For: Open Water Crossings. This lanyard is useful for open water, where entanglement is a minor or nil concern, but losing your boat if you dump out is a critical problem.
Description: A short (est. 4 ft.) removable lanyard securing your paddle to your boat; can be set up to also connect to your pack and/or wrist/body.
Materials:
- Approx 2 meters / 1 fathom of cord.
Optional: 1 bottle-locks/cordlocks + 1 extra foot of cord for a wrist tie.
Optional: carabiner for quick hook/unhook from boat.
Construction:
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- tie a loop in each end of the cord. I prefer to use figure-8 knots or bowlines w/ backup for security. Size of loops should be a couple inches: large enough to accomodate a paddle shaft.
- Girth hitch one end to a grab loop on your boat.
- Run your paddle shaft through the other loop. Loops should be large enough to accomodate the shaft, but small enough the loop cannot slide over a blade. If you dump in wind, you’re more-than-likely to end up holding the paddle length-wise, pointed the the boat.
Optional Wrist Loop:
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- Run the cordlock onto your 1-foot length of cord.
- Tie the two loose ends together securely.
- Run the lanyard between the cordlock and the knot.
- The cordlock can be cinched against the knot (to hold the loop in one place on the lanyard), or cinched against your wrist when you’ve got your hand through the loop. Personally, I won’t do the latter unless I feel comfortable loosenbing the wrist-loop-lock with my teeth, since my other hand may be busy when I want to do that. I’m paranoid like that.
Usage:
Pretty self-explanatory. If you’re out on the open water and dump, hold onto your paddle and your boat can’t run away. A wrist lock gives you some wiggle room to drop your paddle in complex situations. If you have a pack on the boat, you can connect a midsection of the lanyard to your pack as well. That way, if you - say - capsize and need to dump the pack to right the boat, you won’t lose your pack to the deep blue sea.