I always like to practice emergency maneuvers in controlled conditions before there's an emergency. So today, after paddling a bit over five miles, I went to the far end of the swimming beach, dropped off my hat, glasses, etc, and waded the canoe back out into four feet or more and swamped it. I then made several attempts, without my feet touching the bottom, to re-float and reenter the canoe. I was marginally successful getting the canoe emptied and floating again and am confident I can do even better when I am actually in deep water.
The problem I was unable to solve was getting back in with swamping it all over again. I've watched a few videos on this and did, or think I did, what I saw in the videos: empty the canoe, get yourself floating horizontal, reach across to the far gunwale and drag yourself back in. Every time I tried, the far gunwale just lifted up and, of course, the near gunwale submerged again.
So then I tried getting the rope out, tying a loop in the end for my foot and tying the rope off to the thwart on the far side. The theory being that the weight of my foot would keep the far gunwale from rising. Again, failure. For whatever reason, I couldn't keep the foot with the loop from just sliding back under the canoe. I should probably work a bit more on this technique, but I ran out of time (and energy) to do any more today.
On the way home, I was reminded that when I had a kayak, I had a "paddle float" that gets inflated and attached to the blade of the paddle. I know I can lash the shaft of the paddle to a thwart with a paddle float attached outboard to presumably stop the near gunwale from submerging.
But before I go down that path, is self-rescue in deep water even an issue? I asked one of the sales people where I bought the canoe what he did and his reply was that he just swims the canoe back into shallow water, stands up, empties it, gets back in and goes. Is that sufficient for areas like Algonquin and the BWCA? I strongly suspect that by the time I actually get "out there" in a few more weeks, I'll know if conditions mean I need to stay close to shore or not, but is that a realistic solution or do I really need to get this deep water self-rescue thing nailed down first.
Comments?
Jim
The problem I was unable to solve was getting back in with swamping it all over again. I've watched a few videos on this and did, or think I did, what I saw in the videos: empty the canoe, get yourself floating horizontal, reach across to the far gunwale and drag yourself back in. Every time I tried, the far gunwale just lifted up and, of course, the near gunwale submerged again.
So then I tried getting the rope out, tying a loop in the end for my foot and tying the rope off to the thwart on the far side. The theory being that the weight of my foot would keep the far gunwale from rising. Again, failure. For whatever reason, I couldn't keep the foot with the loop from just sliding back under the canoe. I should probably work a bit more on this technique, but I ran out of time (and energy) to do any more today.
On the way home, I was reminded that when I had a kayak, I had a "paddle float" that gets inflated and attached to the blade of the paddle. I know I can lash the shaft of the paddle to a thwart with a paddle float attached outboard to presumably stop the near gunwale from submerging.
But before I go down that path, is self-rescue in deep water even an issue? I asked one of the sales people where I bought the canoe what he did and his reply was that he just swims the canoe back into shallow water, stands up, empties it, gets back in and goes. Is that sufficient for areas like Algonquin and the BWCA? I strongly suspect that by the time I actually get "out there" in a few more weeks, I'll know if conditions mean I need to stay close to shore or not, but is that a realistic solution or do I really need to get this deep water self-rescue thing nailed down first.
Comments?
Jim