RE: [Paddlewise] Farmer John & Darwin

Bob Denton wrote:
"Then there's the ever-present
drunks."
Apparently, as a reason to wear a PFD. I'm afraid I don't see his logic
here. Bob, can you give me more details?
Now I strongly advocate the use of a PFD most of the time (but still fall in
with the situational camp on this). Say I'm about to be run down by a
drunken powerboater (or a sober one checking out Melissa who dove off that
other boat and hasn't yet realized what happened to her bikini top;-), what
do I do? Say he looked up, saw my buddy in front of him and violently
swerved right towards me, lets say about three seconds to impact.

Sidebar: The Tsunami Rangers at first argued against PFD use as being
dangerous for a strong swimmer, because in the surf you couldn't swim under
the big dumping breakers and would get hammered at the surface and possibly
dragged into the rocks by the turbulence. Later they decided that in ocean
rock gardens some PFD's actually made good "rib protectors" and wore them
along with a lot of plastic motocross body armor.
I think they had a point about swimming in 6 to 10 foot dumping surf but on
the two occasions I know of where paddlers were caught in 15 to 20 foot surf
(one on purpose one by accident--see "Deep Trouble" page 46 for the
accident). The "on purpose" paddler went out the same river as the accident
guy.  He intended to ride back in on the really big January storm waves
(with a camera in a waterproof box bolted into his front deck and facing
back at him). He needed to go out the river because nobody could get out
through that surf that day any other way. He
told me about his experience about a half hour after it happened.  Actually
I had just asked him why he wasn't out in the breakers for the contest that
was about to start. I was confused seeing him on shore because he was one of
the best contestants in big surf. He told me: "My knees were still shaking".
He said that as he started in to shore a huge set breaking much further out
than most waves (which were already huge--I have videos to prove it)
engulfed him. That first huge breaker stripped him of his whitewater kayak,
both his wetsuit booties and ripped the camera out of the deck of the kayak
(they both floated to shore separately). He was being tumbled down the face
of this huge tumbling breaker totally engulfed in the foam and turbulence.
But, unlike what happens with a 10 to 12 footer, this breaker was so big he
was held in the foam and being tumbled forward down the face until he was
getting really desperate for air. Maybe his PFD was holding him there. Maybe
it wasn't. It wouldn't have mattered anyhow because he had no idea which way
was up or down, so how would he know which way to swim if released? He
thought: "Maybe I can grit my teeth and open my lips a crack and suck some
air out of the foam without taking in too much salt water with it". He
rejected that idea as wishful thinking and guessed that he would just start
choking and drown (Note: some experts tell me you can actually do this but I
have never tried it--and would want to practice it a lot in benign
conditions before I tried it for real). All the time he was tumbling he had
a death grip on his PFD because he is afraid that the breaker would strip
him of that too. Why did he want to keep it on? Because he knew that if this
wave ever let him go the PFD would automatically return him to the surface
even though he had no way of then knowing which way was up. Finally
everything got quiet and he knew the wave had passed over him and since he
had managed to retain his PFD he was headed for the surface. The question in
his mind was: would he get there in time? It seemed to be taking forever and
he was sure he would black out in any second and drown if he didn't get to
the surface soon. He burst to the surface, gasped loudly and lived to tell
the story.
But I digress, there is a powerboater three seconds from impact with me,
what should I do? I think I'd capsize and try to dive below the surface and
let the kayak take a glancing blow and hopefully have cleared the propellers
with my vitals so I didn't end up looking like a Florida Manatee. You know
propeller tattooed. I think one might stand a better chance with this drunk
powerboater without a PFD. "Rib protesters" can only take so much abuse.
Of course, except under special circumstances I still would wear a PFD
because I tend to look for the best odds (that still allow for doing what I
want to do) and realize you can't protect yourself from everything.
Overheating: I have a high metabolism and give off a tremendous amount of
heat. A regular human radiator. If a PFD wasn't required during a kayak race
I wouldn't use one. I remember one 13 mile race on a rare 99 degree day in
the San Juan Islands. I was trying to hold my lead but was getting seriously
overheated even though I was splattering myself with the 55 degree water at
the end of nearly every stroke. I'd push my hand down to the water at the
end of a stroke and use the last three fingers to fling water across my
sides and chest as I was withdrawing the blade. It has been so many years I
can't remember if I was wearing a PFD over my T-shirt or not that race.
 Warning: I once made the mistake of not wearing a T-shirt to try to stay
cooler in a race where a PFD was required. BIG mistake! I rubbed my nipples
raw on the nylon PFD. They are still sometimes real sensitive on long kayak
trips when my T-shirt gets salt encrusted and the PFD or Farmer John's has
been rubbing over them (on the other side of the T-shirt) many hours a day.
Matt Broze
http://www.marinerkayaks.com


***************************************************************************
PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not
to be reproduced/forwarded outside PaddleWise without author's permission
Submissions:     PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net
Subscriptions:   PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net
Website:         http://www.paddlewise.net/
***************************************************************************