Do you wear your PFD (open water)

I don’t know Kay
Go back and read all the responses.

Most of them want a PFD on if you are in a foot of water.

Most who think and decide for themselves will not post here because they know they will get jumped all over by some of the ding bats that post here.

Come down to the Florida Keys, and see for every paddler with a PFD, there are ten that don’t wear them.

When I use the term “ding bats” I am not refeering to the ones who are safety conscience and just answer the OP’s question. I am refering to those that have to belittle those of us that wear one when we deem it necessary, and not every time we step into a canoe or kayak.



Jack L

It’s a Habit!

– Last Updated: Jan-30-14 9:30 AM EST –

The hallmark of a habit is that one (almost) automatically performs the action as an integral part of whatever larger activity is involved. So somebody with the habit of "always" wearing their seatbelt in a car just automatically begins to reach around and grapple for the belt and click it into place. Something just feels wrong if, for some reason, they've neglected to do this. Now we all know and understand (don't we?) that we need not attach our seatbelts while sitting in the driveway or garage washing the inside of the windows or fishing for something in the glove compartment. But if we're driving our vehicles, we wear our seatbelts.

The PFD situation is just the same for those who have developed the habit--the PFD goes on as an near-automatic response to getting ready to launch. It does not need to, nor does it usually, get worn while sitting in the kayak on the grass at home, say, while first testing out the latest backband or seat adjustment--we'll probably put in on later, though. But if we're paddling, on water yet, we wear our PFDs. This is what is meant by developing the PFD habit, the seatbelt habit, the tooth-brushing habit, etc., etc.

I offer this explanation for those who have difficulty understanding what habits are and how they work, and find that they must "decide" these simple things every time the situation presents itself. The safety and health statistics will easily demonstrate that good habits result in better outcomes for those who acquire good habits.

Hope this helps!

And there you have it…
Conditions and health change. Ever been paddling with someone who gets injured (person complained about elbow pain early in paddle - an hour later, they are incapacitated)?



I admit that I seldom paddle in Florida or shallow water, but I have seen people who were rendered unconscious (overheating), suffered injuries (tendonitis, hit by powerboat, and can imagine lots of conditions where not having a pfd increases risk significantly - lightning is virtually non-existent where I live, but there are areas, Florida comes to mind, where it is remarkably common. I’ve been a paddler who went out on a calm day and found that an hour later, it was raining and blowing 25 knots, even though the weather report indicated that conditions would be mild that day.



If you paddle for enough years, you experience these types of things. Yes, the odds go down when conditions are good and the water is warm, but they do not disappear. Most hypothermia issues occur in water between 62-72F because people don’t think they need thermal protection.



I’m not trying to be the “police,” but I do want to raise awareness that there are non-zero increases to risk when basic safety equipment is ignored.



There is nothing I hate hearing about more than deaths resulting from easily avoidable situations (such as the couple who lost their 3 YO son on SF Bay because they seemingly didn’t even consider that he could fall off the sailboat). Fortunately, he wasn’t uncomfortable in the PFD he didn’t want to wear, right?



Do or don’t, that’s fine and your choice. If you paddle with me, you do. If not, I probably won’t say a word, but I will go my own way. Personally, I feel that paddling solo is safer than paddling with someone who exercises what I consider poor judgement.



Rick

Maybe those who have gotten into…
trouble while wearing their PFD need to get into the habit of staying off the water if there is ANY chance of them being in conditions they cannot handle!!! Or are they willing to take the risk that they like those who sometimes don’t wear their PFD’s are willing to take?

The habit of thinking
One-size-fits-all rigid rules do not require any thought. Your blowing up the decision to make an exception for the few times they occur suggests that you are the caterpillar who suddenly cannot walk because he doesn’t “understand” how his legs work.



I actually do have the habit of wearing the PFD, as you would “understand” if you’d comprehended my first post. There are exactly two sentences there describing the times when I choose not to wear the PFD on a given outing.



Since you brought up the example of brushing teeth as a habit, here’s a different example: A driver takes the same route to work every day, requiring the same turn or exit. That turn becomes habit. When he has to go somewhere else requiring a different turn or exit, he robotically takes the work-bound turn instead. Brain is on autopilot.



Habits are OK to break sometimes. Not hard to understand.

I Do Now on the Advice of my Doctor
Because too many elderly paddlers like myself collapse, for some reason or other, while paddling out on the ocean, and on a surfski, it’s instant immersion. So I listen to my doctor. Sure, there’s no guarantee that I’ll survive, but at least I’ll float?



Prior to the doctor’s advice, I didn’t wear them, for they were a hindrance and a detriment to my style of paddling.



Wearing a PFD is a personal decision, and I respect your decision to either wear them or not.

Always.

– Last Updated: Jan-30-14 3:10 PM EST –

My wife and I are both beginners when it comes to kayaking but we are highly trained and experienced scuba divers and value safety. We do wear lightweight inflatable PFDs on flat water in hot weather (and full sized ones the rest of the time) but neither of us would get in a boat without wearing one.

My Best Example

– Last Updated: Jan-30-14 7:26 PM EST –

Pikabike, your first post cements firmly into place exactly the nature of the "deciding" syndrome that developing a robust PFD habit can help you overcome. You will be free of needing to again and again travel the decision tree: Are we on a lake? How big or small is the lake? Is it small and/or sheltered? How big is "big"? How sheltered is "sheltered"? Or are we on a river? Are we on the ocean? If so, how warm is the air? the water? Am I in a sheltered bay? Will I stay in that bay? Faced with all those factors and variables, a caterpillar would have trouble figuring out how to walk, let alone whether or not it should wear a PFD.

So what your saying c-runner is …

– Last Updated: Jan-30-14 9:24 PM EST –

you just throw on your pfd and go because thinking about water temps, conditions, size of the body of water are to time consuming or takes too much thought?
Your just a pfd covered accident waiting to happen!!!!

Good grief!!
Are you serious? If it’s an attempt at humor, it’s just, well, strange, though it IS funny in a different kind of way. If you are serious, and if this is how you interpret Pika’s and others’ remarks about recognizing benign conditions, surely it means you must go through hell yourself when deciding between wearing a winter coat or just a long-sleeved shirt, as dictated by the weather outside. Maybe even deciding between a winter coat and a swimsuit is enough to drive you bonkers. It appears possible.


Reading the responses here.
I think three quarters of you are so paranoid about it being a must to wear your PFD, that you would be a lot safer if you gave up paddling and just never went near water.



Guy

Paranoia?
Paranoia doesn’t come into it. Safety, common sense and intelligence does.

Inevitably these “discussions” rot
into stupidity and silliness.



I think I will go paddling. I will be putting on my PFD without a second of thought.

Kayaking, PFDs, and Non-Sequiturs
Jaws, I’ll reply to your question with one of my own: Do you expect your non-sequitur “question” to be taken as serious argument? Please try again. Ditto Guideboatguy and Roanguy (are you twins?)

I missed the ritual part
Candles, prayer, maybe some trail mix?



:wink:

what is clearly most important here
…is finding crap to pick at in the people whose opinions oppose yours.



Good grief. The OP asked a simple question.

S’cuse me
I know and have paddled with pikabike, and in some interesting conditions. Suggesting that she is somehow paralyzed from making decisions because she might leave the PFD off to laze near shore in quiet water on a hot day is about as far from reality as you could go.



I am guessing you are either an engineer or an academic. Both seem prone to hyperbole when they try to summarize grand thoughts online.

Good Gracious…
The thought that a serious discussion of an issue should break out! To wear or not wear a PFD while paddling open water (Always), and then to discuss all the infinite gradations and variations of when to wear or not wear the PFD–what if (horrors) there should be differing opinions on a serious matter?



There is a powerful case to be made for developing a strong PFD habit, and it rests upon the well-understood and recognized utility of other good, strong habits such as wearing seatbelts while driving, brushing one’s teeth, etc. I hope we can all understand that, by climbing into our cockpits with our PFDs on, we have thus short-circuited out almost all of the possibility that we will come to fatal harm from lack of sufficient buoyancy. We will also be protected to a certain extent against impact injury, and, should the worst happen, the CG or Marine Police will have better luck retrieving the body. Against these strong arguments, supported by just about every group or association or body involved with boating, we have “I don’t feel like it.” or, “I’ve given the situation a lot of analysis, and I’m sure I’ll be just fine.”, or, “Nobody tells me what to do!”



I think these things are worth discussing.

An academic, right?
Gotta be…

It’s just an analogy

– Last Updated: Jan-31-14 1:33 PM EST –

I can't understand how a choice that can be made in a moment's application of logic needs to be seen as such a crippling process for the person involved. Your escalation of this is pretty amazing.

You like that seatbelt analogy, so consider this. If I'm driving a big truck in a very low gear through a cornfield and I don't wear my seatbelt, does that mean my seatbelt habit isn't well enough established for me to be safe while driving? (in actual fact, I'd probably wear my seatbelt at least sometimes in that situation because "something doesn't feel right" when it's not buckled, but sometimes I wouldn't, because the thinking part of me knows perfectly well that there is NO way that not wearing it can be considered a safety issue right at that moment since a person can walk twice as fast as what the truck would go even if the gas pedal were accidentally floored). In this case, would you do the same as you did with Pikabike and say something that implies that surely I wasted unnecessary time and went through some degree of mental anguish deciding whether or not the belt was necessary at that moment? My point, which somehow you missed, is that you are making this much harder than it needs to be. No one agonizes over the decision in the way you say that they do.

Oh, and here's a perfect analogy that everyone here can relate to. When walking in the woods we wear shoes to protect our feet (not just a comfort issue but one of safety as well). If I wake up in my tent at 3:00 am and need to take a pee, I might not to put on my shoes. I won't be walking that far and need not worry about hurting myself, so why bother. To you, such a decision would be a "ritual" and habits are preferable to rituals. To me and anyone I know personally, not only is it not a ritual, it's not even something to dwell upon, much less turn into a major discussion.