Remounting a Think Evo....

So i took my first swim last night paddling my new Evo.....no excuses, my head wasn't in the game, I was gawking around all over the place,  not even close to being in the paddling zone...and i pulled my stroke waaaay to far back and boom, in the water.   

Took three tries to remount -  the Evo, although more stable than my Epic V10g3, has higher sides and one now not so redeeming feature,,,,,carry handles on the bucket side.   Great for carrying the boat around on land, but they caught on my pfd the first attempt.  The 2nd try I moved towards the bow to avoid the handles, got up across the boat, but my butt ended up ahead of the bucket when rotating in....and then I somehow went back into the water.   Third try was all good, as I moved back almost to the handles, and hefted myself clear of them. 

Long story short,  it's always good to practice all aspects of ski paddling, including remounting, before the fact.   
The only thing hurt was my ego, as i dumped about 50 meters off shore in front of a dock with a bunch of people sitting and enjoying the evening on the lake.   

Lol. Swimming in front of a crowd is always fun

Practice makes perfect - thats the best advice I can give. I suggest you remount 3+ times every time you paddle until you can nail a remount in sloppy, reflected wave conditions. Not just at the beginning either. I was following small waves (2-3') inside the break since the ocean was flat and the tide was high and got clobbered by one finally and had to remount after a night of good surfing. I was pretty tired and the remount was significantly more difficult than usual for me. I think I need to start doing a few pushups for more body lifting strength. (I was knowingly going inside and riding the face until it was vertical, fun times! normally bad practice, but the ocean was dead flat and the
break was small. I am actually impressed how vertical a wave can get and still ride it and bail off if you have a good brace)

I really want a boat with carry handles, but for the exact reason you say, i would only want one with INTERNAL handles that are molded directly into the bucket walls. Its a cheap cop out to just bolt handles onto the side rails. I am sure its much harder and more $ to mold them in, but for the exact reason you say, I dislike top-rail mounted handles.

Epic, Stellar, everyone else, give me NO handles or molded recessed handles. The screw on handles are just problems waiting to happen.

As someone who still capsizes once in a while, I would suggest capsizing more often to get used to it, under 'safe' conditions with the leg leash & life vest, of course. The handles never bothered me. The re-mount is only reliable if you've thoroughly capsized in a range of conditions. It's a good idea to capsize/re-mount at least once per paddle session, once per each side, until it's something you never doubt.

I had a bunch of surprising(?) capsizes in the Evo3 due to being a smaller person and seeming to sit above the waterline. The celebrated secondary stability seemed to come in too late, mostly while hard over, ~70+º aka re-mounting. Fortunately, the Think skis that I've paddled (right down to the Uno) seem to be pretty stable in the "both legs over one side" position.