I had the job of picking up the above-mentioned damaged kayak in Ottawa and delivering it to him. I had to make a splint to protect it for the road trip from upstate NY to Lewes. The kayak was well studied by the participants of the weekend.

Good question. The pushups are easy and the hard part is getting out of the cockpit. The small cockpit opening and low foredeck of my rolling kayak make a tight fit and I have to scoot out a bit at a time getting each kneecap under the masik and working my heels over a few frames. I can’t stretch back over the aft deck as I would at a beach because the stern would submerge, and the water is prone to pour over the coaming and swamp the kayak. I keep my head and upper body as far forward as possible. I brace by pressing one blade of the paddle on the aft deck behind me with the other blade partially submerged to resist a roll in either direction. Once my kneecaps clear the coaming, I can lift my legs out and straddle the kayak. From there I lean forward, get the paddle out from under me and bring it around in front. While my legs are in the water, I’m stable. I press the paddle on the foredeck, with the outboard blade partially submerged again, and put my feet on the after deck, ready for pushups.

Kayaks used in the Greenland rolling championship are required to have at least 1.5 cm (not quite 5/8”) freeboard. That rule was added after a competition in which kayaks with even less freeboard appeared to have an unfair advantage. I don’t think the traditional hunting kayaks had much more freeboard than that. In his book Eskimo Life, published in 1896, Norwegian Arctic explorer offered the dimensions of Greenland kayaks:
“A kaiak for a Greenlander of average size measures, in the neighbourhood of Godthaab, about 6 yards (5½ metres) in length. The greatest breadth of deck, in front of the kaiak-ring, is about 18 inches ((45 centimetres), or a little more; but the boat narrows considerably towards the bottom. The depth of the kaiak from deck to bottom is generally from 5 to 6½ inches (12 to 15 centimetres), but in front of the kaiak-ring it is an inch or two more, in order to give room for the thighs, and to enable the rower to get more easily into his place.”
My black take-apart rolling kayak has a depth of 6 ¾”. I built it to fit me and I’m taller and heavier than Maligiaq and likely Nansen’s “Greenlander of average size.” If I’d scaled that rolling kayak to fit Maligiaq, it would have come in well within the depth Nansen reported for hunting kayaks. I suspect that rolling kayaks used in competition now are not that much smaller than hunting kayaks would be.

But I’m confused by one thing. While the use of a very low deck kayak while rolling is an obvious advantage, are the same sort of boat used when hunting? Due to their inherent instability, I would guess not. If this is so, then at what point would one’s larger/deeper kayak become un-rollable? I guess I’m asking for an explanation how the competition techniques can be actually used in practice.