Essential Kayak Safety Skills Every Paddler Should Know

We say it often because it matters: progression comes from practice. Whether you’re new to kayaking or a seasoned paddler, there’s never a bad time to brush up on your skills.

In this series, veteran kayaking instructor Ken Whiting demonstrates the essential techniques every kayaker should know. In this guide, you’ll learn how to wet exit, re-enter a kayak, use a hip snap, perform braces and practice a T-rescue.

How to Wet Exit a Kayak (Step-by-Step)

The wet exit is one of the first maneuvers a beginning kayaker needs to learn. This applies to touring, sea kayaking, and whitewater boats. If you flip while you’re in a sit-on-top or inflatable kayak, you’ll just naturally fall out.

In a sit-inside boat, you’ll often be wearing a sprayskirt. When putting the skirt on the cockpit rim, be sure the grab loop, or “ripcord,” is exposed on the outside of the skirt. Having it tucked inside the boat where you can’t grab it to release the skirt can cause a panicked reaction!

How to Practice a Wet Exit Safely

It’s important to practice the wet exit because while it isn’t difficult to master, until you’ve done it, you’ll always be nervous about flipping your boat. When you do flip over, tuck forward on the deck, grasp the ripcord and pull it to release the sprayskirt from the cockpit coaming.

Ideally, you’ll hold onto your paddle with one hand, or tuck it under your arm to keep it under your control. When you pop the skirt, you’ll move your hands back toward your hips and, while still leaning forward, push yourself out. You’ll end up doing a bit of a forward roll out of your boat.

Common Wet Exit Mistakes to Avoid

The trickiest part of this maneuver is fighting the instinct to lean back as you get out of the boat. The problem with leaning back is it lifts your butt off the seat and presses your thighs against the thigh hooks, which only slows you down.

The whole wet exit process only takes a few seconds. When you pop up to the surface, get a hold of your boat and paddle and get ready to go to the next stage: getting back into your boat.

Not having to wet exit and go through the hassle of righting the boat and clambering back aboard is great incentive for practicing and perfecting your kayak roll!

How to Re-Enter a Sit-Inside Kayak

There are a number of ways to get back aboard your kayak if you go for a swim. When there’s another paddler available to assist, they can stabilize your kayak while you scramble back inside. They can also scoop you back upright if you're too tired or injured to climb back onto the boat.

Righting Your Boat

If your boat is upside down, the first order of business is to flip it back upright. Do this quickly, in one smooth motion, to minimize water entry. With the kayak upright, the assisting partner can quickly move in to stabilize the boat. This is a committing act and proper technique is needed to avoid having two swimmers!

The partner wants to place their body at the bow of the swimmer’s kayak. They will lean over and solidly grasp the bow with both hands. The flotation of both boats and the anchoring of the partner provides a stable platform for the swimmer.

Re-Entry

Now it’s the swimmer’s turn to complete the re-entry. Reach over and grasp the cockpit rim. Let your legs float up to the surface, then pulling with your arms and kicking with your feet, pull your chest onto the back deck. Turn to face the stern, slide your legs inside the boat and corkscrew your body into the seat.

There’ll be some water inside the boat, so the partner can continue holding onto the boat while the swimmer removes the water with a bilge pump. As an alternative to an assist, if the boat is close to shore, the swimmer can tow it ashore to empty out the water.

The Scoop Method

If the swimmer is too tired, or possibly injured, to climb back in the kayak, the scoop rescue may be necessary. The partner holds the swimmer’s boat up on its side. The swimmer floats into the cockpit and leans back to lower their center of gravity while the partner rights the kayak. There’ll be a lot of water inside the boat, making it very unstable, so it’s important to keep stabilizing it while the water is pumped out.

How to Do a Kayak Hip Snap (Hip Flick)

The hip snap, or hip flick, is a key component of several essential kayaking skills including the high brace, low brace, and all kayak rolling techniques. Once you’ve mastered this technique, you’ll be ready to learn more advanced rolling and bracing skills for both sea and whitewater kayaking.

Hip Snap Setup and Body Position

The hip snap is the technique you’ll need to use every time you lose your balance. It’s undoubtedly the main thing you need to master before trying to learn to roll your kayak. The idea behind it is simple: by staying loose at your waist, you can use your knee to roll your hips and level off a flipped, or flipping, kayak. You need to have the kayak’s outfitting—the hip, thigh, and heel pads—customized to your body so that your hip and knee movements are transmitted to the boat.

You need some support for your upper body to execute the hip snap. Usually that will be your paddle, but you can even learn to roll just using your hands. The fact that you can roll up using your hands shows how important the hip snap is, and how much easier it can be when you have your paddle for support.

Executing the Hip Snap

To practice the hip snap, you can use something like the side of a pool or a low dock. Better yet, you can use the end of a friend’s kayak.

Get a firm grip, roll your kayak on its side and lay your cheek on your hands. Relax your hips and use your top knee to pull the kayak over on you. You’ll know you’ve gone far enough when the cockpit rim comes in contact with your body. Then, use your lower knee to level off the kayak. Again, you’ll know when you’ve gone far enough when the cockpit rim touches your side.

Practice the hip snap this way until it feels natural and instinctive. Now you’re ready to move on to mastering braces and rolling your kayak!

How to Do a High Brace in Kayaking

The high brace is an essential kayak technique that will help you avoid a flip. Whether sea kayaking or whitewater kayaking, you need this important skill.

How the Hip Snap Powers a High Brace

The high brace and the low brace are essentially the same. They both involve reaching out and slapping the water to get the support you need to hip snap your kayak upright. It’s important to realize that the slap of the paddle provides momentary support—the hip snap does the rest.

As you flip, the only way to right the kayak is to pull up with the knee that’s going under water. The only way to pull up with the knee is to drop your head in the direction that you’re flipping. Seems counterintuitive, but it’s the only way that it works! Your head must be the last thing that comes up after a well-executed hip snap. If you raise your head early, you will inadvertently pull up with your top knee, which flips you more quickly.

If you’re having problems with this, try looking down at your slapping blade; it’s harder to lift your head when you’re looking down.

High Brace Form and Shoulder Safety

The high brace is definitely the most powerful of the recovery techniques. However, be aware that if done incorrectly, your shoulders will be at risk of hyperextension and injury. You need to keep your arms and the paddle low and in the “chin-up position,” with your forearms almost vertical.

Reach out over the water with the power face of the paddle facing down. Once you slap the water, pull your paddle blade inward, roll your knuckles inward and slice the blade out of the water.

Once you’re comfortable with the high brace on both sides, start tilting the boat and practicing the head-drop / knee pull-up motion.

How to Do a Sculling Brace in Kayaking

The sculling brace is an essential kayak technique that will help you advance your paddling. Mastering this brace will help you stay upright and aid in completing your roll.

What is the Sculling Brace?

The sculling brace is an advanced bracing technique that lets you get steady support from your paddle blade. The key to this technique is to keep the blade near the surface of the water, sweeping it back and forth, with a climbing angle on the blade; that is, with the forward edge of the blade slightly elevated so that you’re continually pushing down on the water.

Start practicing with your boat flat on the water and your paddle in the high brace position. Since the idea behind the sculling brace is to keep steady downward pressure against the water, you’re going to keep your hands low and the paddle as horizontal as possible. From this position, sweep your paddle forward and backward, about two feet out from the side of your kayak. Focus on keeping a climbing angle on your blade, making quick transitions and using torso rotation to power the stroke.

Why It’s Important

As you become more comfortable and confident with the stroke, lean your weight over farther and farther to the side so that your paddle blade actually needs to supply bracing support. However, the idea behind the sculling brace stroke isn’t to be able to do a trick of leaning over on your side. The technique allows you to keep your balance when you get knocked sideways, or to salvage a failed, or failing, brace or roll.

Practice the brace until it’s instinctual and you’ll be ready to automatically pull it off when the need arises.

How to Do a Sculling Draw Stroke

Whether you’re in a sea kayak, sit-on-top, fishing kayak, or whitewater boat, knowing how to do a sculling draw stroke will move your paddling skills up a notch. When you master this stroke, you can easily move sideways without having to turn the boat. This is especially useful when boating in tight spaces like rock gardens and restricted channels.

Sculling is an advanced technique, but you can master it with some concentrated practice in a calm section of water. You’ll probably find it easier to do on one side of the boat, but practice on both sides until it’s dialed!

Sculling Draw Technique

The sculling draw stroke is a technique requiring full upper body participation and subtle paddle movement. Start with the paddle shaft held vertically and the blade about two feet from the boat. Move the blade back and forth through the water so that the leading edge is slightly elevated, or at a “climbing angle.” Don’t exaggerate the angle or you’ll be moving the boat forward and backward instead of sideways.

Your hands and arms stay in a relatively fixed position, with your lower wrist flexing as you move the shaft back and forth. The power for the stroke comes from torso rotation. Keep facing the paddle shaft and as you twist your body aggressively, in coordination with your wrists, you’re able to make rapid strokes that provide momentum to propel the boat sideways at a surprising rate.

How to Perform a T-Rescue in Kayaking

The T-Rescue is a great kayaking technique to master. You flip upside down and a buddy brings their boat up to assist you. By grasping their bow and executing the hip snap you learned earlier, you can easily roll upright. It’s excellent practice for learning to roll your sea kayak or whitewater kayak unassisted.

Understanding the T-Rescue

The T-Rescue is the most basic form of kayak rescue and a great way to prepare for rolling. It teaches you to relax under water and how to orient yourself when you’re upside down. It also forces you to use your hip snap from a completely inverted position.

With a rescuer close by, flip yourself upside down. The rescuer will then approach your boat at 90 degrees and offer you the bow of their kayak. You’ll grab the bow of their boat, use it for support and leverage your way upright, just like you learned in the earlier hip snap lesson.

Using the Hip Snap in a T-Rescue

When you’re upside down, you’ll reach up with a hand on either side of the boat and slap it with both hands three times to let the rescuer know you’re ready for their help. Then you’ll define the target area for the rescuer by running your hands along the sides of the boat to guide them in. The rescuer will gently nudge their bow into the target area, right into your hands.

With your hands on the bow of their boat, you’re really executing a roll, just without a paddle. You still bring your body up to the surface, and using the other boat for support, you execute your hip snap to pull yourself upright. Practice using good roll form as you swing your body back over the kayak.

Why Practicing Kayak Safety Skills Matters

Paddling is like a coordinated dance with the water. You start out as a novice without much knowledge of your partner’s moods and abilities. As you experiment and add new steps to your repertoire, you learn how to work with the water instead of struggling against it.

Keep on learning new techniques; your paddling will be more effortless, and more fun!