Xtreme Geezer » Water

Testing My Latest Shapes

ponobill — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 09:39:35 +0000

I’m pretty pleased with the progress I’ve made with shaping boards that do what I think a great SUP surf board should do. Here’s a video of how a few of my latest shapes perform.

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Three Common Mistakes

ponobill — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 15:20:17 +0000

When I was in high school I did a lot of ski racing and was fortunate to have some very good coaches work with me. One of the things that always intrigued me was how the right combination of words could have a profound effect on a person’s understanding and visualization of a desired movement. So much so, that my only goal in life was to be a ski coach because I enjoyed the challenge of finding that word or phrase that…
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Dave Kalama ” Spin’n and Grin’n “

ponobill — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 08:57:38 +0000

My good friend Pat Myers has been in town the last few days, trying to collect some footage of me, and threw together this little piece of some fun south side action. Hope you like it. Also a quick congratulations to Connor Baxter for doing such a great job in the Molokai to Oahu. I didn’t have such a good day, but he sure did. He truly earned it and I’m sure there will be many more to come. Aloha,…
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Outside Mag Girls SUP

ponobill — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 23:44:31 +0000

Well that does it. For anyone that thought SUP hasn’t entered the mainstream here’s the rule, if Outside Magazine covers it, it’s mainstream. When they bring in the cute girsl to cover it, it’s VERY mainstream.

Drowning Doesn’t Look Like Drowning

ponobill — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 14:46:26 +0000

I found this on Playak, a kayak site I visit frequently looking for technique and equipment information:

This important and educational article was written by Mario Vittone and should be shared globally.

The Incident – The new captain jumped from the cockpit, fully dressed, and sprinted through the water. A former lifeguard, he kept his eyes on his victim as he headed straight for the owners who were swimming between their anchored sportfisher and the beach. “I think he thinks you’re drowning,” the husband said to his wife. They had been splashing each other and she had screamed but now they were just standing, neck-deep on the sand bar. “We’re fine, what is he doing?” she asked, a little annoyed. “We’re fine!” the husband yelled, waving him off, but his captain kept swimming hard. ”Move!” he barked as he sprinted between the stunned owners. Directly behind them, not ten feet away, their nine-year-old daughter was drowning. Safely above the surface in the arms of the captain, she burst into tears, “Daddy!”

How did this captain know? – from fifty feet away – what the father couldn’t recognize from just ten? Drowning is not the violent, splashing, call for help that most people expect. The captain was trained to recognize drowning by experts and years of experience. The father, on the other hand, had learned what drowning looks like by watching television. If you spend time on or near the water (hint: that’s all of us) then you should make sure that you and your crew knows what to look for whenever people enter the water. Until she cried a tearful, “Daddy,” she hadn’t made a sound. As a former Coast Guard rescue swimmer, I wasn’t surprised at all by this story. Drowning is almost always a deceptively quiet event. The waving, splashing, and yelling that dramatic conditioning prepares us to look for, is rarely seen in real life.

The Instinctive Drowning Response (IDR) – so named by Francesco A. Pia, Ph.D., is what people do to avoid actual or perceived suffocation in the water. And it does not look like most people expect. There is very little splashing, no waving, and no yelling or calls for help of any kind. To get an idea of just how quiet and undramatic from the surface drowning can be, consider this: It is the number two cause of accidental death in children, age 15 and under (just behind vehicle accidents) – of the approximately 750 children who will drown next year, about 375 of them will do so within 25 yards of a parent or other adult. In ten percent of those drownings, the adult will actually watch them do it, having no idea it is happening (source: CDC). Drowning does not look like drowning – Dr. Pia, in an article in the Coast Guard’s On Scene Magazine, described the instinctive drowning response like this:

“Except in rare circumstances, drowning people are physiologically unable to call out for help. The respiratory system was designed for breathing. Speech is the secondary or overlaid function. Breathing must be fulfilled, before speech occurs.

Drowning people’s mouths alternately sink below and reappear above the surface of the water. The mouths of drowning people are not above the surface long enough for them to exhale, inhale, and call out for help. When drowning people’s mouths are above the surface, they exhale and inhale quickly before their mouths start to sink below the surface again.

Drowning people cannot wave for help. Nature instinctively forces them to extend their arms laterally and press down on the water’s surface. Doing this permits drowning people to leverage their bodies so they can lift their mouths out of the water to breathe.

Throughout the IDR, drowning people cannot voluntarily control their arm movements. Physiologically, drowning people who are struggling on the surface of the water cannot stop drowning and perform voluntary movements such as waving for help, moving toward a rescuer, or reaching out for a piece of rescue equipment.

From beginning to end of the IDR people’s bodies remain upright in the water, with no evidence of a supporting kick. Unless rescued by a trained lifeguard, these drowning people can only struggle on the surface of the water from 20 to 60 seconds before submersion occurs”.

Source: On Scene Magazine: Fall 2006: 14

This doesn’t mean that a person that is yelling for help and thrashing isn’t in real trouble – they are experiencing aquatic distress. Not always present before the instinctive drowning response, aquatic distress doesn’t last long – but unlike true drowning, these victims can still assist in their own rescue. They can grab lifelines, throw rings, etc.

Other signs of drowning on the water:

Head low in the water, mouth at water level
Head tilted back with mouth open
Eyes glassy and empty, unable to focus
Eyes closed
Hair over forehead or eyes
Not using legs – Vertical
Hyperventilating or gasping
Trying to swim in a particular direction but not making headway
Trying to roll over on the back
Ladder climb, rarely out of the water.

So if a crew member falls overboard and everything looks OK – don’t be too sure. Sometimes the most common indication that someone is drowning is that they don’t look like they’re drowning. They may just look like they are treading water and looking up at the deck. One way to be sure? Ask them, “Are you alright?” If they can answer at all – they probably are. If they return a blank stare, you may have less than 30 seconds to get to them. And parents – children playing in the water make noise. When they get quiet, you get to them and find out why.

Waterman Workout Trailer

ponobill — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 16:03:33 +0000

I’ve been neglecting Extreme Geezer lately, but it’s for a good reason. I’ve been working hard on an exercise video with Dave Kalama. For those of you that don’t know him, Dave is one of the world’s great watermen and an amazing athlete. If you’d like to know more about him, a google search will pull up plenty of references, but here’s a link to his wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Kalama

Dave’s beach workout is almost as famous as Dave is. He’s been developing it since the mid 90′s as a way to meet the challenges of his demanding lifestyle. You might think a workout that meets the needs of such an outstanding athlete would be far beyond anything you or I might consider. You’d be wrong. It’s a great workout for me, and it would be great for you, regardless of your current condition. Here’s what Dave says:

Somehow my workout has gained a reputation of being incredibly difficult–but it’s not. I don’t think a workout that is just a nagging chore, or some kind of gut-buster is going to change your life. I started out with one simple thought: A workout that you stop doing won’t do you much good. So I designed and perfected it as a workout I would never stop.

That means no gym membership, no equipment other than a slightly tricked out rope, and a lot of choices about intensity, time commitment, and accommodating injuries. You can do it at ANY level.

What’s different about my workout is that I’ve always tuned up the exercises to help me be a better waterman. When I find a weakness or a new challenge in something I’m doing I add exercises to help me prepare for it. Over the years that meant windsurfing, big wave surfing, tow in, foilboarding, bodysurfing, short and longboard surfing, Stand Up Paddle surfing, racing, downwinding and endurance events, outrigger canoes for downwind, racing, and endurance events. In other words, anything a waterman might do.

These routines are NOT about doing the exercises hard and fast, and this really isn’t a workout. It’s part of a lifestyle. Something you and I can be doing ten or twenty years from now. I’ve taught these routines to people at all levels of fitness, from super-athletes (including the 2006 Women’s Olympic Ski Team) who add them to their own routines, to very unfit people who want to change their condition. You can start this at any level and keep going. Make it your own, do it where you want, make it fun.

In the spirit of making it fun we’ve put together a few silly trailers. Here’s one. I’m working on a trailer that give more of a flavor of the workout, and I think we’ll have the workout video and workbook ready in a few more weeks. In the meantime, enjoy.

[wpvideo bnUW7Ubc]

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Kalama’s 50/50

ponobill — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 01:22:31 +0000

As my coaching efforts increase, so does the necessity to be creative with my explanations of what I’m trying to convey. You can only say “Reach, Dammit, Reach” so many times before your student only hears “blah, blah, blah”. So I came up with a simple paddle exercise and a drill that does all the explaining for me, exhibits why reaching is so much more efficient, and helps you build a good reach into your stroke. I named it the…
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Possessed

ponobill — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 16:58:07 +0000

About four years ago, Laird and I concocted a plan to Stand up paddle across all the major channels in Hawaii and ride our bikes across every island, in an effort to help support our friend Don King, who was making a documentary about raising a autistic child. He needed some money to finish the project and Laird and I needed something to occupy our comfortable summer with some type of pain and suffering. It seemed like a great…
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Ultimate Rail Tape: Railsaver Pro

ponobill — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 16:00:52 +0000

Carles Carrera is a fanatic SUP fan and a motorcycle engineer/designer. He also likes to take care of his toys. When he knocked a chip out of one of his new boards he immediately started looking at options, and didn’t like what he saw. The end result is a fine solution for any of us that hate paddle scrapes and rail dings, but don’t want edge guards that screw up our paddles or rail tape that does more damage than it prevents.

Here’s Carles story:
It wasn’t such a big problem with my first Starboard. Some little impacts on the white rails of the Starboard Drive made scrapes, but it was nothing serious. I didn’t like it, but I could live with it. But during my second session on my gloss painted brand new PSH Wide Ripper, a little impact chipped the blue paint on the rail–I was really bummed.

I’m very careful with my toys, especially expensive new ones, and that little white chip drove me crazy. I wanted to find a solution for it. The clash between the sharp blade of a carbon paddle and the painted rail of a Stand Up Paddle board, needed an urgent solution.

My first thought was “improve your paddle technique so you don’t whack the board” but I never touch the board when paddling. It’s those rare, accidental whacks that I’m worried about. And what about novices, learning the ropes on a brand new board?

You could protect the blade of the paddle, as many people do. It’s cheap and effective, but only in terms of protection. But a blade guard affects the hydrodynamics of the blade. The better you get, the more you notice it. Why would people want to pay $300 for a quality paddle designed by and expert, and then cripple the way it works?

Protecting the rail of the board is the better solution. Even simple duct tape doesn’t affect hydrodynamics, because it’s really thin. It’s easy to apply. But its ugly, gets ripped up over time, and when you pull it off the adhesive makes the chips under the tape BIGGER by ripping off paint around them.

I resolved to find a solution. I contacted a technical decals supplier I trust who developed all the decals on every single motorcycle I developed during my experience as a Project Manager at the Piaggio group. They are a top-tier automotive supplier, with high-end technology and cool designers. I explained them the problem, and in a few weeks we had the first prototype to test. We tested it for months, optimized the coverage area, adhesive, impact adsorption, and myriad other details, and now we can proudly say that we have it ready. The first purpose designed edge protector for surfboards.

This is NOT some simple strip of tape. Our edge guard has a lenticular skin that yields high abrasion and extraordinary impact resistance with good ability to adapt to simple curves. The lenticular patterns are an emulation of nature, like a honeycomb, and allows us to minimize thickness while keeping mechanical properties and avoiding hydrodynamic loss. The adhesive we use and the toughness of the film allows for easy repositioning, thus facilitating placement.

And they look fantastic.

Rail Saver PRO comes as 2 pieces of 380 mil. thin, semi-rigid PVC, 6’3″ long, and 2″1/2 wide with cool designs and color combination, that can even be customized for shops, brands, etc … and in the near future will be available customized for every single customer. Rail Saver Pro is equally useful on longboards and windsurfers, whose rails are not subject to paddle whacks, but still get their share of bangs, dings and scraps.

Carles has a website for Rail Saver Pro at: http://www.railsaverpro.com/

All you need to do is look at this product to understand how well it will work. Not only does it prevent impacts and chips, it can cover the ones that are already there, making your board look good again. With the toughness of the material it’s unlikely you’ll need to replace them, but the reposition-able adhesive means you won’t have a nasty job ahead if you do. I learned a long time ago, to my dismay, that just taping the rails of a board leaves you with a bigger mess than you would have had if you’d just bashed away at the unprotected rails. Carles solution costs more than a strip of duct tape, but keeping the rails of your expensive board prefect for the life of the board is certainly worth the cost.

A great product.

Cape Cod Bay Challenge Gets Bigger

ponobill — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 22:42:40 +0000

The Cape Cod Bay Challenge is put on by a vigorous and talented group of people including the founders–Mike Brown and Bob Babcock (Full disclosure, Bob is my brother). They’ve been doing an amazing job growing and enhancing the event, both in terms of the people who participate and the participation of sponsors. I’ve been participating in the core event–the Cape Cod Bay Challenge–for the last three years and I can tell you firsthand, it’s the best organized, most fun, most satisfying event I do, and I do a lot of events.

The CCBC’s has a lot of sponsors, and they seem to stepping up for more participation every year. I saw the reason last year–the CCBC organizers pay a great deal of attention to giving their sponsors credit, attention and publicity. Besides growing to five events spanning the summer, the CCBC crew has become a 501c3 organization, so they can do a better job of distributing their charitable efforts. In a recent release Bob Babcock said:

“While Christopher’s Haven will still be our largest and primary beneficiary we are going to be choosing additional charities this year. For example, Community Boating where we have our Challenge on the Charles race will be getting 6 full setups of standup gear, boards, paddles, PFDs, and leashes. Last year over 2,400 kids went through their summer programs. Our own PonoBill learned to sail there when he was a kid…a long, long, long time ago…. Grin. CB was started in 1936 to teach inner city kids how to sail..needless to say they’ve touched the lives of lots of kids over the years. Thanks for the generosity of the folks at Kialoa and Naish for helping us do this.”

The Community Boat House will be receiving six Naish SUP boards, Six Kialoa paddles, six PFDs and leashes for their Stand Up Paddle Program

This year the CCBC will be advertising their events with two-page ads in Standup Paddle Magazine. “Thanks also to Reid and Fox they’ve been huge supporters. Our last advertisement this year will be dedicated to thanking all our amazing sponsors, our paddlers, and their donors for the success we know we’re going to have in 2011. They really help change the lives of so many. Last year 16 kids lived at Christophers Haven with their families while they underwent treatment for cancer thanks to the support of the CCBC. Our aim is to go far beyond that this year. We’re also doing a major redesign of our website. The folks at maintainnet.com are doing a complete pro-bono overhaul….going to be very interactive, lots of features, interconnected with all social media. The focus is to grow the CCBC ohana and give us an online presence to stay in touch” Bob said.

“We have a great board that volunteers an amazing amount of time to this I can’t thank all of them enough for helping Mike and I build this into what we see today, and the great thing is they are all stoked to see us dwarf where we already are.”

I already have my plane tickets for the 2011 CCBC–Portland Oregon to Boston, Massachusetts. It’s a tremendous event and it deserves all of our support. I hope to see you there.