On Tue, Mar 8, 2011 at 6:16 PM, skimmer <skimmer_at_enter.net> wrote: > A couple years back, National Safe Boating council attended the ACA annual > meeting. They came to promote the use of inflatable PFDs by kayakers. Just > pull the rip cord that activates the air cylinder and the tubes inflate. > The > pull cord is at waist level. There you are upside down in cold water, extra > tight hot shot spray skirt holding tight to the knife edge glass cockpit > rim, paddle in your hand. What do ya do? > > I'm with Doug on the combination PFD. The Kokatat has sufficient flotation to keep me up (and yes, I've tested that). It can be inflated by mouth so you can choose to inflate it a little or more depending. Fully inflated it's bulky but significantly helps the roll. Deflated it's not bulky at all and you can swim in it pretty easily I think. As far as a PFD being the best survival tactic in cold water... then what's second best? A PFD and a drysuit? A PFD and a wetsuit? That seems ludicrous to me. The logical answer is that the single best survival tactic in cold water is a drysuit with suitable layers underneath and a PFD. A PFD alone has to be somewhere down the list since quite a few people die with a PFD on in cold water. And not many people die at all in cold water with a drysuit and PFD on. Craig Jungers Moses Lake, WA (now actually water!) www.nwkayaking.net *************************************************************************** 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 Tue Mar 08 2011 - 22:07:41 PST
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:31:45 PDT