Duane Strosaker shares his procedures for staying and working together while leading sea kayaking trips. We'd like to hear techniques you use for maintaining a cohesive happy group on the water.

It was interesting to me his use of scheduled breaks. The last couple of years my wife and I have had a group of cyclists train with us to do a double century. Last year we had a couple of new members that chafed a bit at our strict adherence to water and food breaks along with changes in the lead position. Joan and I missed one of the long distance training rides and asked afterward how it went. To a person they said they didn't ride as well as usual, and were exhausted at the end. They all said they missed the discipline we brought to the group.

We haven't paddled with that same degree of discipline but, after reading his article I'm thinking we'll be shifting our technique a bit.

After reading the article in Sea Kayaker (April 2012) I now realize why I'm not anxious to join any group paddles. You get to paddle at the slowest members rate, go where an arbitrary leader wants to go and stop when the weakest bladder dictates. Call me antisocial if you will, but some things go better without complications.

The only time I've been in a paddling group (that wasn't a class) that used scheduled breaks, the breaks concept was a good one because it means you're less likely to hold off peeing until you're ready to burst...with nowhere to stop. Also good for the body's metabolism to feed it regularly instead of waiting till people risk getting spacey or irritable.

Only complaint I had was that the breaks came too often. Ours were every 30 to 45 minutes! The "leader" needed it for stretching. But that's part of paddling with a group, I guess; things aren't exactly like I might want them to be.

Regular breaks would also be a good time to check weather if it is changing for the worse.

Those are physical aids to keeping a group happy and together. The more complicated part is the psychological side: personalities. That's the part I am a bit gunshy about. Would be interesting to read experienced leader/guide comments about THAT.

the breaks concept was a good one because it means you're less likely to hold off peeing until you're ready to burst...with nowhere to stop. Also good for the body's metabolism to feed it regularly instead of waiting till people risk getting spacey or irritable.

Hei,

I read the article with great interest and applied it to our clubs main outing this summer in the Finnish archipelago.

We were a group of 9 paddlers and the feedback I got from the participants was positive, some start even say "the clock is at top now, where is our break". It took bit more time to make these breaks but I believe it was compensated by being able to paddle bit faster, when focusing on it, instead of thinking when I am albe to drink/pee.

Will use it on my coming trips as well.

BR. Simo