RE: [Paddlewise] Capsize of dragonboat with 15 in Denmark.

On Tuesday, 15 February 2011 12:29
Tony said > survival times are not long

Tony, my point was that in spite of decades of accepted wisdom of survival times from 2 to 15 minutes (when dropped suddenly into 2C water) - more than half were alive after an hour or more. That considerably enhances the survival value of a PFD - a lot more can happen in an hour than in a few minutes.

When people are training (ie: sweating hard in light clothing), getting them to wear PFDs is an uphill job. Getting them to wear wet or drysuits is going to be much harder and possibly a recipe for hyperthermic death. Often a chase boat is considered an acceptable alternative.

As you say, it is very lucky (and, to me, interesting) that one guy was cold-resistant enough (to maintain muscle co-ordination in that degree of cold) to swim 500m to shore. The fastest possible time for this (racing in a warm pool) is over 4 minutes - so in a choppy cold ocean and clothing it might take 2 or 3 times as long. From the performance levels in the USCG Cold-Water Boot-Camp film, fit and practiced swimmers failed shorter distances. After this immersion time, he still retained concentration and muscular ability to run a km... Without trying to be flippant, was it Viking blood, practice or polypros?   

Best Regards
Paul Hayward, Auckland, New Zealand


-----Original Message-----
From: Tony Ford [mailto:tford_at_web.de] 
Subject: RE: [Paddlewise] Capsize of dragonboat with 15 in Denmark.

Hello Paul,
Yes, that is learning the hard way.
>From my understanding, although they had some form of PFD, no protective clothing for cold water immersion was worn.   With water at 2 degrees centigrade, survival times are not long.   They seem at least been somewhat lucky that one of those capsized was fit enough to swim ashore and raise the alarm.   I live about 300 milws to the South and we have cold biting Easterly winds - straight from Northern Russia.   Not nice.
Kind regards
Tony
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