Playboating with your Karma UL

Depending on when you started boating, playing with a long boat may be a foreign concept or a trip down memory lane. Kayakers have always play boated but how we play has evolved with the boats. The core of classic play boating is surfing and enders! The surfing end of things is not all that different than surfing in a modern boat. Having said that you will be able to surf many more waves due to the hull speed of the UL. The flatter waves that are out of reach for most modern boats will all be within your grasp now. You will need to mind your bow a bit so that it does not pearl. If it does pearl lean forward and crank a bit of edge. That way the bow will rise to the surface and then you can flatten it out to retain your surf. In a side surfing situation just plan on a slower spin at the corners of the hole. You may require a backstroke or two to give you a tiny bit of momentum back into the feature. Really keep your eyes focused on the upstream green water of the feature. This will really work to help you retentive. Just take your time and enjoy the learning curve.

Enders are the best part of classic play! An ender is the original airborne freestyle kayak move. We need to find the correct feature to accommodate the length of the UL. We need to find a nice deep hole or wave. The trick is to keep the boat flat and to get the bow to dive down. If the boat starts to shank to a side place a rudder on the opposite side to keep you straight to the main flow of water. The most common mistake when learning to ender is to stand up to early. This will flatten you out. Keep on leaning forward and wait until the boat is vertical or super close before you stand up. Now that you are vertical feel free to stand on your unishock and enjoy the ride. Once you can consistently get vertical it is time to start playing with some super fun variations of the ender. The first step is to add some rotation to the mix. As you get vertical have a blade in the water and look over that shoulder and push back and down on the blade. You will rotate in that direction. Try to vary the speed of your rotation so that you can pull a 360 and land flat. Once you can do that try to execute the same move when the boat has only elevated 70 degrees. Continue to play with that to see how low you can go. The other option is the retendo. Try to go past vertical and then pull of the rotation. In the perfect setting you will land back in a side surf so that you can set up and do it again! Embrace our play history and have fun!

Later; Colin
Team JK