It could be a POS from Dicks, or some expensive composite design imported from the British Isle… The ride doesn’t matter anywhere near what some make of it. It’s largely about the knowledge, skills and physical conditioning of the person on the craft.
http://www.newenglandkayakfishing.com/forum/index.php?threads/kayak-safety-incident.39172/
sing
Most bad incidents are the result of judgement errors. The choice of craft for the purpose can be just one of several poor judgments. Along with conditions, clothing etc.
Someone who does not understand the risks of the situation often lacks the knowledge to choose the best boat.
I started swimming regularly at the YMCA recently. I was a lifeguard at one point but that was 40 years ago. My first time back in the pool I felt like a cigarette smoker with one lung. Several weeks later it’s starting to get a _little_easier. I imagine that many paddlesports people have forgotten (or just don’t realize) how quickly you might become totally exhausted if you end up in the water. Having clothes on makes it harder and swimming with a PFD on does not make it easier, it just makes you more buoyant. It’s not hard to swallow a little water. Many ways to get into serious trouble (and get panicky) in under a minute.
Sometimes it’s complacency, not lack of knowledge, that can do you in.
“There were two life jackets in the boat at the time of the accident but the officers were not wearing them, according to the Pine County Sheriff’s Office. Minnesota law does not require life jacket use for adults.”
@Rookie said:
Sometimes it’s complacency, not lack of knowledge, that can do you in.“There were two life jackets in the boat at the time of the accident but the officers were not wearing them, according to the Pine County Sheriff’s Office. Minnesota law does not require life jacket use for adults.”
Yes. I always thought it was a shame that when Princess Di died in a Mercedes that hit concrete at over 100 mph the reporting never mentioned that the occupant(s) that were wearing a seat belt survived but those that didn’t didn’t.
Swimming towing a kayak is difficult. Especially if it is full of water and there’s current going in the wrong direction. I don’t think people have an appreciation of the force of water.
On that note, Wear your PFD! last weekend my wife and I flipped the canoe for the first time in 7+ years of paddling spanning hundreds of outings, luckily both wearing PFD’s! (although I capsize often due to a combined love of skinny boats and big waves). Ironically the conditions had noting to do with the capsize, it was all ‘user error’ so dont let calm condition lull you into a sense of false security.
We had a canoe full of crap at the end of a lazy day on the lake. She grabbed the dog, I rounded up the crap floating away and started pushing the canoe towards shore. The wind was 10-15mph at about 45* to shore and we were ~200 yards out. I tried pushing the boat directly into shore and even angled it to act like a sail pushing in, but the wind pushed me straight with it no matter what I did. Eventually I just accepted it and more or less just held on to the boat as the wind blew it in.
Anyways after a ‘not too bad’ 10 minute swim we emptied things out and continued home, but it was cooler than forecast and (shame on me) I did not bring my usual drybag of warm clothes (because it was supposed to be mostly sunny, not fully cloudy!). being early evening it was ~64* so it was a plenty chilly paddle home, but only had a mile or so to go. By the time I got in the car I was beginning to shiver and would not have wanted to be out any longer. When I am out surfskiing alone I over dress for immersion as I expect to be wet and ‘the bigger the better’ when it comes to waves, so want extra safety margin. I was under prepared because my mindset was not “you need to survive for a while if you get separated from your boat a mile off shore”. It was “leisurely summer afternoon at the lake”, which was bad and left me vulnerable. Nothing too ignorant in the grand scheme, but it easily could have been the beginning of a cascade of failures that led to something more serious. I wont make that mistake again.
My takeaways were -
-PFD is god
-Even on a ‘warm’ day, bring a drybag of clothes because the forecast is not always correct, even 6 hours in advance >(
-There is no way you can possibly push or pull a boat against the wind or current, or even at much of an angle. I knew this already, but have not tired it in a while. It was a good reminder
-Plan to be wet at the most inopportune moment of the paddle. Luck will always have it this way
-Attach stuff to your boat. It floats away quickly and is a pain to wrangle in the water, especially if you really dont want to loose expensive paddles and gear.
@MCImes said:
My takeaways were -
-PFD is god
-Even on a ‘warm’ day, bring a drybag of clothes because the forecast is not always correct, even 6 hours in advance >(
-Attach stuff to your boat. It floats away quickly and is a pain to wrangle in the water, especially if you really dont want to loose expensive paddles and gear.
My standard routine.
Having worked in a factory for many years I was responsible for other peoples’ safety as well as my own. I guess that turned me into a bit of a safety Nazi. I’ve been known to paddle with a person or two with pretty weak self-rescue skills and way out in the sound I’d ask, “If a wave knocked you over right here what would you do?” I’d also remind my buddy at roll practice in the pool that he would NOT have goggles on when the wave knocked him over in the middle of the sound.
@Overstreet said:
Swimming towing a kayak is difficult. Especially if it is full of water and there’s current going in the wrong direction. I don’t think people have an appreciation of the force of water.
I don’t know if they were on the Buzzards or MassBay side, but the incident took place near the Cape Cod Canal for sure. The current hauls a$$ through that canal at the height of the tide changes. I don’t think except for the strongest paddlers, many can make any serious, sustained headway against the canal current.
https://www.nae.usace.army.mil/Missions/Recreation/Cape-Cod-Canal/Navigation/
sing
That canal sounds like our St John’s river at Mayport. Big water and really moving. That and sharing water with “boats” with 400ft length is a bad water for first time paddlers, and sometimes the experienced paddlers.
When I worked at EMS I hated selling those little sit in kayaks with no flotation. I can’t figure out which side of the canal this occurred, bsb sounds like Buzzards Bay, but I wouldn’t want to take a sink with no flotation on either side.
Along with PFD, etc., carry a good whistle and don’t be afraid to use it. I have an old Fox40 that I always hang around my neck when I paddle.
A few years ago I was out on a tiny lake with another guy. He was fishing from a 7.5 ft rowboat I’d sold him; I was sightseeing in my canoe. I made a circuit of the lake and found him, asked how it was going. We chatted, then he took off his PFD, and seconds later got off-center on the seat, slid sideways, and the boat flipped. When he surfaced, he grabbed my gunnel and I though he was going to pull me over too, but he didn’t. I think he told me he couldn’t swim.
I looked around and saw some other people fishing from a bigger rowboat. Out came the Fox40, and I blew SOS until I got their attention. They came over and somehow righted his boat, then helped him get back into his PFD, more or less. They also tied his boat to mine. I towed his boat back to the launch, and the other guys towed him.
The whistle got us out of there; I don’t think I could have yelled loud enough for those other guys to hear me, as it took them a little while to begin to respond anyway.
The regs say “signaling device”. A 357
would get a lot of attention.
@string said:
The regs say “signaling device”. A 357
would get a lot of attention.
Yeah, but hopefully not from someone who thinks you’re aiming at them and is also packing heat.
@sing
On Buzzards Bay, if the swim was anywhere within a quarter mile of the stronger points of that current they would not have had a chance as a swimmer. I paddled there once in my more aggressive days and did traverse the channel out and back successfully, On day one of the training. My recollection is that my kayak was never pointed other than upstream even though the direction of travel was 90 degrees to that.
I was not at the top of my game due to a coming on cold, and had to sit out day two because I was pretty sure that I was too beat not to become rescue bait on a second try. From the report I got from those who did day two, I think I would have been proven correct. It did ramp up existing shoulder issues for at least one paddler who did both days.
Two months subsequent to that weekend my husband got a phone call that showed up some less pleasant internal aspects of the BCU. I don’t know if it was those politics or the fact that the location is a complicated and very difficult base for training. But I don’t think there has been another training exactly like that one since, at least from BCU folks.
@greyheron
If you kept your mouth shut after helping a guy who was not wearing any PFD and said he couldn’t swim, you are more politic than me.