My Review of REI Hoodoo 3 Tent - '09 Special Buy

Originally submitted at REI

The Hoodoo 3 is a full-featured, lightweight tent that optimizes convenience for 3 persons with ample headroom, 2 doors and generous storage.

REI Hoodoo 3 Tent - '09 Special Buy

Versatile Big Tent

By Haris from Chicago, IL on 5/19/2010

 

4out of 5

Gift: No

Pros: Fly Works Well, Easy To Set Up, Windproof, Waterproof, Comfortable

Best Uses: Backyard, Beach, Car Camping

Describe Yourself: Avid Adventurer

What Is Your Gear Style: Minimalist

I've owned this tent for two seasons. We bought it as a replacement for Alps Mountaineering Orion 3 tent because it shaves off over 4lbs of weight from that, otherwise excellent, tent. An additional benefit is much easier set up. Not having to thread the poles through holes in the fly helps a lot. HooDoo set up is somewhat different from the other tents I used and requires some learning which may intimidate some of the less technically inclined. Once you understand how things go together (and they are color coded) it's quick and painless.

The poles don't fit together very well one folded. There are a couple small sections with breaks on each side I have to guess and try which side to open every time I fold them. Somewhat annoying. I guess I could just mark the right ones once and for all but that would be work :)

Love the horizontal walls--makes the interior feel so much bigger!

HooDoo 3 is a bit smaller than the Orion 3 and has just enough room for 3 20"-wide sleeping pads. With three people, there's very little room left for gear. I miss the overhead mesh storage compartment of Orion 3 but HooDoo has smallish pockets in each corner of the tent.

Vestibules were larger than other tents when I compared them on-line; however, my Orion 3 has substantially more vestibule space.

We used this tent as a shelter on the beach and during our son's outdoor swim meets--set up the ground cloth with the rain fly without the tent. Works very well and is easy to set up.

Although it could be used as such, I would not classify this as a backpacking tent. There are many of the same size that are much lighter but, of course, they normally cost more. I've used this tent for car and kayak camping with great success.

(legalese)

Into the new decade

Last weekend I gathered a bunch of friends from various walks of my life to inaugurate the fifth decade for me.

Before the party I was really eager to show of the standing waves on the mighty DuPage river. It rained the night before so, with the vast basin on this river, I was hopeful. The gauge was not showing much rise. And there wasn't much to show for the rain, as it turned out...

On the positive end, when the water is not high enough to generate the waves, a kayak in capable hands can make it up the stream throught he drop/constriction. And we had six capable hands...

Thanks to Eimly and Pierre for helping me smoothly transition into the new decade. I hope that it will be full of paddling.

Paddle on and paddle hard!

Empirical Feel for the Paddle Length

My first paddle was made by Canon. It had a fiberglass shaft and nylon blades. It's 230cm long. I got it to propel myself in a barge of a kayak: the folding Folbot Greenland II double. That's a beast with 34" of beam and 17" cockpit height. Folbot recommended 260cm for that boat but 230cm worked for me as long as I but a few inches of padding on my seat and was able to clear the coaming.

Since then I slimmed down. First came a single Folbot Cooper with a 24" beam. After that an old Valley Nordkapp HS—my slimmest boat at 20.5". With slimming boats and increasing appetite and skills, my paddles shrunk too. First I got an all-fiberglass 215cm Lendal, then another Lendal shaft to go with the fiberglass blades—a carbon bent-shaft 210cm. For the past 6 months I've been paddling a loaner 210cm all-carbon Werner Ikelos.

All along the way, "shorter is better and more efficient" has been the word.

This past weekend, I went for a paddle on a shallow rocky West Branch of the DuPage river. For the first time in years I've brought out my 230cm fiberglass-plastic Canon weapon. Just wanted to see how it feels and what difference 20cm in length really makes. Did not really want to bang up the primary guns against the bottom either.

First impression—the paddle felt very comfortable and efficient for casual stroking. The weight was not noticeably different from my fiberglass Lendal and the paddling was not any harder due to extra length. Very quickly I noted that the shaft was not as stiff as Lendal or Werner. It felt more like a Greenland stick as it obviously flexed with every stroke. I kinda liked that… I also liked the longer reach at the beginning of the stroke. It seemed like I could put more into each stroke and apply more power if I wanted to. So I decided to want to…

That's where things started to break apart. First, it was hard to maintain a high angle stroke as the blade went too deep under water and was harder to take out of the water. There was also no way I could generate high-frequency cadence with the longer shaft. Even though the blades on this Canon Heritage paddle had much lower surface area than my Lendal Kinetic or Werner Ikelos, the longer shaft increased the arm of the lever to the point where even these smaller blades quickly exceeded my available power. So while a fresh 4.5-knot touring pace with a stroke somewhere between a high and a low-angle felt very relaxed comfortable and efficient, sprinting with this paddle was awkward. Shorter paddle definitely has an advantage here regardless of the blade size.

Then I tried maneuvering strokes. I loved the extra extension on the stern ruddering strokes. Put the paddle parallel to the boat and work the throttle to see-saw from a pry to a draw. The boat responded wonderfully. Longer blade gives greater leverage and since the loads during ruddering are relatively low on intensity, extra length is an advantage. Something makes me think that the speed and power involved in surfing would most likely overwhelm the hands wielding a longer weapon.

Extra length does not work so well on bow rudders either. I immediately got lost with upper hand somewhere in the sky, lower blade deep under water and the amount of strain on the body noticeably greater than with a shorter paddle. Positioning the blade was also more lethargic, fine control more elusive. This could be, in part, due to the fact that I have not used this paddle for a long time but the difference was so stark that I tend to dismiss this argument of disuse.

Sweep strokes with a longer paddle—you guessed it—are more efficient. Here the more power and leverage you have the better. Since the blade is farther away from the boat, both the turning and the supporting momentums benefit.

In summary, longer paddles have come in disrepute lately. After a few hours of paddling a low-tech cheap long paddle, I could see no prohibitive disadvantages to using it for casual paddling. Some maneuvering strokes and bracing may be a bit slower with the longer paddle; however, this lag is more than compensated by the additional leverage that a blade gains when it is used farther away from the hull. As long as the blade is not too big, a longer paddle seems perfectly appropriate for a non-technical paddler. Lower paddling angle is also known as less demanding on the upper body strength and seems more appropriate for people who are less physically fit.

Except for the stern rudder and sweep strokes, a longer paddle will most likely interfere with technical paddling strokes and intermediate-to-advanced maneuvers. Acceleration is sluggish, bow rudder is awkward, braces are slower, draw strokes seemed less efficient due to sinking blade. It also seems like a longer paddle would be more of a hindrance than help when rolling in rough water. Extra leverage will be nullified by the difficultly of maneuvering the blades into proper position.

At the end of the day, I expect that longer paddles will be back in vogue in the next decade or so.

Standing Waves on the Mighty West Branch DuPage River

With the water about a foot above average, there are some surfable standing waves on the normally placid West Branch of DuPage river just north of Butterfield Rd. in Warenville.

About four of them are progressively longer from the first one with all of 2' to the last one that's probably good 6-8' long. They are not steep, hard to get on to, reside in swift current artificially produced by strategically placed boulders that constrict the flow. The water is about a foot deep on either side.

It is a pretty good place to practice surfing as the set-up is completely unforgiving.  I clocked the average drift speed at 5.5 knots with the GPS.

PS Here's a picture of the spot from the other side at an average flow.

When it is that low, I can paddle through the constriction.  GPS speed with average water levels was just a hair over 3 knots.

THE TALE OF TWO BOW RUDDERS?

I am in love with the bow rudder but I don't know her name! There, I said it. To me it's the sexiest most efficient and effortless move in a kayak. More than that, the way the boat spins under you when motions align just right feels almost magical. The turning momentum seems to perpetuate itself. It's like the boat starts to give back what put into it.

For a decent free skill description and illustrations of the stroke with moving images see this Atlantic Kayak Tours web page. Search also for "Bow Rudder" among these videos by Doug Cooper if you'd like to see a short movie of the skill in action. If you don't have them already Doug Cooper and Gordon Brown's books are great resources for updating your kayaking skills. They both also contain good consistent descriptions of the Bow Rudder. Gordon has a DVD companion to the book out as well.

Gordon Demonstrates cross-bow rudder

Then, there's another detailed and well-illustrated description of the skill by the same name by Derrick Mayoleth. You may not even notice much difference between the two versions but, in my opinion, what separates them is so critical that two different names should be used to label them. Derrick's is the way the bow rudder looked when I met her but she is definitely not the one I fell in love with. Yet, it is the skill as illustrated by Derrick that seems to fit the name. That stroke actually attempts to pull the bow in the direction of the blade. Applying the same name to the turning maneuver presented by Atlantic Tours, Brown and Cooper (ABC) seems to me like a long stretch. More than surface semantics, both of the words in the name obscure the little ABC gem from the sights or well-meaning students of the sport. What's your name, darling?

Derrik demonstrating lean-forward bow rudder

ABC version of the 'so-called' bow rudder is neither done at the bow nor is it really a ruddering stroke. ABC way, the active blade is planted perpendicular to the surface of the water at the paddler's knees, next to the gunwale. The placement is much closer to the kayak's longitudinal center of gravity than its bow. Furthermore, there is really no reason to move it in that direction in principle. If anything, I am curious it if wouldn't work even better applied a foot aft. The live blade placement is distinctly different in the forward-reaching skill as illustrated in Derrick's post. Here the paddler needs to lean distinctly forward and advance the rudder toward the bow. The body rotation in the two versions is in the opposite directions. For ABC you "face the work" on inside of the turn with maximum torso rotation. In the alternative, you are rotated with the opposite shoulder facing the bow as the outboard hand extends as far forward as possible.

The term 'rudder' in the name implies that the paddler should be trying to concentrate the action on the end of the boat. After all, 'rudder' is a steering contraption always found at the (rear) end of the boat. Substituting 'bow' for 'stern' does nothing to the implicit suggestion that the stroke should be performed as far away from the center of the boat as possible. The first term in the name—'bow'—does the same thing: it tells you to reach for the bow with the paddle.

Atlantic Kayak Tours version of bow rudder

The role of the active blade in the ABC incarnation is not intended to move or anchor the bow. Here the paddle in the water serves the role of a pivot point around which the kayak swings–bow moving in one direction stern in the opposite. In that sense, although it is clearly meant for turning the boat, the move feels more like a draw-on-the-move or a side-slip than a rudder. Cooper gives an apt analogy when he writes that bow rudder should feel like a runner grabbing on to a stationary post with one hand and spinning around. The forward-reaching version of the bow rudder emphasizes anchoring the bow, releasing the stern so that it could slide around. Leaning forward, weighing the bow, taking the weight from the stern, and sticking the blade near the bow to anchor it are mobilized to that end. The ABC version treats bow and stern on equal terms. Instead, it capitalizes on finding the most efficient pivot point on which to spin the kayak around its longitudinal center axis not unlike a table-top. The paddler remains fully upright throughout the turn.  Finally, the lower elbow is fully extended in the former and tucked into the pelvis in the latter--seems a bit safer to me.

I am yet to confirm this in the field, but I would guess that the ABC way would not work quite as well as the lean-forward version for turning into the wind. In practice, I only know that I can easily turn 180° or more on calm days but was barely able to do 90° with strong beam wind using ABC. The latter is much more efficient at producing quick radical changes of direction in tight quarters will less body contortion … not to mention it looks much more elegant and also makes your legs shake with excitement J

So what do you think—are these two different versions of the same skill or two different skills? Are we doing those who are learning the skills any favors by misdirecting their attention from the knee toward the bow and toward ruddering instead of pivoting and spinning? How about something like "gunwale swing" or "beam spin" instead? The way the kayak dances alongside the planted blade could almost pass as a dos-á-dos dance move. Whatever you call it, give them both a try and see if it changes your relationship as much as it did for me. Whatever you decide, I'll always go to my spinning version to get a smile on my face and a tingle in the belly.

While we're at it, how about a cross-bow bow rudder that is initiated by bringing your paddle across the deck rather than the bow, has the blade planted at the cockpit rather than the bow, and uses the paddle as a pivot point rather than a rudder? Any takers?

Is Visibility Statute or Nautical? Decide for Yourself

In a kayak, it's often good to know the distance to some destination or object. The human visual system is pretty bad at this task. I can easily recall many instances of paddling for hours without any apparent gain on large distant targets. It always feels that progress should be faster…

Kayak navigation books such as Burch or Ferrero provide some help. They give a simple formula for calculating distances at which objects with given elevations above the sea level will be seen. The range of visibility in miles is equal to the square root of elevation as measured in feet. For example, a light house 100 feet above the sea level will be visible from 10 miles away. The formula is for an observer at the sea level.

In a kayak, you are not at sea level. For an observer in a kayak cockpit, you can add 1.5 miles to the visibility range of an object as derived from the formula. One-and-a-half miles is the square root of the eye-level elevation above the surface of the water. On average, paddler's eyes are just over two feet above the surface. Here are some immediate applications—if you can see beach goers feet as they walk close to the water, you're roughly within 2 miles off-shore. That's 1.5 plus a little bit added for the elevation of the beach. Two kayaks will lose sight of each other when they are separated by three miles—one-and-a-half miles of visibility from each side.

This is where I got tripped up. The formula for the visibility range is supposed to give you statute, not nautical miles. Burch, then, suggests that the visibility range as determined this way is underestimated by about 15%. What this means is that 10-mile estimate for an object with 100' of elevation should actually be 11.5 miles instead. Funny, that just happens to be the distance in nautical miles. So what is going on here? Exactly how much off is the square root approximation?

Time to dust off high school trigonometry books. First, let's track down the mathematical solution to the problem. Then, we will have grounds to decide if the limits of visibility are statute or nautical and how precise they are.

Generalized shape of the Earth is basically a sphere. For our purposes, the sphere can be further reduced to a circle. An average radius from the center to the surface is approximately 3,440 nautical or 3,959 statute miles.

Any line that just touches the outside of the circle can be used to mark the range of visibility—objects whose height is above the line will be visible, the ones below will be obscured by the horizon. Another line can be drawn from the point where the visibility line touches the outside of the circle to the center of the Earth. This line will have two known properties: (1) its length will be Earth's radius and (2) its angle to the visibility line will be 90 degrees. The Earth's radius and the visibility line can be viewed as two sides of a right triangle. The hypotenuse of this triangle is equal to the Earth's radius plus the elevation of the object above the sea level. What we have here is a simple case of Pythagorean Theorem with two known sides of the right triangle. We can solve for the unknown third side. In our context, a² = c² - b²
can be written as Visibility² = (Radius + Elevation)² – Radius².


Plugging in the numbers and plotting the results of this equation we get the following picture. If the result of the square root solution is read in nautical miles, then it underestimates the actual distance by 6%. In statute miles, the distance is underestimated by just over 18%.

There it is clear as day: mathematically, the square root of elevation (measured in feet) is much closer to geographical visibility expressed in nautical rather than statute miles.

So why, then, is the formula is presented as offering the solution in statute miles? I don't know the answer to this one…

Here are some thoughts. Mathematical solution gives the distance at which the top of the object will reach the line of visibility. So the question is if you be able to see the top as soon as it reaches the line? To me, it depends. If the object is a mountaintop, the answer is most likely "No!" The tip of the mountain will have to get above the line at least somewhat to be seen. A mountain that is 400 feet above the sea level will reach the line of visibility when the distance is 21.3 nautical miles or 24.5 statute miles. Square root formula tells you that, when you first see the tip of the mountain, you are 20 miles away. By the numbers, when you are actually 20 nautical miles away, the mountain is already 47 feet above the line of visibility. When you are 20 statute miles away, the mountain will extend by 133'. When will you actually see the mountaintop? I don't know but, personally, I would rather be closer than I think I am. To me, nautical mile interpretation is a more conservative one and seems to be more appropriate.

If you are paddling at night and it is a light that you're looking for, you will see the glow well before it reaches the theoretical line. The moment the actual light emerges from beneath the horizon will be determined more precisely than in the previous scenario. Again, if the height of the light is known, it's square root is more appropriately interpreted as the distance in nautical, not statute, miles.

What do you think?

New Blog

This new blog will contain stories about paddling in Mid-West with the base in Chicago-Area and other paddling-related stuff.  I am currently working on a write-up of a week-long circumnavigation of Isle Royale completed in August, 2009.