I recently read with interest the Tsunami Rangers system of hand signals for communicating kayak to kayak. I also notice that river rafters refer to a necessary peice of gear as a "river whistle". Sea Kayakers refer to it as a "astorm whistle". No matter, but does anybody know of a series of "whistle signals" that could be used similar to the Tsunami Rangers hand signals to communicate? Or do you just blast on the danged thing hoping somebody will heaar you and think it is halftime? John LeBlanc *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
Bluecanoe2_at_aol.com wrote: > No matter, but does anybody know of a series of "whistle signals" that could > be used similar to the Tsunami Rangers hand signals to communicate? > > Or do you just blast on the danged thing hoping somebody will heaar you and > think it is halftime? There is the "International Whistle Code" or some such. I believe it's printed on the back of Fox 40 packaging. Basically it is something like 3 tweets (in repeated sequences) = Help 2 tweets = Where are you? 1 tweet = I'm here. Note that there's no point in trying to do the SOS in Morse code. Any sequence of three sounds (or three fires/lights etc) should reasonably be accepted as a distress signal. WW guides have a general dislike of whistles as multi-purpose signalling devices. If they hear a whistle, they assume it means there's a problem. After all these years, I tend to agree. There's no guarantee that you've heard the first whistle blast, so how do you interpret the signal? I think that you should be cautious in using a whistle while paddling. You and your buddies may understand each other, but someone else may think you're in trouble and risk (or inconvenience) themselves in trying to help you. Another problem with whistles is that quasi-monotonic, high pitched sounds can be difficult to locate. This is especially a problem in areas like Georgian Bay where I paddle frequently. Lots of islands and rock to bounce sound off of. Mike *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
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