Hi Peter O, Chuck Holst & Paddlewisers, Thanks for the long paddle feedback. I find it disturbing that we have in Biddeford and now Newfoundland two nearly identical cases in which a pair of reasonably knowledgeable paddlers have gone out on cold water, in difficult paddling conditions, at night, unable to communicate with outside parties, unable to keep their boats upright, and carry out effective rescues. About 3 decades back, three highly trained paddlers went out somewhere along the south coast of Newfoundland early one morning. Not early enough! How high are the coastal mountains there? I don't remember exactly, but they could be 1-2000 ft. In the morning, the winds roll off the high uplands and fall down onto the ocean at great speed. That happened to us once along the Gaspe peninsular where the sea cliffs are only about 500 ft. You could see the wind puffs hit the water- cats paws! They were strong enough to stop some of us in our tracks. In our rather trivial case, we paddled in to shore and considered our options. It seemed- less wind further out! We paddled a few hundred yards farther out and went on our way. As related to me, one of the South Coast paddlers was initially unable to return to the protection of the cliff-mountain base. A second paddler in the group went out to try to help the first paddler back to shore. The first paddler made it in on his own. The second paddler was driven out to sea. He tied a wooly hat to a line off the stern of his boat to act as a sea anchor. He spent the rest of the day being driven out to sea with a steady succession of great waves crashing over his shoulders. It seems he had excellent bracing skills. The other two paddlers made it to a fishing village and got some local captains to go out in search of their lost paddler. Near dusk, as I recall, they found the third man paddling back to shore after the winds died down. They declined to publish their story on the grounds that they didn't want their wives to know about such matters. Who remembers ANorAK? Who ever heard about the "Quill"? Why did the East Arctic and North Greenland paddlers use long paddles? I say- Natural (environmental) selection worked its magic! Chuck Sutherland *************************************************************************** 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 Fri Jul 09 2010 - 08:15:40 PDT
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