Re: [Paddlewise] outriggers without pfds

From: Kirk Olsen

>I checked with my friend who steered one of the outriggers for this
>years Blackburn Challenge.  He said it was silly but none of the
>outrigger paddlers that he knew of put on their pfds (despite many boats
>going over).  His crew kept their pfds under the seats throughout the
>race.
>He did find it odd because in a regular canoe, or sea kayak, he always
>wears his pfd.
>
        Flatwater sprint paddlers, a la olympic style,  also do not wear
PFDs and in fact are exempted from this requirement.  --For two reasons.
There is always a chase boat nearby (that's required, so far as I know); and
their rate of heat production is considerable.  It's quite possible for them
to go into heat exhaustion because of heat retention by the PFD.
        --On another note, 78 degrees is still a temperature differential of
20 degrees from your body temp.  So there's still a net loss of heat.
Question is how long before your body runs out of fuel trying to replace
this loss at 25 times the rate of air loss...  At 88 it's still a net loss,
only takes longer to reach the same point....


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