I’d like to understand just how likely a person is to go into the water unintentionally, on flat water, from a canoe or kayak, so if you have a first-hand account I would like to hear it.
Background: I have been paddling from ice-off to ice-on and dressing for the air temperature + exercise heating for several years and I’ve done fine, but last winter I started reading up on the perils of cold water immersion, and now I’m wearing a wetsuit under my clothes when the water is below 60° and I’m going out less and staying closer to shore. But that’s based on the severity of falling in. Now I’d like to understand the likelihood of falling in.
I personally have never come close to falling in, once in my boats, so I’d like to hear the circumstances where people have fallen in or submerged or been swamped, on flat water, whatever the temperature, preferably from first-hand accounts.
The one time it’s happened to me was paddling the Edisto River a couple of days after an ice storm. The water was 40 deg and running hard.
We ran up on a submerged stump and in we went. We were not dressed for immersion because the air temp was 70 deg. The bank was close and I was able to quickly climb out. Some dry clothes and warm coffee and fellow paddlers were a blessing.
New boat and loss of balance (most common)
Mis-stroke (cavitation of paddle stroke, etc) with loss of balance
Hitting object underwater and loss of balance
Medical condition/emergency with loss of balance or loss of consciousness
Losing balance from distrations like looking around, taking pictures, bugs on you or in cockpit, spoonbill catfish jumps onto/into boat, etc
In a similar category, snagging the paddle between rocks while the boat has significant speed in current, or reaching forward for a draw or pry, also while the boat has significant speed, so that when the paddle blade stabs into an unseen rock, the paddle knob punches you in the face.
None of which has caused me to fall out of the boat, but it’s easy to see how it could happen. And of course none of this is totally within the “flat water” category specified by the original poster, but what the heck, it’s in the spirit of the replies thus far.
So, right now I’m remembering a story. Many here remember Bob, a very capable canoe paddler and all-around good guy to know, who was looked up to by many less-experienced paddlers as someone to copy as they were learning new skills. In the story I remember, a woman was looking at a very easy rapid up ahead, and being a beginner, she was uncertain how to run it. She shouted to another paddler asking for advice. The other person said “Just follow Bob!” She shouted back, “But Bob is upside-down!” Bob had fallen victim to one of those quirky situations such as what you listed, which won’t normally cause one to fall out of their boat, but which absolutely can.
A friend of mine sold his canoe because he could not stop falling out of it on overnight trips…lol. Some paddlers simply have more balance (skill?) issues than others.
Those are good ones and 1,2,3&5 have all happened to me, except that an adequate and reflexive enough brace kept me from going in. So maybe lack of a good brace is also a reason people capsize.
New boat and loss of balance (most common)
eg: going from seakayak to surfski (or, worse yet, K1)
Mis-stroke (cavitation of paddle stroke, etc) with loss of balance
similar: paddling feathered, after pause start up again - forgetting blade is feathered
Hitting object underwater and loss of balance
or - object underwater hitting kayak (large fish (shark or other))
spoonbill catfish jumps onto/into boat,
jumping sturgeon (large) in Suwanee river
Just wait… We are heading into (what I have dubbed ) the annual “killing season” in New England. We inevitably will have news stories of dead paddlers found in the water, out of their canoes and kayaks. Oh, if only the “dead” could talk… Maybe they would share how they ended up in the water. Alas, the dead don’t talk. What we do know is that they were usually found without PFD and/or immersion gear.
Winter is coming but the “paddlers purge” always precedes.