I could be quick to condemn, however..........when I was 14, my two buddies and I had a look at the local creek that was swollen with March runoff. There was still snow on the banks, but it looked like a good adventure. We dragged the 13 foot sportspal canoe to the bridge and launched, with the three of us in it. No life jackets, heavy clothes, and one of my buddies had hip waders on. The water was so high that there was a standing tree in the middle of a bit of fastwater. We hit it broadside. The Sportspal folded like a hot dog bun. I jumped clear by grabbing a branch and pulling myself into the tree. The guy in the bow managed to crawl out onto the ice around the tree. The guy in the middle, who had the hip waders on, was the meat in the canoe sandwich. As the canoe folded tighter around him, it began to pull him underwater. He had his arms wrapped around the tree, and we had hold of him too. The canoe almost had him pulled under to his chin when there was a great gushing sound, and we were able to haul him into the tree. The canoe had folded around his hip waders, and suddenly ripped them off, resulting in his release from the Sportspal sandwich.
We had to walk home two or three miles through snow covered trails, my buddy with one sock and no shoes. When we got to his place, we dried our clothes, got some ropes and went back to salvage the canoe. It had fetched up on a big rock mid stream. By the time we pulled it out, it resembled a tin banana skin, flattened beyond recognition. It was his dad's canoe, so we were all pretty worried. We took all the strofoam out, used rubber mallets to pound it into a sort of canoe shape, and then coated the insde seams with roofing tar before re-installing the styrofoam. If his dad noticed, he never said anything. We used that tub for a few more years, but we could never stop it from leaking.
So, I guess some of us have been there, done that and survived to tell that tale.
