In a message dated 5/3/2007 5:41:25 AM Pacific Daylight Time, wjleonhardt_at_bnl.gov writes: Here's my thinking here, although I admit that the likelyhood of this happening is small. I don't usually paddle in rock gardens, but I have been with groups far from shore and the weather has turned sour fast. When I paddle, I try to take along all the gear I need as if I were paddling alone. I have been with groups, however, where others didn't embrace that approach. I could imagine a group of paddlers where a few were in the water and I was trying to help them out. If one of them could do a self rescue but didn't bring a paddlefloat, I could let them use my paddlefloat while I was helping someone else. Even if they did bring a paddlefloat, it could have become untethered and blown away. Perhaps it would be better to just steady the kayak of a swimmer and let them climb back in one at a time instead of loaning out gear and helping people in parallel. I don't know. Anyway, that's what was going through my mind when I responded to Chuck. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> If you take more than a minute to execute a complete assisted rescue, it should be further practiced. In an 'All In' rescue, your equipment could help someone else out, however, why risk carrying it in a place where it is far likelier to do harm than what you intended it for? By assisting someone else you are holding onto that boat, so no additional need for stability. If the 3rd car in the train wreck is close enough for you to be distributing equipment to like some aquatic quartermaster, can't they just swim their boat over to you to wait for the other guy to finish? A paddlefloat rescue takes forever and a day as it is, compared to an assisted rescue. Just pull the deck back a bit and get the float and hand it to him in the odd case that with a paddlefloat he can be faster than you completing your rescue. I like gear, trust me on that. However, gear has as much potential to harm as it does to do good. This is especially true if you insist on carrying it on deck, where it can fail or trip you much more reliably than satisfying the odd rescue scenario. By the way, that person that went ' eeeeekkk' because her paddlefloat slipped off her deckline, filled with water and became a drogue, pinning her to the waves, a position she was unable to get herself out of, I asked her what she was doing when I saw her wrapping it around her decklines prior to launch. She saw some video and it extolled the virtues of doing so. I asked her if she thought we would all be waiting around watching her do a paddlefloat rescue. She still insisted. I asked her to make sure it doesn't come off. I was given one of those 'looks'. Well, ok. Cheers, Rob G ************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com. *************************************************************************** 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/ ***************************************************************************
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