Maine PFD factoid
If one always wears a PFD and requires clients to wear one, this is purely an exam answer.
“MANDATORY WEARING OF YOUR PFD
While wearing your PFD is not normally required by law, there are four exceptions to this.EFFECTIVE MAY 1.1995:
Children 10 years of age and under must wear a Type I, II, III PFD while on board all watercraft.
Anyone canoeing or kayaking on the Saco River between Hiram Dam and the Atlantic Ocean between January 1st and June 1st must wear a Type l, ll, lll PFD.”
I omitted the parts about jetskis and being towed.
Monday Morning Quarterbacking
It’s been unusually cold in the Raleigh area so one has to wonder why go out, go out alone, or go out unprepared. That said, it doesn’t do any good to second guess an individual’s decision.
What does do some good is lend support to the family if you know them and be respectful in any event. The lessons are for the living, think about this event and allow it to prevent same from happening to you of a friend.
last time
I paddled the Saco(1998) I was the only one wearing a PFD of course I think I was the only one sober too
just checked VA law
– Last Updated: Feb-06-11 4:51 AM EST –
children under 13 are required to wear a PFD unless below deck. Also water skiers and others being towed whoops Im assuming without checking that most states have similar age restrictions--but honestly don't care--I'm still wearing a PFD
yeah it seems like the PFD regs. …
… have been changing for awhile now .
Mostly I find that relates to the age limits (was 7 yrs. in MD not too long ago) and certain specific rivers (or sections there of) during specified cold months .
My guess is the trend to regulate PFD “must wear” use will become more restrictive as time passes . I won’t be concerning about PFD use laws for myself personally … I enforce my own .
There have been a few times when I stuck my nose in anothers bussiness concerning PFD use . And as to that , I could give a crap how I was percieved … I felt I had a responsibilty to at the least have the other think again (reconsider) before heading out .
welcome jackl …
… what I wish concerning peoples use of a PFD and what I think is fair and right are at odds with each other .
Complacency…
The more experienced you are, the more likely you are to be complacent. I used to go fishing in the winter on a huge pool, quarter mile wide, half mile long, up to 50 feet deep, on an Ozark river. Always went in a solo canoe…and alone. I never wear a PFD on Ozark streams in the summer, and for some stupid reason I never even thought about wearing one on that huge pool in the winter until one day out of the blue it hit me that, hey, I could very easily dump the canoe in the middle of that pool and if I did I was going to be DEAD. And after that I wore mine in similar situations.
On the other hand, last week I did a three day “road trip”, paddling three different rivers, alone in my solo canoe. Each river was class I, flowing less than 200 cfs. Water temps in the 40s, air temps 35-50 degrees. The only places I could have been likely to get into trouble were riffles that were less than two feet deep, and if I did something really stupid and ended up in the water in the middle of the biggest, deepest pool I could find, I’d still be only 30 feet from the bank at most. I weighed whether I should wear the PFD and decided against it. Granted, it wasn’t the perfectly safe thing to do, but I felt the risk to be negligible. My biggest concession to safety on that trip was to have a dry bag with a complete change of clothing including a down jacket and a box of matches.
strange
Children 10 and under have never had to wear PFDs on the state-operated ferry boats that I’ve been on.
So either there is more to that law, or the law is generally disregarded, even by the state itself.
my GF was a rower
(she’s trying to get me interested in an entry-level poly scull), so I get reminded almost every time we paddle that we could “never wear all this crap if we were rowing!”
Not to hot for a wetsuit RiverotterNC
I paddled nearby that day and was fine in my 3mm neoprene. I got warm a few times and just splashed water on myself. At the beginning of the paddle I put my hands in the water and could only keep them there unprotected for 15 seconds. I don’t think it is ever too hot for neoprene as long as you have plenty of cold water for cooling off.
On the other hand maybe it is always too hot for neoprene as I am always having to use cold water to cool off.
If I could just solve the problem of having cold feet while the rest of me is too hot, then I’d be happier all winter.
your intent was good
It’s just that some people are so personally vested in this topic that they will take it as you lecturing to or condemning them.
I often wonder why that is (not really).
Maybe he pissed or crapped his wetsuit
…when he fell and, being in not a great state of mind, he made removing the suit a higher priority than anything else.
The guy may have been under the influence of things that screwed up his thinking in the first place. I’m not saying this to smear his rep, just saying that sometimes people take substances they shouldn’t take when boating or driving or working on scaffolds.