Typical 5-Star mayhem. PHOTO: JONATHAN WALPOLE


How did the British Canoe Union’s highest order, the 5-Star Sea award, become our Holy Grail of sea kayaking certifications?


BY CONOR MIHELL w


hen Bruce Lash started kayaking in 1983, he never imagined one day leading a


group of paddlers across 12 kilometres of open water on Lake Superior in No- vember. The self-proclaimed “ordinary paddler” and firefighter from Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, first became interested in sea kayaking as a means to better duck hunting. Less than a decade later, he was paddling with top kayak-


40 ADVENTURE KAYAK | EARLY SUMMER 2009


ers, the likes of Derek Hutchinson and Valley Canoe Products designer Frank Goodman, and had started the first sea kayak company on Lake Superior. Lash became part of sea kayaking’s highest order in 1995 when Nigel Dennis, a British Canoe Union (BCU) coach and legendary expedition pad- dler, signed his 5-Star Sea Award. Lash says his 5-Star assessment included everything the Holy Grail of


sea kayaking is known for: Rough wa- ter landings, broken boats and night navigation. Early on in the crossing portion, a paddler panicked and had to be towed for most of the way. Then, Dennis flooded someone else’s bow hatch—camping gear and all—and left Lash to pick up the pieces. All the while and ever deadpan, Dennis watched on from a distance. “It was like a rite of passage,” says


Lash. “I’ve never been so intimidat- ed in my whole life. But there was a certain comfort in knowing that the assessor put you in those situations knowing that you had the tools to get out of them safely. And because I went in ready for the worst, it was achievable. But it felt really, really good when it was over.”


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