Steve Holtzman related an account of an outrigger canoe getting in trouble 100 yards off shore in Southern California. But he had difficulty remembering the details of the event which happened a couple of years ago. Although my memory is not that much better than my friend Steve's, in this case I do remember a few more of the details of that tragedy. As I recall, two paddlers died that day; one from hypothermia and one from drowning. Six men were paddling their outrigger canoe when strong off shore winds came up. The canoe was in such bad shape that it took on water and sank leaving the men clinging to the canoe's outrigger for support. Non of the men had a PFD. They were dressed in swimming trunks and T-shirts. When hypothermia started to claim the first victim, one of the men tried to swim to shore against the wind and current. The swimmer's body was found a day or two later. Although they were only about 100 yards from the mouth of the harbor when their boat sank, several boats passed by without seeing them in the choppy water. They did not have a signaling device such as a radio, a mirror, or a flair, . The four who were rescued were discovered by a fishing boat that happened to come very close to them. When they were pulled out of the water, one of the men had died from the effects of hypothermia. His team mates had held onto his body to keep him from being lost at sea. The newspaper reported that these guys had been paddling as a team for several years. They frequently had paddled their boat to oil platform Gina three miles off shore. Apparently they regarded PFDs and safety equipment as unnecessarily burdensome for paddlers with their experience, skill and stamina. A few months later they were in the paper again. It was reported that they had a received a ticket for paddling an outrigger with insufficient PFDs. Apparently a boy was the only paddler in their boat with a PFD. Patrick Martin Southern California *************************************************************************** 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 Mon Mar 29 2004 - 06:33:12 PST
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:31:14 PDT