hands free

I recently received an email from a mat rider who wanted to know if I ever swam outside the waves and then blew up my mat.

I have employed this method on a few occasions. The surf doesn't get that big around here so I was able to put enough air in the mat to be able to find it if I lost hold of it and just swam out that way.

The mat rider who wrote me was thinking of some sort of pouch attached to a wetsuit vest. That would provide a hands free approach and make the swim outside more efficient.

In our correspondence, I mentioned that I believe that Dale Solomonson had done some work in this area.

Anyone out there have some experiences they would like to share?

Comments

Unknown said…
yes dale designed a pouch for a guy in the us.of.a some years ago
Quiver said…
Can't remember the guys name, but word is he swims out on 10'+ days at pleasure point in santa cruz. Inflates and off he goes. I've never seen it happen, but the method makes sense because at pp you can swim in from the back side of the point and the current will drag you to the peak. The hard part is not crossing the peak before you make it outside. If you do, off you go in a world of whitewater.
Seems like it wouldn't work as well somewhere where you had to swim from the channel agains the current, but would work at a large beach break like Ocean Beach in San Francisco. Of course at OB once I got a ride I'd be tempted to ride it to the sand, deflate and start all over again.
Anonymous said…
"Can't remember the guys name, but word is he swims out on 10'+ days at pleasure point in santa cruz. Inflates and off he goes."

It's Martin Headman:

http://www.martinheadman.com/

Martin uses several different Neumatics. Wears his MatPack (yes it works very well) depending on wave conditions.

Cheers

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