Hand Roll!

[Damon Caskey]

Buddy of mine hits his first hand roll. If any of you are fellow paddlers, you know how tough that that is to pick up.

http://youtu.be/H9zd2sR9KMg

[bWWd]

Thats why i never tried and probably never will try sports like this, would be terrible to drown and die like that in a stupid way.
If there would be switch to disassemble this thing in half immediately to escape when youre upside down then maybe...

[Bloodbane]

 I'm not paddler but I can imagine how tough it is judging from the 1st attempt.
 Congratulations to him anyways!

would be terrible to drown and die like that in a stupid way.

 That's why there's Damon around. He'll do the rescue if his friend never gets up.

[Damon Caskey]

Thats why i never tried and probably never will try sports like this, would be terrible to drown and die like that in a stupid way.
If there would be switch to disassemble this thing in half immediately to escape when youre upside down then maybe...

It's easy to get out. You just pull the escape strap, your spray skirt pops and you slip out. NP. The thing is, you only want to do that as a last resort. In the pool, it's a major hassle because because you just flooded the kayak. Now you have to drag it back to the side, drain, remount, and start all over. Now imagine that in the river. Same issue, plus you just gave up your mobility, floatation (even flooded kayaks have more buoyancy then a life jacket), and protection. Swimming in white water != fun. There are proper techniques for whitewater swimming, but you can only do so much. You're going to get beat up at least a little and probably loose some expensive gear. Get pushed into a keeper hole, undercut or strainer and then you do die in a stupid way.

That's why rolling and bow rescues are so important and why we work on them so much. Just like a kip up or ground roll, once their committed to muscle memory, you can do them on reaction. After that, capsizing goes from being a royal pain and potentially fatal to just another move in your bag of tricks. Then you can do stuff like this safely:

http://youtu.be/3vDNF9GPFQ4

Or even this:

http://youtu.be/IW4rARFekng

DC