Kayak roll

A kayak roll (often referred to as an Eskimo roll) is the act of righting a capsized kayak by use of body motion and/or a paddle. Typically this is done by lifting the torso towards the surface, flicking the hips to right the kayak, and applying a small force by means of the paddle to assist the torso back over the boat. The roll is an essential for paddlers who attempt serious whitewater (Class IV or greater), as exiting the boat and swimming gives the paddler less maneuverability and control, and thus leaves him/her more exposed than in the boat.

The skill of righting a capsized kayak was devised by the hunter-gatherer societies that also developed the kayak as a hunting boat; the Aleut and Inuit people. The Greenland Inuit used several techniques that allowed the kayak to be righted with or without a paddle, also using only one hand, or without hands at all. A survey in Greenland in 1911 found that of a total of 2,228 hunters with a kayak of their own, 867 were able to roll.

In 1605, some Inuit men and their kayaks were brought back to Europe by a Danish expedition; they gave a demonstration of rolling and racing against rowing boats in Copenhagen harbour, watched by King Christian IV. A similar exhibition was held at The Hague in 1625. Paul Egede, the teenaged son of a missionary living with the Inuit, was probably the first non-native to learn to roll a kayak in the 1730s. Rolling was demonstrated in 1889 at Sandviken, Norway by Oluf Dietrichson, a member of Nansen's 1888 Greenland expedition. With the rapid growth in the sport of kayaking in Europe and the USA during the 1920s, the ability to roll was popularised by an Austrian kayaker, Edi Hans Pawlata (1900–1966). Although not, as he claimed, the first European to acquire the skill, he developed a technique in which the hand grips the end of the paddle, which proved easy to master. His "Pawlata roll" is still sometimes taught to beginners. Greenlandic kalaaleq, Manasse Mathæussen (1915–1989), earned a living giving rolling demonstrations and kayak stunts for films. In 1949, he set a record by performing 10 successive rolls in 18 seconds.

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