Paddle Something: The Watersports Club of MD

Maryland has a whole lot of water and not enough folks our age who paddle it. We're working to remedy that.  So if you’ve got a kayak, paddleboard, canoe or even a recumbent-stairmaster-sailboat, come join us! The group leaders often have kayaks or paddle boards to lend out to members who are just getting started.

We organize trips for various skill levels, some of which require more advanced skills or appropriate equipment. While we mostly stick to coastal flat-waters, we occasionally do river trips that require shuttles. Please read the complete description of each event to ensure it is suitable for you.

AND THEN COME HAVE FUN!

But first, please read through the FAQs, Rules and Attendance Policy:

WARNING:
Watersports are super dangerous if you are unprepared, inexperienced, or act foolishly. The group leaders will do their best to assist everyone in being prepared and making wise choices, but every member’s safety is solely their own responsibility. All members and activity participants agree to the following terms and conditions:
1. You agree that watersports are inherently dangerous and that participation in watersport activities may result in severe injury or death.
2. You agree to take minimum safety precautions in order to minimize risk. This includes at a minimum: wearing a US Coast Guard-Approved personal floatation device and obtaining basic understanding and competency in the use of your watercraft before joining a group event.
3. You acknowledge that the organizers are not professional event planners or guides and assume no responsibility for your safety. You further acknowledge that any guidance or assistance offered by members shall not constitute any assumption of responsibility for your safety.
4. You will fully read the description of each event before signing up to attend, in order to ensure that you are comfortable with the minimum skill and equipment suggestions.
5. Group leaders are not paid professionals, nor does this group provide professional training, rentals or guided excursions. To that end, it is the policy of this group that no member may pay any group leader for participation on any event. Doing so will result in your immediate and permanent removal from the group.

Attendance Rules:
Many of our put-in locations have limited parking and the attendance at events will be capped with this in mind. Please only sign up for an event if you intend to come. Members who cancel a wait-listed weekend event less than 16 hours beforehand will be marked as a “LATE CANCEL”. The group leaders reserve the right to remove members who have two late cancellations or no-shows. It is pretty difficult to quickly pack your gear if a spot opens up last-minute, so try to plan ahead and be considerate of fellow members.
We have a ZERO TOLERANCE policy for first-timers. If you RSVP and don't show for your first event, you are automatically removed from the group. Whining to other organizers to be let back in will lead to us filing a harassment complaint with Meetup and possibly the suspension of your account.
Further, if you repeatedly cancel last minute, your membership may be revoked. Again PLEASE only sign up for an event if you intend to come.
And finally...
Meetup is a paid service. The cost of this service and the effort involved in planning events is borne solely by the group organizers. They do this to have fun and build community. They do not owe you anything, freeloader. So, they can and will remove you from the group for: repeat tardiness, salty attitudes, excessive neediness, whining, smoking, being a close-talker, bribery, horseplay, racism, sexism, being a creep, being an intolerable slowpoke, being drunk on the water, showing up with an inflatable kayak, or trafficking in fissionable nuclear material.

Why You Can't Bring an Inflatable "kayak":
I often get asked why I don't allow inflatable kayaks on the group trips. This is an excellent question. The main reason I don't allow them on group trips is because they are slow. It may seem plenty fast to you, but to maintain the very leisurely 2 to 2.5mph pace we usually set in the group, you have to expend about three times the energy that you would in even a low-end ten foot recreational kayak.
All hard-shell kayaks have what's called a Displacement Hull, which starts below the water line and pushes water away from the bow along the sides of the boat as you paddle. The construction of nearly all inflatable "kayaks" doesn't allow for this because the boat is not rigid enough to keep the displacement bow below the water line. Instead, it acts like a Planing Hull (like a paddle board), where the water flows underneath you. This work for inflatable paddleboards because they have a rear fin or "skeg" to maintain directional stability and are usually high pressure and much more rigid due to their drop-stitch construction. There are a few inflatable kayaks with these features that have acceptable performance, but they start in the $1000 range and at that point I think you're better off getting a folding kayak by Oru or TRAK if storage space is an issue.
Historically, I've been on about a dozen paddles with inflatables and only twice was the person able to maintain pace with the rest of the group. One of those guys looked like he was about to have a heart attack by the end.
The other reason is that many inflatables (including ones by Intex and Advance Elements) are very difficult to re-enter in deep water after an accidental wet-exit. I've tested this out in another group and nobody was able to fully empty a the flooded kayak from neck-deep water and re-enter without flooding it further. We were able to do it with the assistance of two other kayaks, but that level of help should really only be necessary if you're rolling around in three-foot waves. For comparison, a SUP or sit-on-top kayak should not require any assistance to remount unless you are injured, and a canoe or sit-in kayak can be re-entered with the assistance of a single other boat (or by a well-practiced solo paddler).
So, the TL;DR version is: Inflatable kayaks are perfectly fine for enjoying protected waterways with other inflatables, but they do not have the safety or performance characteristics to be suitable for paddling with SUPs or hard-shell kayaks.