JCMARTIN43_at_aol.com wrote: > > But you don't really have to worry about his boat. If he's, in fact, > hypothermic --- irrational, uncontrolled shaking, unable to help himself --- > his boat may now be his worst enemy. <He> can't take care of it, and another > paddler or two trying to raft up with him is only going to complicate the > issue, especially in dumping surf. You get two guys on either side of him --- > and I'll assume that nobody in the group is really experienced in surf rescues > --- and somebody's going to be wearing somebody else's kayak pretty soon. > >From my experience, there's no way you're going to safely land two or three > rafted boats in dumping surf, especially when one of these folks is totally > incapacitated. > > Without thinking further, my reaction would be to get most of the group onto > the beach fast, and then get the hypothermic paddler out of his boat and send > him in with another swimmer --- hopefully with a solid paddlefloat or some > other solid flotation device in addition to the PFD. No long lines --- no > short lines. Or somebody's going to be wearing <them> around their necks, > too. The paddlers on the beach help the swimmer when he gets the victim in > close, once he's through the impact zone. One last paddler stays with the > empty boats and sends them in on their own later, when the area is clear. > > My thoughts. > > Jack Martin Jack's thoughts seem to be the most practical. All that talk of lines to and fro and rafted up paddlers coming through surf sounded screwy and dangerous. In the first idea, using lines fore and aft, the hypothermic guy in his tippy boat would not able to keep his boat upright and would wind up spinning like that old game of spinning a button on a line. Rafted boats would collide, shoulders would get wrenched trying to hold boats together, hands and fingers broken, etc. The only other possible solution, assuming that the whole situation started outside the surf zone would be to transfer the guy to a more stable boat. Then someone, a swimmer, would hang on to the back of the boat as a sea anchor guiding it in through the surf letting every wave push them both closer to the beach. Yes, some paddlers going in earlier would be there to help the last few yards. The virtue of this approach with the hypothermic paddler is that it keeps him in the boat and out of the cold water which would only make his hypothermia worsen. My understanding from some military stuff I have heard is that in real rough Australian surf, Aussie military teams in double folding kayaks will have one of the team members become a swimmer and hang on to the rear of the boat to act as that sea anchor or rudder. This technique slows progress into the beach and keeps the boat from broaching. (The military rudder has a handhold cut into it that is lined with rubber just so the swimmer can do precisely that.) Now this normally has the remaining team member who is in the boat doing some propelling, bracing, ruddering etc with his paddle. But in the emergency situation posited by Julio just getting the victim to be a lump in the boat would probably be good enough. Joe Weight who paddled a double folding kayak solo from Grenada to Puerto Rico would regularly swim his loaded kayak in that way when he faced surf he was concerned about navigating. So it is a fairly well tried out technique. (In exiting through real rough stuff, he would tie the boat to himself and tow it out.) In his case and in the case of the Aussie military all carried swim fins (it's part of their job description). So much more control and power could be applied during the swim in with the boat using fins. I guess in the group facing Julio's emergency, the person in the group with the biggest feet should be designated the swimmer. :-) ralph diaz -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Ralph Diaz . . . Folding Kayaker newsletter PO Box 0754, New York, NY 10024 Tel: 212-724-5069; E-mail: rdiaz_at_ix.netcom.com "Where's your sea kayak?"----"It's in the bag." ----------------------------------------------------------------------- *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ ***************************************************************************Received on Thu Nov 05 1998 - 14:02:58 PST
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:30:01 PDT