Lessons Learned

[Dagger]

Yesterday evening, I went for a nice 2-hour paddle at a local reservoir. There are power boaters at this reservoir, and wake-boarding is particularly popular. There is a two-mile stretch of open water before a no-wake zone (my destination) starts. The remaining two(+) miles of this body of water are delightful. Normally I avoid the so-called lower part of the reservoir because of the power boaters. However, the local ranger district decided to close the launch area of the upper part (the delightful one) unannounced, even though it is supposed to be open until the middle of October. Since I traveled an hour to get there, I am thinking to my self...how bad can the boat wakes get?...I'll just launch at the lower part and paddle up to where I like to be. I had done this once before and it was manageable.

The way to my destination was indeed manageable. I enjoyed the pretty part and took some photos with my cell phone, and I am having a great time. At almost sunset, I start heading back to the launch. About half-way through the power boating part, I hear a boat barreling down on me from behind. I am thinking they'll have at least one pair of eyes focussed forward, while the other folks on board look at the wakeboarder they are towing. I turn to look and the driver did seem to see me, although probably later than both of us wanted. As he wore off course to miss me, a second power boater, who came at a much greater speed from behind the first one, took the opportunity to pass the first boat on my side of things! I am sure the captain of the second boat had not seen me, and now that it was too late to do anything about it, the second boat passed, right between me and the first boat. All this happened pretty much as we are all more or less next to each other with about 30' between each vessel. Thankfully I was not hit directly, but the combined wake pattern of the two boats proved too much and into the drink I went. I live in California, so the water temp is actually quite nice, and I am no more than 100' from the shoreline. I emptied the canoe on the water OK (rocking technique), but after a few failed attempts at getting back into my canoe from the water, I gave up and swam to shore, canoe in tow. After I got back into my canoe, the travel to my car and the ride home were thankfully uneventful.

Lessons Learned:

- Yes - the power boaters acted somewhat irresponsible, but excrement happens and no one got hurt. Well...my ego was a bit bruised because I failed in my attempts to re-enter my canoe from the water. Something I had practiced two years ago and thought I had down!

- I am going to get one of those red kid bicycle flags or some nav-lights for my canoe. Being more visible to other boaters might have avoided the incident altogether. I was in my kevlar Wenonah Prism in front of a patch of tall reeds at dusk. I am sure I blended into my surroundings pretty well.

- My favorite paddling style is kneeling. I had switched to sitting, just a few minutes before the incident. Kneeling would have provided a lot more stability, and I would have likely managed to stay in my canoe. I switched to sitting because it felt good to change my position. In retrospect, I'll sit during the pretty, no wake, part and kneel for the rest!

- I need to practice my "waterboarding" technique. Evidently, this is not a skill I am able to maintain like riding a bike. Probably because I don't do it as much (a good thing).

- I confirmed that wearing a PFD is the best way to get out alive. I never panicked and I was able to focus on things, other than NOT DROWNING. True, I was close to shore and water temp. was nice, but that may not always be the case. Had I been knocked out somehow, and not worn a PFD, I would have drowned for sure. No matter how nice the water temperature is or how close to the shore I am.

- Take a dry bag with extra clothes!!! The funny thing is, I always do, but today I thought...meh...just a quick paddle. I can just grab my PFD and my paddle and go. What I learned was that evaporative cooling works surprisingly well! In the hour between falling into the drink and getting into my car (it is dark at this point), I got the chills way more than I anticipated. My wet clothes kept cooling me down even with the car heater on. The hot air streaming across my wet clothes provided an impressive cooling effect. At one point I contemplated driving in the buff, but that idea remained in my head un-executed.

- Get a FLOATING - waterproof cell phone case for next cell phone!

- Wear a FLOATING sunglass strap with next pair of shades!

- Perhaps my most valuable takeaway, "I don't know what I don't know". The better I am prepared, the fewer incidents will occur, and that lack of incidents allowed me to become complacent. Being prepared is great, but it has the potential to create a false sense of safety. Preparedness creates a lack of bad experiences which, in turn, allowed me to believe I am more skilled than I am, or luckier or...etc. The thought of what might happen never occurred to me. The fact is, I don't know what tragedies were avoided, by doing what I usually do. I allowed a superficial sense of safety to get the better of me and ignore part of my usual process. I won't let that happen again.

Be safe my friends!

 

[Guest]

I have had a couple of experiences with wakeboarding boats.

For anyone unfamiliar, wakeboarding boats are FAST, but also designed and ballasted to throw a huge wake wave even at high speed. They do not plane; that would be wakeboarding counterproductive.

Experience #1. We were paddling out of a launch cove at dusk for a tidal night paddle. On a river that usually sees zero nighttime boat traffic. We had the required white all around lights and were keeping to the edges of a 100 yard wide river. We heard the growl of an engine approaching and tucked even closer to the side of the river, turning to face out to take the wake when it passed.

Unfortunately we were still on river left, and on the outside edge of a river curve as the boat approached from downriver. A wake boarding boat came blasting along at high speed, sliding along the outside of the curve, with NO LIGHTS. I do not think the driver ever knew we were there.

Fortunately no one swam. But it freaked me the heck out because our plan was to cross over and head down on river right. Had we been strung out midriver while crossing over it might have been much worse.

Eperience #2 (3, 4, 5). There was a wakeboarding competition on the river that weekend. Lots of crazy twentysomthings doing tricks. During the day when the wakeboarding boats passed going in our direction we got a helluva ride, paddling like heck trying to stay up on the wave as long as we could. That part was actually kinda fun.

About the lessons learned.

I can (er, once could) reenter a tandem canoe, especially with a tandem partner helping stabilize the boat. I do not paddle tandem anymore, and do not think I could do an unassisted deep water reentry in a solo canoe, even my preferred soloized tandems.

I do not know about the bicycle flag. While it could not hurt in high traffic areas, if the boat driver missed seeing a 16 foot canoe and paddler in bright colored PFD is he going to notice a little bicycle flag?

I have used a short (3 foot) flexible wand and flag on the stern of a canoe a couple times, flying a commemorative trip flag as it were. The wand/pole was more of an in the way PITA than I anticipated, especially when I needed to use the stern painter. The first time stern painter hung up on the flagstaff wand I took it down for the duration.

Wearing a properly fitted PFD is always a good thing. So are spare clothes. A small dry bag packed with old, ratty clothes and kept packed is easy to grab when packing for every trip. Each fall I pack a little dry bag with full on winter kit for daytrips; long underwear, fleece pants and jacket, hat, gloves, socks. . . .old worn out Goretex jacket. . . .trash bag to stand or sit on while I change and to hold the sodden duds. Every (late) spring I unpack it and stick in some summer clothes.

Even on summer trips, where hypothermia is not an issue, having a dry pair of shorts and tee shirt to change into is awfully nice.

Same for spare clothes left in the vehicle. I would bet that most folks have enough ratty spare clothes to pack a ready to grab seasonal dry bag for the canoe, and enough to leave another set in the car.

Certainly coming off a long multiday trip the clean dry clothes in the car are a boon to anyone sitting next to me in the first diner I spot. I may smell funny, but at least I look clean.

Not to belabor the obvious, but if it does not float, it sinks. Electronics, cameras, glasses/sunglasses. I discovered that a full to the brim stainless steel Kleen Canteen will sink like a rock; now I take a big gulp of water to create some floatation headspace.

I still put my (now high end, good optics) sunglasses at risk; I can not stand wearing a Croakies strap around my head.

 

[Dagger]

Mike, I must have hit my head sometime along the ride. It just now dawns on me that my (and your) experience opens up an opportunity to buy more gadgetry!

 

[yellowcanoe]

Wakeboarding boats. The bane of our lake. We have five summer camps. Four for kids one commercial.. One of the camps has a very high income clientele.. 15 grand for seven weeks. Ergo they have water toys.. Sailboats of a couple of classes, paddleboards, canoes, kayaks, and ...two wakeboarding Mastercraft. While those boats are capable of high speed they are not used at high speed as these are ...kids. The boats are very heavily ballasted with water which makes them sink low and produce.. Monster Wake.. These boats are capable of damaging docks with their wake.. Typically three feet high.. You get boats going up and down the lake( there are two out at the same time) and the waves add up.. Sometimes they cancel each other out and sometimes wave heights are additive.

They can be fun to follow and surf.. but they are not supposed to be operated near shore.. We hauled one down operating about 100 feet off the shore and told him he was in violation of State Law( no wake generated within 200 feet of shore).. The director of camp called us and said they operate near shore for the kids safety.( this boggled us ).No body was belligerent.. We just informed him of law and then said we would contact Inland Fish and Wildlife. I think IF&W paid them a visit.. This year the wakeboard boats are out in the middle of the lake out early, off the water when other users are around..

Maybe we all can get along.

I too have dunked a cell phone but got its useless corpse.. RIP to yours.
Sunglasses, chair,, yes what can sink will sink... I was paddling on Superior on a hot day and I hated my sauna drysuit. I had it off and it was thrown on a chair folded in the boat.. I tried to go up an outflow flipped and while the bagged stuff floated ( and a pair of CROCS,,those plastic things can be annoying) my favorite chair grabbed my drysuit and sank it down into the depths of Lake Superior..
Not sure I really rue that flip.. The replacement drysuit is really nice.

 

[DeniseO30]

Did these Maniacs even stop to lend Assistance or see if you were safe??

it seems to me they are required by law because they are responsible for they're wake.

sadly and situations like this there is never enough time to take a picture of the registration numbers of the offending vehicles or in this case boats. glad you're okay!

But if you were a hundred feet from sure what are power boats doing that close in at high speed? so again they broke the law.

Air horns are usually expected to be on board a powerboat. If you had one I doubt they would have heard it anyhow.

 

[yellowcanoe]

i am confused Denise. I never said they dumped me. They were ignorant of the law. We paddled up to them and informed when they were retrieving a kid from the lake. Yes I do have the reg numbers . Its not that hard to do when you know where the boats are.

I did not say they were operating at high speed. While they have dual stern drives of 5.7 liters capable of high speed they were operating at about 12 mph.. Wakeboard boats typically top out at 30 mph for experienced boarders but these kids were not. 12mo\ph in a ballsted boat carrying 4500 lbs of water generates a sizeable wave

they have v hulls designed for max waves at a relatively low speed.

What really guts me is the people that are NICE and slow down. As they have planing hulls they have virtually no wake at 25-35 mph and they slow to five mph and the wake is horrendous. I have more than once enthusiastically given the go faster sign,.. It looks insane.. me in a canoe exhorting them to go faster... Most of the time this happens in the Everglades.

How do you frown at a nice person?

 

[DeniseO30]

Sorry I confused you I was referring to post number one of this thread I should be more specific in the future

 

[Dagger]

Denise, a third wakeboar showed up a few minutes later, slowed down and the captain asked if I was OK which I thought was nice since they weren

 

[Dagger]

...somehow my post got chopped...

since they hey we

 

[Dagger]

Post are getting chopped still...maybe I

 

[gumpus]

Hey Dagger, I really admire the lack of anger in your story and your conclusions. It's kind of like being forced off the road by 18 wheelers while you have right of way and then being introspective around what you could have done better. Impressive.

I had a similar experience just a few days ago but less intense with less harm done. I'm paddling upstream on the edge of the river. A pontoon boat comes up behind me and sees me so he goes all the way to the other side of the river to minimize his disturbance on my canoe. Then a powerboat comes flying downstream and sees the houseboat so heads towards my side of the river. He can see me but decides that it's better to be polite to the other power boater than to me. I have seen this behavior many times. And just a week or so ago I was in a similar situation paddling upstream on one side of the river and there's a small boat anchored and fishing near the other side. This time when the powerboat came flying downstream and just steering around us he went closer to the fishing boat and hit them with his wake from about 20 feet away. I could see them just look at the guy and at each other like wtf. Maybe that's how power boaters learn better manners.

Sometimes when powerboats are going same direction as me they slow down to about half speed when they see me. That makes a bigger wake. Then they accelerate as soon as they are parallel to me. So as I keep moving I get hit with their original wake (no problem), their slow down wake (makes the dog nervous), and sometimes their acceleration wake as they zoom away. Kind of funny but on other hand it is incredibly dangerous and a bit intimidating to have a powerboat coming up slowly behind you and close to you because if they accelerate they can throw a wall of water instantly. I used to have this problem regularly with the University of Michigan rowing team chase boats that absolutely ignored everyone else on the water and did really stupid stuff.

I do have my cell phone ready and although I've never reported anyone I've been close quite a few times.

 

[yellowcanoe]

Well
Dagger it seems you are typing on a phone
if so avoid apostrophes
you will get chopped if you do

 

[Dagger]

Yellowcanoe, I was using my tablet to write. I'll stick to my laptop from now on. Thanks for the advice!

Just to finish the previous thought (the chopped off one), I appreciated the third wake-boat stopping, even though they were not involved. Reaffirmed my belief that not all power boaters are dufuses. Minutes after I ate it, a guy in a small fishing boat (12' boat with a 15HP motor or so) comes blasting by and it appears as though he was intentionally looking away from me. Did he think I wasn't going to notice him if he wasn't looking at me...? Who knows. Not sure what he was worried about. What I learned over the years is that there are all kinds, and self-reliance is the way to go.

Gumpus, I had very similar experiences to yours on some of the narrow rivers I travel. I have to say though, that I run into way more considerate power boaters than the other ones. I tend to give the considerate ones an A for effort. At least, they are trying, even though the fruits of their effort makes things worse for us sometimes. What does get me riled up, is the behavior of our local, on-water, law enforcement folks. They act like they own the place (any place) and it seems they use their high-power water vehicles more for their amusement than anything else. They really should know better. After all, we know who paid for their boats, and unlike the typical weekend captain, law enforcement folks received extensive training.

 

[scoutergriz]

I've had similar at a small cottage lake near me! most of the boaters are considerate (many of their kids putter around in canoes, kayaks, or paddleboats) but there's this one a**hole with a deep v monster that loves to ballast down and kick up huge wakes. Well one day this summer, after a storm, the lake was running opposite to it's normal flow, and here comes buddy with it right down in the water- upshot was he flipped a fishing boat, smashed two more against their docks (one went down) and took out about six docks.
Several thousands of dollars in damage, three reckless endangerment charges (the fishermen were off duty cops ) and a seized boat, trailer and truck, and no more problems!
Can you say Karma?

 

[Odyssey]

Karma. I love it.

I am a peaceful man. I need to keep reminding myself that whenever I come home and rant. It may be a complete coincidence that my wife has installed an old family rocking chair in our kitchen so I can furiously rock back and forth spluttering complaints while she cooks. The soothing soporific baby in a cradle stuff works it's magic and before too long I'm once again walking on the sunny side of the street. More or less. This thread sure has given my rocker a workout.
There is good and bad, happy and sad. And there is always the chance to pass along any of your choosing. Positive responses and knowledgeable perspective yields the kind of educating passive bystanders all need rather than the barking and shouting and standoffs we may be tempted to resort to. I admire the Californian attitude shown by Dagger. Laid back and understanding might just be a worn out Californian stereotype but it suits this situation, much more than an all guns blazing retort.
Or Dagger must have several kitchen rocking chairs to choose from. Ha.
Your level-headed nature is needed by all, both on and off the water. Sure could use more of that.

 

[Pringles]

Is a wakeboard boat like a big jet ski?

We had some folks racing around an area reservoir a couple of weeks ago, and they are still looking for one of the bodies. :-(

 

[Steve in Idaho]

I am more annoyed by jet skis than wake boats. Wakes don't bother me. The potential for collision does. So far, my experience with the wake boat operators has been that they are quite cautious about collision avoidance, as a rule. Must be the cost difference. IIRC, the sticker price on those wake boats runs at least double that of a conventional fish&ski boat. I'd guess the vast majority of wake boat owners here have spent a significantly large portion of their income on those boats, and are actually somewhat risk-averse. They do tend to stay out near the middle of the lake (unlike a lot of the conventional water-skiers). Jet skis, OTOH.....their operators seem to be in some kind of whirling dervish trance.

I have enjoyed playing with the wake boat waves, but I have to question the tolerance of damage they may cause at docks. I have seen those waves hit the docks hard, with no boat in sight. The waves can carry a very long way. Our local lake is also a wildlife reserve, and there are no-wake zones that are meant to protect wildlife and shorelines. My observation is that the waves those boats make go way beyond those no-wake zones, day in and day out, churning the shorelines. I have to wonder if the powers that be are oblivious, or something else is at work.

Dagger - there are days that I don't bother to bring extra dry cloths, but it's rare indeed for me to be wearing anything with cotton (other than my boonie hat). When playing on the local river, I end up in the water from time to time. But I always dry quickly. You might want to add that to your list.

 

[yknpdlr]

As a canoe racer for many years, I often have to train solo when I cannot train with other team members. I use a Placidboat Rapidfire with single blade paddle for that. The closest convenient place to home for adequate training is a popular cottage lined Adirondack lake, not far from home. From an access dam launch I can go 3 miles on the lake, plus another 3 miles up river for a total round trip of 12 miles. The cottages are close enough to each other to spit from one to the other and are loaded with motorboats and jet skis. I have had kids on jet skis circle me, purposely creating huge waves for me to negotiate (they keep far enough away for me to not read their registration numbers). I have discovered that the best time to train without constant motor traffic is around 6 AM on Wednesday mornings, never on the weekend. After several years of this I decided to purchase 5 acres on another nearby smaller lake which is private (for landowners only) and motors are not allowed. By paddling the perimeter I can get only about 3 miles but can easily make multiple circuits to add more miles. But the bigger lake is only a couple of miles away if and when I decide to go on early weekday mornings for more distance. So I have been working that angle for the past year, with cabin construction in progress at this moment.

 

[latremorej]

What does get me riled up, is the behavior of our local, on-water, law enforcement folks. They act like they own the place (any place) and it seems they use their high-power water vehicles more for their amusement than anything else. They really should know better. After all, we know who paid for their boats, and unlike the typical weekend captain, law enforcement folks received extensive training.

yeah, there's all kinds of kinds... even in law enforcement. Add youth to that equation, and there you have it. We were all a little headstrong in our twenties. a grand chunk of an officers salary is squandered in taxes, same as anyone else. I've seen alot of good, and alot of not as good when it comes down to attitude and public service in my 20+ years that's for sure.


anyway, my favorite local lake also went to heck with jet skis and powerboats, not to mention the invasive plant life... ever since the NYSDEC "improved" the state launch a few years back. We wont even go fishing there unless its Wednesday at 6am, forget about a canoe! Weekend fishing is now reserved for the hard water... then we only have to dodge drunk snowmobilers!

I'm glad all ended well without any injuries. Thanks for the reminder. I agree with you 100% about complacency and the road we all have / will take to get there at some point.

Jason