G'Day, A lot of food for thought there. I was struck by two sentences. One was the sheer commonsense of: - "In the wilderness, where I have seen nobody over the last five days, what's the point of waiting for a rescuer?" The other was: - "DuCharme's team looked at 35 people who were dunked into water with temperatures of 10, 14 and 23 degrees Celsius. They found that in all temperature ranges, people wearing a life jacket could swim between 800 and 1,000 metres, or about 45 minutes, before their arms and legs stopped working from the cold." Would your arms really stop working from the cold after swimming 45 minutes in 23 degree C water? Another thought was how much more difficult it seems to be to make progress swimming when wearing a life jacket. If I was in isolated and cold waters and had to swim a kilometer would it be better to abandon the lifejacket. Somehow that doesn't feel right? One would be swimming faster but without the benefit of buoyancy and any insulation the PFD provided. I guess it depends on one's physique and swimming ability. Is there a preferred stroke for best speed swimming while wearing a PFD? If I was strong enough to swim a kilometre I'd take the easy option and roll up or paddlefloat rescue. Perhaps this advice is fundamentally irrelevant to kayakers with good self rescue skills. All the best, PeterO *************************************************************************** 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 Nov 08 2007 - 23:05:25 PST
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