multiple islands and kept the open water crossing to a minimum. That said the crossings up there are still long >1.5 miles and you can not attempt them with out proper planning, gear and conditioning. The biggest danger, beyond the cold water, in these conditions is becoming physically tired due to the headwind, but we were ready and more importantly know our limits. We made the crossing in about 35 minutes, had a lot of fun playing in the swells and rested on Sand before going on. To put this crossing in perspective our group takes trips where we are on the water for 7 days off the coast of Maine or Canada. We consistently have 6-8 hours of paddling in a day with distances greater than 10 miles. So yes, I posted this video, but we did not do it with out great preparation or care

@@fredsylvia2524 Oh sure, Fred, my comments were not suggesting that you guys were not prepared or that you did anything wrong. I am just stating that Lake Superior itself can change from calm to very dangerous in a matter of minutes. I paddle the Great Lakes too and in my opinion, Lake Superior is the most dangerous of all. Earlier this year, we were paddling Pictured Rocks on a relatively calm day. Suddenly we were paddling straight into 40 mph winds and it was a real struggle to keep from being blown out to sea.

@@explorermike19 Completely understood. I wanted to clarify for anyone else following the thread what preparation and care should be taken :) Your paddling experience at picture rocks sounds like one hell of a day. In our own way we had our own scary event 2 years ago. We paddled from the west side of Cape Brenton Island around the north tip to the eastern side... We camped over night in a cove called White Rock Cove which is basically a pair of pocket beaches with 100' cliffs on all sides... when we came in for the night, the water was calm, peaceful and the sunset was amazing... during the night the remains of hurricane harvey blew through, the winds changed and rain fell.. the surf picked up eroding 1/2 the beach away. In the middle of the night we had a rock slide and a rock the size of a mail box fell right outside our tent,,, we were all in the fetal position waiting it out, the rock destroyed one of our paddles.. good thing for back ups. We could not evac the beach since the waves were breaking on the beach >3' less than 2 seconds apart,, the water was a violent punchbowl bathtub in the cove.. we were trapped on the beach and we were not going to stay on that beach one more night.. so we waited and made a push at noon when the wind would change slightly. The 3 of us made it out of there, but it was one hell of paddle, it was intense and exciting; the most dangerous part was getting out of those breakers, which did lesson with the change of wind. So we have a refreshed apprehension for cliffed lined beaches now... what went from a beautiful scene turned to a nightmare situation over night. Much like your paddle, but in a different way. Paddling is not always peaceful flat glass water :) Some days you have to dig deep and gut it out.

Here are those videos, though what I hate is you do not get a real feel for the size of the waves when using the GoPro, but you can see the slop. White Rock Cove - calm ruclips.net/video/ORaCqi3V4To/видео.html White Rock Cove - rougher, but less so then earlier in the morning.. this is when we were packing up the camp getting ready for departure. ruclips.net/video/NdA48tCaRVY/видео.html Our depature - I started the gopro when I had a chance to stop paddling, so I didn't get all of the launch :) ruclips.net/video/UySWN1sLl6g/видео.html

@@fredsylvia2524 Yes. so much we learn the hard way. We were paddling along the cliff face of pictured rocks blissfully enjoying the beauty. On the way back, we heard loud booms and saw gigantic slabs of cliff face sheer off and thunderously crash down into the shoreline where we had previously been paddling. The lesson learned is to stay away from the cliff faces and certainly don't camp under them. Camping on any Lake Superior beach is risky business, as you also learned.

That was the noise of my deck bag straps flapping in the wind, the wind was the most brutal part of the crossing :)

Awesome! I will definitely check it out! Here is a video of the sea caves on Devil's Island ruclips.net/video/hgjj_ovj1xw/видео.html to help with the winter blues :)

HistoricThirdWard 17 ' necky looksha

17 ' necky looksha