Rescues gone wrongish

[Guest]

Glenn’s Keystone Cops pin video got me thinking about past pins and boat recoveries gone wrong.

Best and worst boat rescue gone wrong.

I was on a group trip on some near flood stage north Florida River. My sons and I, all in solo boats, where out in front, had snuck past a tricky current- line sweeper on the outside bank and pulled into the first eddy below a sharp turn when we heard “Anita’s in!”, followed by “Her boat is gone!”.

That was thankfully followed, in rapid succession, by a shout of “Anita’s safe” and the arrival of her Baboosic, floating along upside down. We bulldozed her canoe into the eddy and my sons tee’ed it up and helped lift the bow over my gunwales. We had recently been practicing boat-over rescues on family trips, and that part was just beautifully cooregraphed.

I drained the Baboosic, flipped it over over, slid it back in the water to my waiting sons and said “Hand me the painter line”

The Baboosic had no painters.

OK “Take my stern line, run it under the carry handle and pass it back to me”

While this is being said and done we are all drifting out of the eddy. In some misunderstood haste my stern line was tied to the Baboosics bow carry handle, just as I drift out of the eddy, into the current, with the nicely emptied Baboosic trailing behind me.

OK, not good. I cannot attain back into the eddy and I’m drifting down a flooded river backwards with a freaking kite tied unreachable behind me.

Oh, did I mention that there was a strong wind blowing upstream? Occasionally the upwind cocks the nicely rounded Baboosic sideways in the opposing forces of swift downstream current and strong wind upstream, each time taking an increasingly larger gulp of water over the gunwale as it rolls sideways.

Oh, yeah, the river is bankful, up into the trees, with no place in sight behind me to park my irretrievable wiggle wagon and disentangle the danger.

Downstream. Backwards. With an increasingly unruly sea anchor tied to my stern. For a scary distance, before I found an eddy to first safe my canoe and then cut the line.

From that I take the following lessons:
Painter lines are invaluable.
Always have a handy release when towing a boat.
Clear communications are vital.
Boats equal ropes, ropes equal knife.

I know other folks have effed up. Let hear it, I’m sure there are some other confessionals out there to learn from.

 

[Philtrum]

OK, I'll 'fess up. I've told this story many times so it's lost a bit of its embarrassment factor.

It was the summer of '91 and I was with a friend on the Flambeau River in northern Wisconsin. We spent about 45 minutes discussing how to run the famous Beaver Dam Rapids, which is a 2- to 4-foot midriver drop with a clear entrance and a big rock on the eddy line to the left that's hidden in high water. It takes basically no skill to run, as long as the boat's lined up straight going into the middle of the opening. But there's also an option: an S-curve on river left that lets you down gently, provided you draw left to avoid the flat, sloping rock that will flip your boat counter-clockwise if you hit it. On the left side of the S-curve is a high-water souse hole.

You know what happened. Being a newbie (this was my first whitewater trip), although I had handled my bow position control strokes reasonably well up to that point, I froze as we entered the top of the S-curve. Sternman called to me to draw and I just sat there looking at the sloped rock. Before I knew it, the Mad River Malecite and all its contents were in the drink. Nothing was tied in but I managed to collect everything in short order and started walking the boat back upstream to pick up the person who, up until then, was my buddy.

He was stuck in the hydraulic with his back pinned against a vertical rock, water pushing him backwards, and more water pushing him down. He was stuck so tight he couldn't edge himself sideways, but he was gradually getting lower and lower. Luckily, a few people on shore had more brains than I did. Before his chin reached water level they chained up to offer him a paddle, with which he pulled himself out of the hole. With few words, we got back in the boat and paddled to our takeout a few miles downstream. I was somewhat surprised that we went on a number of other river trips. But he declined to invite me on any whitewater trips. I wonder why.

 

[pblanc]

Always think twice about tethering and towing another boat. I know it is sometimes the only reasonable option, but it is always a risk, especially if you have to negotiate rocky rapids with a tethered boat. I have gotten in mild trouble a time or two by misjudging the length of the tow line or the drag of the towed boat.

I was on a different stretch of river at the time but a week ago some friends were paddling the upper Tellico River in Tennessee during "Ain't Louie Fest". One friend, "R" swam after running Baby Falls, a 13 ft drop. R wound up in the roadside river left eddy and his boat in the river right eddy below the drop. No problem, our friend "D" was in the river right eddy and said he would ferry R's boat over to him. Only problem was that just past the small recovery pool below Baby is a Class III+ rapid called "Diaper Wiper" (AKA "Meatgrinder") that is a really ugly, rocky SOB with no clean route. It is probably the second worst swim on the entire river and a challenge to run without attached impedimenta.

D had attached the bow grab loop of R's canoe to his Type V PFD's "cow tail" and prepared to ferry across just below the boil line of the falls. Unfortunately, the back of Rs boat extended just into the current rushing into the top of Diaper Wiper. When D realized his predicament, he attempted to pull the quick release on the PFD but the friction of the 2" webbing was greater than the drag of the towed boat and it would not release. D somehow managed to run this extremely technical rapid along with the tethered boat, doing multiple unintentional 360s on the way down, somehow managing to remain upright and not get the tow line hung up on the abundant rocks. Unfortunately, despite a considerable audience, nobody took a picture or captured this event on film.

Type V PFDs have a steel triglide that the webbing belt passes through twice before going through a nylon cam lock buckle with a quick release. The triglide creates quite a bit of friction for the belt. This might be desirable in some instances such as using the PFD for a tethered strong swimmer ("live bait") rescue. But for towing a boat, being able to release the tether is paramount. Most of the experienced paddlers I know will take the webbing belt out of the triglide and use only the nylon Fastex cam lock buckle to secure it so that the tow can be easily and immediately released.

Here is a picture of Diaper Wiper. The kayaker is approaching the bottom of the rapid. Baby Falls is seen in the background.