Canoe Instruction

[bobber]

i just took a swiftwater instructor class and have a few important tips for you that don't boat that much but still go to rivers that have moving water( FOOT ENTRAPMENTS.) a major killer! this is caused by putting your feet down in moving water, a natural thing to do. if you have an up set with a canoe, or while wading. we did some river drills and i was suprized to find that water less than knee deep can trap you so fast, and with water pushing you down. it makes almost impossible to stand back-up. and water above waist deep, you will most likley drown. so to keep eveyone safe here is the drill! (you float on your back with your feet high on top of the water) and wait untill your bottom, hits the bottom before trying to stand-up. this is called defencive swimming with your feet up . the second one is a strainner ( a tree across the current) these are to be avoided at all cost! they had us swim into a 20 ft section of pvc pipe. and i can tell you first hand there is no way to get over it!! and as the water sucks you under. the thought that whent through my mind was (man o' man i'm glad this thing doesn't have any branches) if you can not avoid a strrainer you must swim at it aggressively, and as you hit the tree you MUST CLIMB UP ON IT! AND GET YOUR WAIST ABOVE THE WATER LINE. now with this being said i understand that most don't swim in fast moving water ,so these things will save a life if put in your mind well before it happens to you. most of us aren't kids anymore , and don't move as fast as we did.

[Al Agnew]

Bobber, excellent advice! I learned many years ago about the dangers of foot entrapment. I was watching the whitewater races on the St. Francis River one year. It was in March as always, pretty cold, water temps probably in the low 40s, air temps not any better. This couple came floating down the Tieman Shut-in in an aluminum canoe--they were not part of the race. It was either very fortunate or the only smart thing they did that they picked that day to float that stretch, because they flipped the canoe at the first bad spot in the shut-in. The woman was wearing a life jacket and a sleeveless wetsuit top, but not wetsuit bottoms. She put her feet down as she went over the next drop, and one foot got hung in the rocks. There she was with tons of water pouring into her back. The race people were available to rescue her, but it was far from easy. They started out by throwing her rescue ropes, but although she was able to brace her back against the water pouring over the drop for a while and was able to grab the ropes, she couldn't get her foot loose so they couldn't pull her out that way. So they stretched a long rope tautly all the way across the river, so that a rescuer could go out holding the rope and get to her. He snapped himself onto the rope and went under water to try to free her foot. It was wedged tightly. She was beginning to suffer badly from hypothermia by this time, and could no longer hold herself above water. Another guy came out on the rope and tried to hold her head above water while the first guy continued to work to free her. But finally the choice came down to getting her out in any way possible before she drowned or died from hypothermia, so they ended up tying another rope onto her ankle, and getting a dozen or so people on shore to simply pull on it as hard as possible! They got her out--with a badly crushed ankle and foot and barely alive. Obviously, had it not been race day with PLENTY of rescuers available, she wouldn't have survived.

[KCRIVERRAT]

Wow... excellent advice. One river memory that sticks with me involved a strainer. A couple had their teenage daughter in tow on an inner-tube down on the Jacks Fork one summer. They managed to just graze along the branches without tipping, but it slowed them enough to let her whip right into the middle of the mess. The rope wrapped around her calf as she stayed put and the canoe kept going. We were fishing right there and grabbed the knife out of the bucket. Her calf looked like an hourglass from the rope. Amazingly after a while, the dent that had been so obvious disappeared to just a bad bruise. The power of the human body. Some people don't realize the power of water. Obvious when you see the news stories about the ones trying to drive their vehicles through it.

[bobber]

here is a link... http://www.paddling.net/guidelines/showArticle.html?399