I’ve been wondering this for a while. Since there’s a good mix of canoeists and kayakers here, I thought I’d ask if anyone knows of proven rescue techniques using a mix of canoes and kayaks. Mostly I’m wondering what I could do to help (in my 17’ sea kayak) if I came upon a capsized canoe, the former occupants far from shore and clueless about getting back into their boat.
The part that’s a little scary is the “clueless” part, but other than that, it seems pretty straightforward to me, though I’ll qualify that by saying I’ve never taken formal rescue/re-entry lessons. That said, I did spend half an hour or so playing around with this stuff while in one of my canoes and in the company of two kayakers. One kayaker was the guy on these boards known as Durangoski. He had taken some formal classes, and he oversaw things while I and the other kayaker did boat-over-boat rescues. There really wasn’t any appreciable difference between doing a canoe-over-kayak rescue or a kayak-over-canoe rescue. The one thing that Durangoski insisted on, which apparently is considered standard procedure during assisted rescues, was that the rescuer would direct the rescue-ee, step by step, in getting back into their boat after it was righted. That too was the same for both kayak and canoe, except that the details are more important with a kayak. He insisted on this because the steps are rather counter-intuitive, and an expert who can practically do it in his sleep will fully understand that in an expert’s case, the instructions are just backup support to keep him from goofing things up if he’s a little flustered or seriously cold and not thinking clearly.
The short answer to your question is that it’s perfectly possible for you to pull a canoe upside-down over the front deck of your sea kayak so it drains, then flip it rightside-up and slide it back into the water.
@Guideboatguy said:
The short answer to your question is that it’s perfectly possible for you to pull a canoe upside-down over the front deck of your sea kayak so it drains, then flip it rightside-up and slide it back into the water.
That’s about as far as I got with it in my head, just comparing it to kayak techniques I know well. The first thing I was concerned with is the weight of the canoe (I’m thinking 17’ tandem here, possibly with gear strapped in - actually better if it’s floating tethered to be picked up later). After that’s figured out, supporting the canoe while the person reenters seems a lot more dicey than me out onto the deck of another kayak while holding the deck lines. Holding the gunwale of the canoe doesn’t seem stable and if the person trying to get back in lets go while I have weight on it, I’m upside down beside the canoe - possibly smacking my head on my way down.
At least, these are some of the things I worry about.
That’s about as far as I got with it in my head, just comparing it to kayak techniques I know well. The first thing I was concerned with is the weight of the canoe (I’m thinking 17’ tandem here, possibly with gear strapped in - actually better if it’s floating tethered to be picked up later). After that’s figured out, supporting the canoe while the person reenters seems a lot more dicey than me out onto the deck of another kayak while holding the deck lines. Holding the gunwale of the canoe doesn’t seem stable and if the person trying to get back in lets go while I have weight on it, I’m upside down beside the canoe - possibly smacking my head on my way down.
At least, these are some of the things I worry about.
Again, I’m far from expert, but a few things occurred to me about these concerns.
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I don’t see this as being necessarily worse than would be the case with a loaded kayak. If the canoe paddlers are clueless, their gear won’t be strapped in, and if the gear is strapped in, chances are the paddlers are far enough from being clueless to be able to do their share of helping, rather than making things harder. Also, you aren’t limited to holding one gunnel. I see no reason you couldn’t lean over the canoe and hold both gunwales. In that position, I can’t imagine being flipped over the far side, and you should be able to resist a flip to the near side with your own boat acting as a giant sponson. Nothing is definite of course, but your approach would be to do the best you can and these seem like at least somewhat-reasonable expectations.
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For your thoughts on re-entering the canoe, that’s where the explicit instructions on your part come in. Don’t let them enter in a way that would allow them to have a lot of un-buoyed weight on a gunwale and then let go. Make them crawl in, leading with one leg while their whole body is low in the water. As they pull themselves over the gunwale, they are in no position to simply let go. When I re-entered my canoe in the practice sessions I mentioned in my earlier post, the small female kayaker holding my boat experienced not the slightest difficulty, and much of that was due to the method of entry that Durangoski specified should be directed by the rescuer in such cases. If you are rescuing a tandem paddling pair, it should be possible to make use of that extra help in stabilizing the boat during re-entry.
Still, there’s always the possibility that the paddlers in question would be too fat and out of shape to do what needs to be done. In fact, to me, that aspect seems far more likely and far more insurmountable than any other specific type of difficulty.
It is pretty easy as long as the canoe is not something like an ultralight without float bags. In that case it is very hard to keep the thing from starting to swamp when the paddler gets back in. But empty the canoe same as a kayak, except that it takes longer and feels a whole lot bulkier to have in your lap. Or over your head in my case with a short kayak and a female sized shorter torso. Then just throw your weight onto it while the canoeist climbs over the other side. Done it, just is easier when canoe has float bags or is wooden.
While I’ve never seen a canoe being paddled on Lake Michigan or any of the large inland lakes I explore, there are a few on the lake where I live.
A couple of summers ago I watched a guy and young boy flip a metal canoe that came with a vacation rental home. Neither were wearing PFDs. While I had taken the L2 earlier that month and had practiced T-rescues, dragging a canoe over my bow never entered my mind. Even if it had, the lack of PFDs was an issue. They didn’t even have them in the canoe. Figured my best option was to inflate my paddle float, get it to the kid, then tow him to shore.
As it turned out, the guy was able to swim the canoe to shore with the kid hanging on. They never paddled it again for the rest of their stay.
I now carry two paddle floats when paddling at home.
As has been said, boat over boat rescues can generally be done with a kayak rescuing a swamped canoe, but there are exceptions. Newbies have an unfortunate tendency to sometimes tether a lot of heavy crap to the thwarts or gunwales of their canoes because they have no proper anchors on the hull bottom. A lot of heavy gear hanging down from the inverted boat can make a boat over boat rescue impossible or extremely difficult unless it is all untied.
If you have two swimmers, direct one to the end of the capsized canoe opposite your kayak and the other to a grab loop on one end of your kayak, preferably the bow so you can keep an eye on them in case they decide to attempt something stupid. The other swimmer can push down on the end of the swamped canoe to help break the suction resisting lifting the other end onto your front deck. The suction can be considerable in an open boat. That swimmer can also assist getting the inverted canoe centered over your deck by gently pushing, if necessary. Once you have it centered, you should be able to roll the emptied canoe upright and feed it back toward the swimmer.
Make the swimmers reenter one at a time. Bring the canoe parallel to your boat and hold the near gunwale at the center with both hands. You should be able to judge how much weight you can safely put on it. The first swimmer should reenter over the far gunwale as near center as practical. As they reenter you will likely need to raise the near gunwale and dip the far gunwale so they can get over it. As they reenter, you may need to put considerable downward pressure on the near gunwale to prevent them from capsizing the boat, or swamping it by dipping the far gunwale below water.
Once the first swimmer is back in, they should get their weight as low in the boat as possible while the second swimmer reenters. The first swimmer may be able to assist this process by using a low paddle brace, if they know how to do one.
Just one add - for me at a lighter weight helping a guy who is bigger, I have my torso over the gunwale and partly inside the canoe while the person climbs back in. Can’t hold it by just having hands on gunwale. But I am all the way over someone’s kayak in the parallel move as well.
Ok its possible as I have practiced it BUT ITS NOT the same as a kayak. Its much harder. I did this with a 2 man canoe. It was heavy as hell. Very difficult to get it pulled up on my deck. If your not a strong person it wont happen. A kayak is way way easier. This practice I did was when the water was calm. In rough conditions I doubt I could do it. Open canoes with no flotation don’t belong in open water. If the dumb enough to go out in one then they better no what there doing.
There too many dumb people out there to be worried about them. I was out practicing with a group of drysuited kayakers rescues this past Sunday . As we were doing this 2 kayakers wearing shorts and t-shirt in rec boats NO pfd’s paddled off. Am I going to worry about them? No. Its called the Darwin award.
The last time this happened we just moved them to shallow water… Then we went about collecting the loose items that floated off. One of the paddlers, in a PFD, from the canoe had a death grip to the canoe. She could have transferred to my kayak bow and made the recovery easier, but wouldn’t leave the canoe. We later were surprised to find out she couldn’t swim. Even very experienced paddlers can “freeze” in these situations making things more complicated for reasons none of us had known before.
Here’s a series of short videos on various rescues, a few which show emptying a swamped canoe and mixed boat rescues. FSRT578 is kayak rescues canoe.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLG39ew-O5f_2KmRRuBmeye8KoeGdBCFR-
A T-rescue can absolutely can be done with a kayak rescuing a canoe, we practice it at our flatwater training sessions each year. Wish I could find some pictures , but no such luck. There are a couple of differences.
A swamped canoe can be tough to move around, and tough to get up on the deck to empty. As with a kayak, the swimmer will need to help the rescuer get the boat positioned and up on the deck. Sometimes I’ll do it from near the kayak, sometimes from the other end of the boat. Once the boat is up on the kayak, I think it is easier than a kayak to empty and roll back over.
Once the boat is back in the water, it is positioned just like you would with a kayak, but getting back in is also different. In a kayak, you pull yourself up on the deck of both boats so you can slide your feet back in the cockpit. In a canoe, it is more of a rolling motion up and over the gunwale and into the boat. If it is done correctly you end up sitting in the bottom of the boat. As Pblanc said, the rescuer needs to hold the boat so the far-side gunwale is low enough for the swimmer to roll back in, but doesn’t go underwater to re-swamp the boat.
Once the swimmer rolls back into the boat, momentum will often continue to carry them across to the other side, and if the rescuer isn’t careful, the near-side gunwale will go underwater re-swamping the boat. I’ve done it a couple of times in my solo boat, and taken my rescuer with me.
Like anything, practice makes perfect. For the canoeist, it takes practice to roll yourself back into the boat without swamping the far-side gunwale, or having momentum carry you across to swamp the other side. For the rescuer, it take practice to hold the boat so it doesn’t swamp as the canoeist rolls in. In easy water, you could probably talk an inexperienced canoeist through the process, but I wouldn’t want to try it in rough water.
I found the pictures of an assisted rescue with my solo boat
In the water
Boat over boat
Boat is upright and empty
Rolling in
Back in the boat
Never tried it with a tandem.
@eckilson said:
I found the pictures of an assisted rescue with my solo boat
… Rolling in …
Ok, that does not look comfortable…
But I do appreciate the pictures showing that it can be done, at least with a small solo canoe under ideal conditions. I imagine it would actually be easier than trying to empty a recreational kayak without bulkheads because water would be trapped in that, unlike the open canoe.
The majority of canoes that I’d encounter on my travels would be tandems, and of those more 17’ than smaller. It just seems that what most outfitters seem to have available - probably to fit the cooler of beer for the weekend…
No pix but I have done boat over boat with an 18 foot Old Town OTCA wood and canvas canoe… Getting in is easier if you can hold the near gunwale up for the first part to aid the rescuee than help push down hard. The heel hook technique also works if you commit to it… Otherwise getting hung up on the gunwale is not comfy for males
https://paddling.com/learn/kayak-heel-hook-assisted-rescue/
It works much more smoothly for kayaks of course as the gunwale is not a factor but it works better than a scramble in a canoe.
@Rookie said:
Here’s a series of short videos on various rescues, a few which show emptying a swamped canoe and mixed boat rescues. FSRT578 is kayak rescues canoe.
There are a lot of great short clips there. It’s interesting to note that multiple kayaks were used to rescue one canoe though. I guess it all depends on the boats and the actual situation.
I didn’t think to search for “mixed boat” rescues when I went looking for videos. “Canoe Kayak Rescue” didn’t get me much.
@dc9mm said:
There too many dumb people out there to be worried about them. I was out practicing with a group of drysuited kayakers rescues this past Sunday . As we were doing this 2 kayakers wearing shorts and t-shirt in rec boats NO pfd’s paddled off. Am I going to worry about them? No. Its called the Darwin award.
Although I won’t go as far as to say you’re wrong, because you aren’t, I do feel obligated to help if I’m the only one around capable of doing so. And for some unknown reason, I stock up on knowledge and skills like this so that I’m in a better position to be able to do so. Super Hero complex? Knight in shining armour complex? Whatever it is, it’s complex.
@Sparky961 said:
The majority of canoes that I’d encounter on my travels would be tandems, and of those more 17’ than smaller.
It would work with a tandem. It would probably be easier to empty the boat because you would have swimmers at each end to help. It would probably also be easier to get the first person in because the boat is wider, and you have one swimmer in the water to help stabilize the boat. Might be a little more difficult for the second swimmer with the first in the boat, but I guess they can help with a low brace as Pblanc said.
Around here you don’t tend to see canoes in big open water. Around here you don’t tend to see canoes at all 