Byron Bay to Burleigh Downwinder

Here's a nice pic of how you can plot your Garmin trip onto Google Earth



Here's some nice tools that you can use to see how you have gone using the Garmin office software



Dale had an hour long video recording from his camera that was mounted near the tail of his DC16. Once I figure out how to edit it I will post a piece of it. It looks pretty good and shows how good some of the runs were...

did you take any beers?

The steering is an excellent thing to have in a long paddle, especially when you have either wind/swell coming from the side. With our paddle, as with the paddle the guys did in Victoria, there was a lot of side wind (both blowing us away from the coast). Our wind was dead offshore for at least 2 hrs so we used the steering to assist us to keep our coarse. If you look at the GPS course you will see that we kept a pretty true coarse. This would have been extremely difficult without the steering.

In a previous paddle that DC and I did we relayed on a DC17 with a broken steering. This resulted in 4.5hrs of Left side paddling only. Not fun at all.

The steering is very simple and is adjusted by left/right movement of the steering lever under our left foot. I have a "natural" surfing stance so for me the left foot is my front foot. When you go into surfing stance on the big runs you can actually also use the rudder to help chase the runs better.

No worries, Dave.

Good to hear how you also see the need to take safety seriously. There is a lot that can go wrong out there and safety should be given a lot of attention. We thought long and hard about this and put a lot of extra safety measure in place for this paddle. There are still a few things that we can improve on, though, so it is a "work in progress"

If you are interested I will note a few of the safety measures that we used and lessons learnt on this paddle...

I'm the good looking one with the red boardies.

The blade of my paddle is probably a little too big for me, but that will change soon. I like what Nathan Myers (the iron man) paddles with - which is a concept brought back from PNG. He uses a long and thin blade. This concept allows you to regulate the amount of paddle area by using more/less paddle in the water (depth adjustment). At the moment I have no way to regulate this.

Hey Dave - here is a list of the Safety Gear used and a few lessons that we learnt:

1. Leg Ropes - We use standard surfboard leg ropes (4-6mm is fine so there’s not too much drag) and attach them to the leach plug at the tail. If you fall off in a big downwind and get separated from your board it can end up cart wheeling away from you and you will be in a bit of trouble.
2. Visibility - We also made both of our boards as brightly coloured as possible. I would advise at least making some part of your board (eg Nose and tail) as bright as you can, just in case you need rescuing. I used safety orange but Day-Glo orange is the way to go for sure. As my board is Orange all over I will be spraying a large black “V” on the bottom deck which will double up as a V sheet. We also spray painted the back of our paddle blades orange which can then be used to attract attention (again use Day-Glo orange). When any paddle got too far ahead of the other (we kept this to a minimum 100m) the front paddler would kneel down with the paddle upright. The orange paddle blade faced the lagging paddler and doubled up as a mini sail. Our clothing was also pretty bright and we will use high reflective attachments next time. It's no good if the rescue people cannot see you. So whatever you come up with make it as easy for these guys to find you.
3. Rescue Services - We contacted all of the relevant VMR (Volunteer Marine Rescue) agencies ahead of our paddle and discussed our route plan with them. On the day we phoned in every few hours (on our mobiles) so that they could monitor our progress. They were very helpful and appreciative of the fact that we tried to make their job of rescuing us as easy as possible.
4. Communication – We had mobile phones on both of the Jet Skis, our land support crew and also 1 for the paddlers. We would probably carry 1 mobile each next time as well as get waterproof VHS radios. We also carried whistles for attracting attention. I was going to bring some kind of high reflective surface (mirror) for attracting attention but did not get around to it – next time for sure.
5. EPIRB - We did not take these (why are they so expensive?) as we did not expect to be far enough offshore to need them. We will probably need to start using them in future. The local law is that you have to use these if more than 2 nautical miles from shore. Our max distance offshore was about 5km which is just on the limit.
6. Support Crews – We had 2 jet skis and 1 land based vehicle. The Jet Skis were very handy as we did not want to have to carry our extra fluids that we figured we would need. They also helped us keep an eye on unwanted friends from the deep. We had experimented with a shark shield on Dales board before but we have not quite worked this out properly. Once we get these worked out we will probably start using these on long paddles through sharky waters.
7. Medical Kit – This is a must have item. Ours included a tourniquet, trauma packs, bandages, a safety blanket, gloves, pain killers and anti histamine.
8. Flares - I would also advise each paddler to carry at least 1 flare (rocket or smoke) but 2 is better. If anyone gets separated from the group and they run into trouble they need to be able to get spotted by the rest of the group or rescue people.
9. Spare Paddle - I fell near Cook Island and actually broke my paddle handle (with about 20km to go). As we had support Jet Skis with us they carried the spare paddle, which was nice for us.
10. Tool kit – This contained a few important tools that could come in handy out to sea, including duck tape. We actually duck taped my broken paddle handle back together and I could use it rather than the spare.
11. Fluids - You should have at least a 3ltr backpack which should last you 6hrs of paddling (1/2 litres per hour). We carried 3 x 3 litre packs each. If you don’t like the back pack type get yourself the bum bag type. Dale and I used different liquids as it is important to find out what works for you. I have been using Endura Electrolyte mix which definitely works for me. I also use Endura Optimizer for recovery (pre and post paddles) assistance.
12. Skins – We both used long leg and long arm “skins”. These are really good for paddling and double up as sun protection clothing. The long legs keep the legs warm and work like a charm. I used the white “Ice” top which is great for keeping you cool (which helps in the hot climate up here) and keeps the sun out.
13. Sun Protection – We used total block out zinc on all of our exposed parts, especially the tops of our feet and face. We tried surfing booties for our feet but did not like them. If we do not find a better system we will stick to the zinc.

I have been following the thread on your paddle down there and it looks like you had a great time. I hope that you might find some of the things that we did useful for any future paddles that you guys do.

Think safe and you will have greater piece of mind. Come paddle up here with us any time....

Mikeman
Wow a very comprehensive insight. Thanks.
I must say that it it all seems a bit over the top, however if something went wrong then you would be very grateful to have some of the gear.
I think that the potentialy most dangerous part of our paddle was if one person is a few hundred metres behind or to the side, which is not uncommon, and hit their head or had cramp and was in the water there is no way of seeing them and certainly no way of paddleing back against the wind to look for them.
Epirbs and gps would be great but are expensive.
I really like my pfd which I bought as a requirement for the paddle leg of the Anaconda races. I hardly notice it is there but it has a hydration pack in built and various pockets for food and other gear. It also keeps the chest/thorax warm.
I know that Jonathan is getting a waterproof hatch put in his new pene14 and I am sure that these purpose built boards will in the future have more fastners for spare paddles and other safety gear.
Like I say it may seem a bit over the top but this big water paddling is such a blast and you may as well be as safe as possible.
Dave

Hey NewcastleSUP,

I read your risk management article and it was spot on. Everyone should take this on board. Nice work.

I personally don't like your open hat idea as I always go for the closed hat option. You really need sun protection on your scalp when spending a long time exposed to the sun. Your scalp, face, hands and feet are the parts that need extra attention.

Our safety planning certainly looks over the top at a glance, but it isn't. We are trying to look at everything that can possibly go wrong and have a plan for it. Prevention is better than cure. We expected our paddle to take around 8hrs so we needed to plan for around 10-12hrs.

Looks like a nice paddle from Redhead to Newcastle

Hey Lobes,

You can get the skins in white and they call them by the name "ice". There is some special coating on them that cools them down, which is why we went for them on our upper body. Here is a link http://www.skins.net/au/en/HowSkinsWork/ICE to their site. For you up there you would probably go the white all round and the guys down south might go black all round.

I don't think anyone is using steering for under 16', which does not mean to say that you shouldn't. It all depends what distances you intend to paddle and what your prevailing conditions will be. They are great for side wind/current and also for the runs. On a smaller board you can get away with more body weight distribution on the runs than you can on a longer board.

Hopefully I will finish editing the video soon and post it. We have 1 hr footage and I need to cut it down...

Here is another test run (no music this time)

I like the last video because it shows people that don't do downwinders how important runners are.

U can see mike go off in the distance after catching a few runners.

Got to love Dales R&D office!

mac

Here is another short video clip that shows a few extra things

Firstly, here is one of the only 2 falls that Dale had on the whole trip. Yes just under 70km with only 2 falls! He paddles with a very low centre of gravity with a lot of pivot forward from the hip. I paddle with a much straighter back to try and use a more efficient and smoother stroke. I fall a lot more than Dale but expend less energy than he does.

Secondly, this clip hopefully shows that we never allowed ourselves to get seperated by more than around 100m during the whole trip. As soon as Dale fell I went onto my knees and put the paddle blade straight up into the air. This would let Dale see where I was even though I might have been down a trough. It also enabled me to keep on moving forward using the wind on the blade face as a small sail.