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From: Doug Lloyd <dlloyd_at_telus.net> subject: Re: [Paddlewise] Double fatality, double kayaks, are you using sea socks??? Date: Wed, 27 Sep 2000 22:51:15 -0700 · This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:33:17 PDT

ralph diaz wrote:

> Doug Lloyd wrote:
>
> SNIPPED
> > Rex, that was kind of my point. Rescuing a double in summer in choppy, but not
> > too terrible conditions, is actually very easy. You know the routine: one person
> > gets in the stern while the bow paddler in the water stabilizes the craft. <snip>
>
> In real rough conditions, any rescue is difficult whether it involves
> two single kayakers in an all-in-the-water situation or two paddlers
> overboard from a double.  In lesser rough conditions, the double is
> probably easier but you do have all that water to empty out and not the
> advantage of the T-rescue emptying out you have with two boats.

With loaded boats, this point is mute.

>
>
> Sea socks and lots of air bags are critical to reduce the amount of
> water that can get in.  That is why Feathercraft back in 1993 made sea
> socks standard equipment in all their boats, even the then
> recently-introduced K-Light which they wanted to keep as low price as
> possible, rather than leave the sea socks as an optional accessory.  <snip>

I take it that it is easier to bail a large cockpited double folder with a hand
bailer, like a canoe would be bailed. Is this the norm, or do folders use hand pumps -
or both?

>

>
> > We lost a couple off Victoria in a Klepper a few years ago. I know for a fact
> > the couple did not have a lot of rescue skills. <snip>

I was down at ORS today to see Mike Pardy about the double fatality, and give him the
corrective to the pathetic local paper's coverage. I decided to approach a customer
with Rex's comments. The  lady was just getting out of her car, to go in the store. It
had a large double on the roof rack, with Washington plates on the car. She said she
was up doing some paddling. I asked her if she used seasocks. She said, "Oh, those
things, no." I asked her what she would do if the double capsized in rough water,
given the huge volume of water it holds and the attendant problems that would
transpire. She said, "It is very stable, and would not go over." I said that one
should never say never. She just looked at me, and said, "It ain't gonna ever happen!"
She seemed annoyed. I tried Rex. I really did.

> But by the same token the invincibility that the Klepper owner has
> because of his boat is also shared by the non-Klepper hardshell paddler
> who is overly confident in his skills.  Witness the Norwegian who was
> just killed in Newfoundland.

Yes, the Reuters report does mention a degree of brashness on his first leg. But, we
need more information before assessing what happened. He was doing some writing for SK
before he died. I'm sure they will do something to remember Roy by, and do it in good
taste. He followed his dream, and sometimes there is a fate worse than death - if you
don't follow your kismet and your dream.

>
>
> There was a discussion back in the beginning of PaddleWise regarding
> leaving a margin for error.  The best thing to do seems to be to figure
> that you, your boat can handle x conditions but then try not to push the
> conditions you paddle in beyond x minus y with y being some margin for
> safety.

My "x" is probably much higher than most folks (barring overnight at sea in a
Nordkapp), yet it is all relative, and no matter what level one's skills are, there
will always be conditions worse than can be safely handled. The margin for error is
where we blew it on the Storm Is trip. There should have been a very big "y" factor.
The "y" factor can be scaled way back for many an easier trip. My personal sea rating
scale includes in the "y" factor, the potential for recovery after a capsize ( if that
makes sense?). I don't look at a headland, and say to myself, this is a Class VI  ( my
own system goes from One to Ten - I'll share it some time). Instead, I say to myself,
"If I bail due to a blown roll, this Class VI headland is actually a Class VIII", and
then reassess. I believe deep down in my heart, most paddlers subjectively "rate"
their paddle by the potential of their skill-set to keep them from coming out of their
boat, rather than including the conditions present or potentially present as it
relates to a self or group rescue scenario that could ensue. I think that was the case
with the recent doubles fatality, if they indeed were even thinking about assessing
the trip.

I liked the way John Dowds groups "Seamanship and Self-rescue" together in his manual
for long-distance cruising (1981 edition). However, much of his rescue discussion with
a double centers around having another double near by, transferring heavy gear, etc. I
got his heckles up one year by calling his beloved double klepper, a "canvas coffin".
He does have a great quote however: "Your seamanship is the measure in which you
partake of the wisdom of the sea".

I also phoned Al Wilson today to update him on the tragedy, and get the facts to him
as they are. I did an article for WaveLength a while ago on off season paddling. I
mentioned the San Juan's as a dangerous place to paddle. He edited that out of the
article. I was upset at the time, figuring he was giving in to outfitters advertising
concerns. I really believe people don't understand how dangerous a potential certain
areas can be. SK Mag has a number of fatality stats on the area that have not seen the
light of day, as there were no witnesses or survivors to write an article.

> <snip>
>
> > BTW, it was Ken Fink who mentions every year at the PT Symposium, the easabiliyt
> > of a solo double rescue in his talk on oceanography and sea conditions. I took
> > him to task on the point last time I attended.
>
> Hmmm.  My good friend Ken Fink said that?

Yes he did. A very direct quote, indeed.

> What was his response?

Yes, he acknowledged my "Rexian" comments. He backed up and mentioned he was talking
about the typical weekend renter type paddlers who might die after a sudden,
unprovoked capsize due to stupidity in calmer water, who needlessly die not realizing
how easy they are to get back in.

> When
> I have heard him talk on the East Coast in that same lecture he usually
> has the double flipping over easily, especially a foldable, because of
> their width.  :-)

Yeah, he had everybody that doesn't paddle a narrow Greenland style kayak, flipping
over and drowning due to dynamic instability. This went way beyond doubles and
folders, Ralph! Yeap, them thar "Puget Panzers" were a might bit dangerous. He then
shows slides of some rough rock gardens with lots of crashing waves, and says these
folks in the slides are all dynamically stable, having the time of their lives ("see",
he says, "look at those big grins") and then adds for effect, "and they are all
novices". Ken must be a friend of Kevin's, the very predudicial KK Klan. :-)

> BTW, in Ken's one visit to NYC to paddle we managed
> to get him into a double Klepper for the trip to the Statue with his
> wife.  It is a boat he normally mocks in a congenial way as the example
> in his lecture regarding doubles as I mention above.

I hope you got a picture of that! I bet he got better pictures himself though, than he
has ever gotten before in one of his "static-stabiliy challenged" seal chasers.

BC'in Ya
Doug Lloyd

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