Interesting thread, I thought I'd throw my few cents worth in. As A US Navy SAR pilot for the last 15 years I can tell you that generally speaking colors of boats/small flags don't really matter much. If you are really looking to have color make a difference it must cover a large enough area to be seen from a distance. That is why the Navy includes sea dye marker in all of our life raft and RSSK (rigid seat survival kit- for ejection seat equppied aircraft). This dye turns the sea bright yellow-green for a large area around where it is put in (varying in size based upon winds speed, swells, etc) I have found that what generally gets spotted is motion and bright flashes. Waving a reflectorized paddle might help, but best of all is one of those sun refelecting mirrors. I have personally spotted them at over 10 miles on a normal (partly overcast day). At night, almost any light source will be helpful, especially a red or white flashing strobe. On NVGs (night vision goggles) I can spot a flashing light for many miles. I used this to pick up two guys when we saw their strobes at over 8 miles one night. As for sharks, gay bladers, feathered paddles, I can only reply as another famous comic once said "Baseball been very very good to me" PS SandyKayak, would homophobic misogamy be a fear of gay marriages?? regards, Sluf *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Tue Sep 21 1999 - 11:44:05 PDT
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