Re: [Paddlewise] paddle float self rescue

Rescue contests:
Sounds like a real good idea to me, maybe the ACA can organize them as part
of sea kayak racing or something.
Competition here might really do a lot of good to improving the breed.

Reading this paddle float self-rescue thread has been quite frustrating to
me because I wanted to comment on almost every post in it (but didn't want
to spend the time so I hoped someone else would take the bait and say what I
wanted to say. Many did, but I'd like to offer a few more scenarios and
comments. Practice all the rescues and all the variations you have heard
about or can think up yourself. In any given situation one of the rescues
will be superior to the others for any number of reasons, one of which is
speed of execution. In reading this discussion I was sensing a "blind men
and the elephant" situation. It seemed to me everyone knew or had read of
some part of the whole and was arguing from a limited perspective, but
nobody had a good understanding of the whole. It also reminded me of Euell
Gibbons (of old Grape nuts commercial fame) and the Skunk Cabbage. In the
commercial Euell says that Grape-nuts reminded him of wild hickory nuts.
Euell was one of many who wrote books on wild edible plants. But in one
fundamental way, Euell was different than most of the other authors on the
subject. Euell did his research by eating the plants and trying to make them
palatable. Most others did there research in the library. This brings us to
the Skunk Cabbage. Skunk Cabbage is listed in numerous edible plant books as
an edible plant used by the Indians. Euell tried everything he could think
of in the way of preparation to make any part of Skunk Cabbage edible (the
calcium oxalate crystals in it quickly grow like needles right through the
skin and would likely swell your throat completely closed until you
suffocated if you swallowed much of it). Although he knew a lot of the
Indians techniques like drying, boiling, pounding, etc., Euell never
succeeded in removing the calcium oxalate from the Skunk Cabbage and making
it edible. Maybe the Indians could do it (or maybe they used it judiciously
to teach there children they couldn't just eat anything they picked up). My
point is that often even the respected authors of books just pass along the
same misinformation they got from other "trusted" sources, who also never
bothering to check it out for themselves or even question it. How many years
was it until somebody with Galileo's gall came along to test Aristotle's
principle that heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones.

By all means kayak rescue competitions! We should start by pitting the
rescues against each of the variations of the same or similar rescues. The
winners then compete against same size teams each using their different
rescue specialties. The winners then compete against different size teams.
There should be both calm water and rough water categories and unladen and
heavily laden categories too. Let me suggest a couple of events I thought of
while reading Paddlewise. The kayak with 150 pounds of gear "T-rescue" vs.
"solo freestyle paddle float rescue" event. The rough water and high wind
reentry and roll vs. the "fixed outrigger paddle float rescue" (not finished
until at least the kayaks have less than 1" of water left sloshing around in
them and their spraydeck is in place and they are beginning to paddle away.
Without going back and seeing whose toes I'm going to be stepping on here: I
question if anyone can pick up  the front (and break the suction at the
cockpit) of even and empty (swamped) sea kayak using merely a scissors kick
to do so. (Paddlewise's Robert Livingston and his Ursa 350 possibly
excepted). Now, this belief of mine may just be because I have used bad
technique when trying to do it. If so, please instruct me in how it is done.
I'll admit I haven't yet been able to figure out (on my own) just how to get
the sail on a sailboard up into the wind to start learning a water start,
but I know it can be done because I've seen it done before. Maybe I'm just
too dense.......even with a PFD on. Maybe I could do it using a paddlefloat
to push down on (like I've read about but haven't yet tried). I doubt if a
big paddle float (or even the bow of a kayak) would help when there was a
heavy gear load in the bow though.
To the person who doubted anyone could do a paddlefloat rescue in 1' chop
and wanted someone to try it, I wanted to ask: "Why don't you just try it
yourself!" Done right and with a little judicious timing of when you make
the crux moves (like climbing onto the deck or removing the paddle from the
deck lines) I can attest from personal experience that it can be done in far
rougher conditions than that. Of course in his books, Derek Hutchinson says
it is only a rescue for calm water....so who you gonna believe?
The crux move for the "all in rescue" comes right at the start. When
paddling in really rough conditions (those conditions likely to capsize two
or more paddlers at once) prudent paddlers are usually careful to stay far
enough apart not to endanger each other if a breaking wave were to sweep one
of them along uncontrollably. How does one swim to each other in such rough
conditions, if you can even figure out which way to swim from your even
lower than normal perspective--especially while trying to tow a swamped
kayak--that might also run over or impale you--to get the rescue started). I
include the "All-In-Rescue" in that class of rescues I call "Pool Rescues".

Does anyone know when Ray Killian started kayaking? In the directions for
our Rescue Float Plus (copyrighted 1986) I wrote: "The hook on the end of
the line should now be clipped to the kayak, spraydeck, or life jacket so it
can't be lost should you let go of it. If the hook is already clipped near
the back of the cockpit in (sic) may not have to be moved at all." (First
time I've noticed that typo). We have had a tether on the Rescue Float Plus
since we started making them sometime around 1983 or 1984.

Another thing that bothers me about this discussion, it appears that
everybody is talking about their own idea about what a "paddle float rescue"
is without explaining which version they are speaking of. There are so many
variations of "Paddle Float Rescue" out there (and, in my opinion, some of
them are really atrocious). There is even an English video that shows the
paddler standing up in the cockpit and turning around before sitting down.
Maybe this is the "paddle float rescue" version Derek knows and is claiming
to be only a calm water rescue. I'd say that version wasn't even good for
calm water (but the demonstrators could get away with it because they did
fasten the paddle to the kayak and the calm water left them a lot of room
for error while still succeeding). I look at that more as a testament to the
soundness of the basic fix outrigger concept. However if you expect to be
able to do a paddle float rescue in rough water your technique will have to
become a lot more refined than the one shown in the video. I developed the
basic paddle float technique back in 1981 and refined it and developed
several other uses for the float over the next several months (and also
helped in the development of better floats over the next several years). We
presented it to the kayaking community in a well refined form that had been
tested in many conditions. I'm appalled at how I often see "paddle float
rescues" taught since then. The directions to how we think a float should
best be used in various conditions can be found in the "Manuals" section of
our website under "Rescue Float".

530 cubic inches of floatation should be more than enough for a paddle
float. I experimented and found 1/4 cubic foot (432 cubic inches) was plenty
for a foam paddle float (back when I was testing ethafoam floats and using
them to teach Eskimo rolls back in the early 1980's).

I liked the idea someone presented of putting the paddle into the slot in
foam float while the float was still attached to the back deck under some
straps. Maybe one could use the paddle like a ram to push the float out the
other side (rather than draw out the float on the paddle and then rotate the
paddle through 180 degrees). That way they could then tighten the straps
down further to hold the paddle firmly in place on the back deck. One
disadvantage I can imagine would be needing to go around the stern of the
kayak to get into the starting position to climb up on the deck. Heavens,
that stern might even have a sharp blade and hard points protruding from it
that could subject those attempting to round that cape with the risk of
serious facial lacerations.
Just more idle speculation on my part again though, do we have some
volunteers from Texas or Florida to test it out? I'd do it myself but the
waters kinda cold around here and I might, GASP, die from cold shock. I
don't think I should risk it.

Matt Broze
http://www.marinerkayaks.com


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