Is Sea Kayaker mag relevant any more?

When I started paddling about 5 or 6 years ago I would pick up a copy of Sea Kayaker magazine every time it came out, or nearly every time, and read it cover to cover. Cover. To. Cover. A couple weeks ago I picked up a copy of Sea Kayaker magazine. It was my first in a year and a half, maybe two years. I don't read SK mag anymore, but a friend of mine suggested I peek at this issue because it was pretty offensive (my word. I forget what he said exactly but he meant offensive.).

I can't tell you exatly what caused me to stop reading SK mag. I suppose that, as with any longish term relationship, it's never one thing. Rather is was sort of a growing loss of respect. A disinterest in the others point of view. I remember, when I was shopping for a boat, I started to go back though my several back issues reading reviews and concluded they were all the same. All boats were equally good, varying only in degrees of initial stability, from excellent to not so good, or whatever same-every-time words the 3 reviewers used. I recall starting to become less and less enthralled by the nearly form-pace-tone identical travelogues. Not that they were bad, more like "dude we've had this conversation a whole bunch of times before.". Just...worn. Ya know?

I do remember the thing that finally caused me to stop buying SK though. It was a technique article about some rescue that involved climbing on the front deck of a boat. It talked about conditions, like you could actually pull this thing off when it really mattered. There were pictures, of course. And one of these pictures shows some kid grabbing an upside down boat, and the next picture shows him lifting the bow of the upside down boat so he can empty it!

Now I'm not (yet) an expert on rescues. But I knew wrong when I saw it. I knew that nobody had done that rescue in what I would call real conditions. Nobody had gone to Yellow Bluff on an ebb, or Cattle Pass on a flood, and really tried it. Because picking up an upside down boat, in real conditions is hard. Climbing onto and balancing upright on a boat, especially in conditions, is hard. And I knew that because I'd tried it. A bunch. And so I knew calling this an "appropriate for conditions" rescue was misleading. So that was it for me and SK mag.

Anyway, like I said, this friend of mine calls and says to check out the latest issue of SK mag because it's offensive (again, my word). So I head out to pick up a copy 'cause, this friend of mine and I, we're pretty similar in our principles so I usually listen to what he's telling me. I mean, not that he isn't often wrong and needs correction or anything but, in principle, pretty similar. And I cracked open this issue of SK mag, flip the pages, same mag, nothings changed, so to business and head right for the editors column called foredeck. Which directs me directly (heh) to the letters section. And it was, as advertised, offensive (my word).

In a nutshell some knucklehead went out in conditions he was, at least in equipment and mentality, entirely unprepared for. No radio, no food, in a fog that prevented him from seeing a break he capsized in. Just really stupid, patzer issues that my regular coach would beat me with a stick for ignoring. But that, evidently, was a topic for an earlier issue. In this, the offensive (my word), issue it's letters about the column describing aforementioned knuckleheads stupidity. One guy calls knucklehead "arrogant" and "egotistical". And, to be honest, I'm with my unknown 'bro here.

In response to this, I think, totally justified name calling SK mag publishes what I'd say are letters from the least skillful apologists I've ever read. First up some guy starts off thanking my new 'bro for his insight, then says he wants to offer a feeble defense of knucklehead. Feeble indeed. He talks about "the history of the human race". He tries to draw parallels to surgeons and astronauts. He talks about "adventurous risk takers", mentions "we need them", and says that if their attitudes grate on us we should "look to ourselves, our inadequacies". I'm pretty sure surgeons don't go into surgery without knowing what the status of the patient is. Really, do you suppose the surgeon is in the OR apologizing because he decided he didn't need his scalpel that day and so didn't bring it? And the astronaut thing? Those guys don't forget stuff or decide that, "well hell, space isn't looking too gnarly to me today, I'm gonna head out without my radio". And talking about my limitations? First, look up ad hominem. Second, I'm gonna work as hard as I need to so nobody has to put their lives at risk to come get me. This isn't about my limitations, it's about some knucklehead selfishly taking more than he's entitled to because he lacks an imagination and has undeserved feelings of superiority.

(I am, if you can't tell, seriously disgusted with this horrible excuse for meaningful elucidation of an issue).

We're then treated to a letter from knucklehead saying (my interpretation), "well shucks, I promised my wife I'd pick her up, and it wasn't that bad for a couple days before so I just, you know, figured it'd be ok. But I hope you learn from my mistake". I'm not gonna beat knucklehead up here. He at least wrote this whole thing up, which I think shows some real serious integrity. I'm gonna stick with calling him knucklehead here though since, when I make mistakes like this that's what I call myself (but I work really hard to not make his kind of excuses).

Right, so I'm red faced at this point but turn back to where this ridiculousness started, the editors column, foredeck. I take a breath, pour a glass of wine, and start reading. And I'm told by the editor of SK mag that "It's safe to say that Michael Powers (the knucklehead ed.) is an expert kayaker.". Expert kayaker, says the editor of SK magazine. Lemme think...hmm...nope, don't think so. I'm gonna have to stick with knucklehead.

I didn't get much further. Essentially SK gave knucklehead the chance to take the high road, which he sort of did, and then tells us explicitly that he's an expert and implicitly, by publishing the he's-like-an-atronaut letter, that if we don't chalk this up to boys being boys it's due to some innate inadequacies of our own, and, again implicitly by publishing knuckleheads response, that this error is understandable because he promised his wife he'd pick her up.

That's just spectacular. God forbid I ever have to call the Coast Guard for a rescue, but if I do SK mag has well prepared me. I can just say, "sorry you had to jump out of the helo from way up there, swim to me in the 50 degree water and otherwise risk injury and death on my behalf. But I'm totally late to pick up my wife so I had to chance it and, besides, it's not that I was arrogant it's that you have inadequancies. Now take me home.". Hell yeah! Thanks SK mag!

So that's it. My friend was right I think, it was offensive (my word). SK mag has taken the editorial position that an "expert" kayaker is one who hits the Oregon coast with no food or radio and in fog. Their position is that if I feel this was caused by arrogance then I'm really not accepting my own inadequacies and should be grateful people make stupid, dangerous mistakes so I might learn a lesson that I don't need to learn in this way. And that if I have a prior engagement then it's ok to take terrible risks so as not to be late. That last might perhaps apply only to family though. If you're late for, say, a job interview and it's foggy and you forgot your most basic kit, best to stay on the beach. Maybe. I dunno, you'd have to ask SK mag.

These are not my perspectives. I define an expert differently. I think arrogance is am entirely reasonable conclusion to arrive at when doing a root cause analysis. And I'm sitting here hard pressed to think of any type of engagement that would have me say it's ok to put in without the proper gear just so I'm not late. I'm pretty sure, at the least hopeful, that my wife would rather have me late than dead. Nope, SK mag is really not at all relevant to who I hope I am and strive to be as a paddler.

But that's just me.