Re: [Paddlewise] Safety--my bad rescue practice experience.

At 10:21 PM 9/6/00 -0700, Matt Broze wrote:
><snip>
>
>Possibly what went wrong was that the buoyancy of your high PFD and maybe a
>bubble in your dry suit (if you were wearing one and hadn't burped it well)
>floated your torso up to one side. This can make reaching for the surface to
>start a roll rather difficult and disorienting (because you couldn't find
>the surface) if you floated up on the opposite side you were set up to roll
>on.

This kind of thing happens a lot on the river, especially when someone 
capsizes to the downstream side when ferrying or peeling out of an eddy. It 
also sometimes happens after a mean nasty hole spits you out into aerated 
water after putting you through a couple of wash cycles -- as I found out 
last weekend. It is indeed very disorienting to not be able to find the 
surface. I have always found that a switch to the other side roll is the 
perfect remedy. I have never encountered the problem that Matt describes 
with the same problem being reversed. I wonder  if this has something to do 
with extreme flotation of two life vests or an unburped drysuit, and is 
therefore not likely to happen in nature (so to speak).

Another remedy to the problem that I sometimes use is the remain in the 
set-up position while performing several strong hipsnaps. This often 
results in a completion of the capsize so that you can start the roll. If 
even that fails, just go for a roll even though you disoriented. If you 
fail, then go for it again, because by this time, your boat almost 
certainly is back to normal upside down.

Kevin

Kevin Whilden
Your Planet Earth
http://www.yourplanetearth.org
(206) 788-0281 (ph)
(206) 788-0284 (f)


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