!Jones wrote in
:

We have a Para-Tech sea anchor that was custom made for our Klepper
double. I contacted Para-Tech some years back, explained what we were
looking for, gave the specs on the Klepper, where we kayak and so forth.
We kayak off all of the Hawaiian islands, Long Island Sound north to
Maine. The Para-Tech sea anchor sits in a small yellow bag to side of
person in front seat of kayak. The bag is about the size of a small
Gatorade bottle. A rope leads from the bag to the bow. To deploy you
simply pull the first few feet of rope out of the bag and drop the bag in
the water. The rest of the rope in the bag comes out as the wind blows
you backwards or sideways. Once the rope goes taunt from the bow to the
bag now in the water, the boat stops moving and the bow is face on to the
wind.

Hawe we used it? Yes. One time in 5 years. Off the Big Island in
Hawaii. Very unusual off-shore wind rapidly went from light breeze to
about 30 knots. As we discovered when we finally made it to the landing,
even the local fishermen on the water were stunned at the rapid and
totally unusual conditions that morning. Two of them had their own boats
capsized and wound up being rescued by the Coast Guard.

Having practiced deploying the sea anchor on a large lake in Connecticut
during windy conditions, deploying it in what we still consider a very
dangerous situation went smoothly. Bow came around, we hunkered down,
and about an hour later when the wind find let up, based on GPS (Garmin
GPSMap 76cs) reading we had been blow seaward about three hundred feet.
Without the sea anchor there would have been no way to prevent us from
being blown seaward a mile or realistically many miles.

Aside from the wind blowing in our faces, the feeling and reality of
being securely anchored to the surface of the sea made cost of the sea
anchor inconsequential. I have read the other posts here regarding
training, etc. You can train all you want but there is no training that
will cover every possible situation that can happen on the sea. Your
seeking further safety information should be responded to rather than
getting responses that have nothing to do with the question. Here's some
quotes which I have collected.

"Evey vessel venturing offshore is a lonely entity, face to face with the
most elemental force on the planet earth." Carleton Mitchell

"The fallacy lies in expecting anything at sea to be as it 'should be'."
Webb Chiles

"The time to tkae measures for a ship's safety is while still able to do
so. Nothing is more dangerous than for a seaman to be grudging in taking
precautions, lest they turn out to have been unnecesary. Safety at sea,
for a thousand years, has depended on exactly the opposite philosophy."
Chester W. Nimitz, Admiral US Navy

--
Big Island Bob