The latest issue (June) has a thought-provoking accident report from Germany ("Lost At Sea") that occured a few years. It involves a fellow who went over in the North Sea in not particularly cold water (63 degrees) and eventually died of exposure. I got two sobering thoughts out of it: 1. The importance of making certain that you are using thoroughly tested and very familiar equipment if you are going into conditions that have any likelihood of being dicey. The fellow was using a new wing paddle, which likely contributed to his capsize and possibly affected any attempts at self rescue. The article mentions that he did have a paddlefloat but I would think a wing paddle might complicate use of one or at least call for some adjustments from what you do with an ordinary paddle that he certainly had not had a chance to practice. 2. The ambiguities in signaling for help. The guy was in the water waving his paddle. He was spotted in steep seas by passengers on a passing fast ferry. But the crew and captain claim they weren't certain of what really was happening and did not stop or go back to locate him. (The captain got away pretty lightly in the court case late last year.) Here again, a radio may have been of help with no ambiguity if used on an emergency channel. And unlike Wes's case on an inland lake when threatened by jetskis, the fast ferry would have certainly been monitoring 16 and probably some other radio channels as well. Anyway, read it. I wonder what Matt's take is on this one. ralph diaz -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Ralph Diaz . . . Folding Kayaker newsletter PO Box 0754, New York, NY 10024 Tel: 212-724-5069; E-mail: rdiaz_at_ix.netcom.com "Where's your sea kayak?"----"It's in the bag." ----------------------------------------------------------------------- *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Thu Apr 19 2001 - 15:04:48 PDT
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