Re: [Paddlewise] Visibility of kayakers

Hi,

I was out on a evening paddle yesterday evening, and at one point I 
had a group of kayakers ahead who rented boats from a local 
outfitter.  I could see them from a distance of >1 km, mainly 
because they had white paddle blades (rhythmic white flashes).  At 
that point I counted 4 paddlers.  A bit later while catching up I 
could still count 4 paddlers, wearing red pfd's.  At that point I still 
couldn't see their boats. Some time later there were suddenly 5 
paddlers on the water.  The previoulsy invisible guy was using a 
paddle with dark blue or black blades and wore a dark blue pdf.  At 
that point I could also tell the color of their boats.  I guess I was 
~500m away.

Conclusions:  As long as you are in your boat the color/contrast of 
your pfd and your paddle blades is the most important part -at least 
from the viewpoint of small vessels (these are the ones most likely 
to run you over).  One kayaker I know has one of these bicycle flag 
poles mounted on his rear deck.  This thing is ~2m long, with a 
little orange flag attached.  He, or better his pole/flag is visible form 
quite a distance, and the moving little flag catches the attention 
first.

Speculation:  If you are in the water the color of your pfd becomes 
less important, since your upper body is mostly submerged.  A 
strobelight and/or a contrasting paddle for signalling is than more 
important.  
For the boat color the contrast to the water is more important than 
color.  Light bright color usually provide more contrast to the 
mostly dark water.  In moving water with whitecaps etc. is 
becomes harder to spot a small boat anyway.  Visual distress 
signals like strobe light, flash light, or flares/smoke signals are 
probably the only measures in this situation to make yourself more 
visible!

I use right now a yellow pfd.  I choose it because red becomes 
gray if the guy in the other boat is colorblind and all other colors 
(green, black, blue) were even worse for the purpose of visibility.  
I don't have a strobe light yet, but it is one of the items on my 
"soon to order list".
My boat is painted with a red/yellow deck and a white hull.  If I am 
going to refresh the paint job on the hull this winter (wooden boat 
and the paint gets worn off the bottom when you ride up the 
beaches) I will add a neon dayglow stripe (yellow or red) along the 
keel line to increase to aerial visibility of my upside down floating 
boat.
My primary paddle is a Grey Owl wooden paddle.  I hesitate a bit 
to give the blades a paintjob, but I think since the paddle is made 
from light colored wood it should be fairly visible anyway.  My spare 
is a wooden Greenlander and I think I will give it a paintjob soon 
(black loom, bright yellow blades).

The Atlantic up here looks pretty dark, almost black.  In other parts 
of the world with light blue green waters (picture the tropical island) 
the whole color/contrast story might be different.  If you paddle in 
the Arctic white color might be not a good idea at all, unless you 
are on a seal hunt.

My two cents

Ulli


Dr. Ulli Hoeger
Dept. Physiology and Biophysics
Dalhousie University
Halifax, B3H4H7, Nova Scotia
Canada

Phone I : 902-494-2673
Fax: 902-494-1685
Phone II :902-488-6796
http://is.dal.ca/~uhoeger
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