: hi brian

: could you comment on how you use flares? and under what conditions do you
: think they would be used? in most cases would one be out of the yak?

Well, I've never HAD to use flares and hopefully I never will. I would not consider using them unless I was in a desperate situation where I could not get to shore or the boat was severely damaged and awash or I had become separated from it. There are so many things that can happen at sea that it's pretty difficult to speculate about when one would use flares. One thing's for sure,though, I will carry flares in my PFD, as well as in the boat.

: do they take 2 hands to operate?

Yes, though I guess you could pull the chain with your teeth if you had to. With self-contained rocket/parachute flares, you fire them and then drop the container. Two hands are only needed for a few seconds, then both hands are free. With handheld flares, you use two hands to light them, then one to hold onto it as it burns. That is why I don't think they're terribly useful for kayakers, unless you're in the water or separated from your boat. A strobe light mounted on your PFD would be a better solution, in my opinion.

: are there any that take just one hand?

Not that I know of. You can fire a flare gun with one hand, but I don't know if you can readily load one that way.

: is it possible/likely to deploy them while swimming?

Sure. I don't see where that would make it any more difficult.

: would it make any sense at all to have a small capped tube like a mast holder
: in or on the yak to jam in the flare and pull the pin so can hold on as
: well?

Perhaps, but I tend to follow the KISS school of thought. Simpler is better in tough situations. If you have to think too much, you're more likely to make a potentially hazardous mistake.

: if you glued in your ethafoam and drilled vertically down into it
: beside you and stored them there - is that too dumb?

I assume you mean mounting foam in the cockpit somewhere. Mine are mounted in a drilled (actually hole-sawed) minicell block behind the right cheekplate. They have to be basically horizontal, due to the location. I drilled through the block and made it ~3" shorter than the flares, so I can pull them out from either in front of or behind the seat. The concern I have about mounting them vertically is that they would tend to move downward if the fit wasn't tight enough. If you left the end of the block sealed, it would fill with water - not a good idea.

: like a drilled end
: cap but beside you, or safer say just beyond the knee and slightly pointed
: away? or actually part of a mast step?

I'm not quite sure what you mean. They have to be easily accessible if you're in the water, so placing them forward of the cockpit coaming is probably not advisable. The last thing I want on my boat is and kind of mast.

: (or maybe some horizontal tubes out the side for when shawn gets close so we
: can blow him away!!)

I think Shawn's a pretty nice guy. I might squirt him with my bilge pump in jest, but shooting flares is a bit much.