Photo By wili_hybridgCaptain.com, the leading website for maritime professionals posted this blog entry many months ago, and thought it was worthy enough to share here on the PC Safety Blog.

gCaptain writes:

" I’m going to come right out and tell you something that almost no one in the maritime industry understands. That includes mariners, executives, managers, insurers, dock workers, for certain – fisherman, and even many (most) rescue professionals:

It is impossible to die from hypothermia in cold water unless you are wearing flotation, because without flotation – you won’t live long enough to become hypothermic."

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One of our instructors passed this video link along to us and thought it would be useful to share here on the PC Safety Blog. It's a very good look lightning and debunks some of the common myths we all have heard about electrical storms.

NOLS MythCrushers Episode 3: Lightning

Shared with permission from Tim Dyer (PC Level 3 SK Instructor Trainer) – White Squall Paddling Centre

I’ve been thinking a lot about rescues.  Maybe it’s because every time I open a paddling magazine or view the list of topics for symposia,  sea kayak rescue in all it’s guts amd glory is dissected ad nauseum.  To add to the nausea, I thought I would weigh in.  Here are some thoughts about that most humbling piece of paddling – saving a life.

Lemons Can Get You

If you haven’t heard of Jim Raffan’s model of lemons  – it’s the simplest trick in the book, yet most people don’t use it near enough..  Really briefly – every time you head out and forget to think about a possible risk and more importantly how you might lessen or get rid of it entirely – consider yourself in possession of a lemon.  A common example is not knowing your paddling partner’s skills – that’s a lemon!   Now imagine you’ve got yourself a couple , and you’re trying to juggle them.  Two aren’t so bad, but hey – a couple more have just popped up.  The juggling isn’t going so well, and you’re now in the land of accidents.  Maybe you won’t have one, but the likelihood is strong – all because you didn’t destroy your lemons before they got out of hand.   If all you ever think of when paddling is getting rid of these dastardly little fruits,  your paddling life will likely last longer, which I imagine is a good thing.

Do No Harm

Don’t go in for some heroic extrication if you’re not reasonably sure of staying on top yourself.  This means hanging your ego on that clothesline in the sky.  You’re likely not god’s gift to kayaking so don’t pretend..  And you are no good to anyone if you’re upside down in the drink.

This article re-published with permission of Ebb & Flow - The Magazine of Kayak Newfoundland and Labrador
Winter 2011 - Edited by Neil Burgess

The Canadian Red Cross and Transport Canada recently published a report on boating-related deaths across Canada for 1991-2006: Boating Immersion and Trauma Deaths in Canada: 16 Years of Research. This article will highlight the findings of particular interest to kayakers in Newfoundland.

Over the 16-year period, the number of Canadians who died in boating-related accidents was 2,765 (or about 173 people per year). Only 3% of these deaths were kayakers and 22% were canoeists. The situations associated with fatalities among recreational boaters (immersion and trauma deaths alike) were capsizing (39%), falling overboard (25%), swamping (12%), and colliding (8%). Fifty-nine percent of these deaths were associated with powerboats and 36% were associated with human-powered boats like kayaks, canoes and rowboats.

As we have known for a while, small open motor boats and canoes are most frequently involved in immersion deaths (drowning and hypothermia), while trauma deaths (injury) result most often from use of personal watercraft (jet skis), large powerboats, and small open fishing boats.

Immersion deaths in recreational boating were associated mostly (58%) with capsizing (over-turning) in human-powered boats. Across Canada, canoeing accidents caused 4½ times more immersion deaths than kayaking accidents.

Now let’s look more closely at kayaking accidents. Between 1991 and 2006, 77 fatalities were linked to kayaks in Canada. Of these deaths, 76 were due to immersion and only one was due to trauma. In Newfoundland and Labrador during this 16-year period, there were 112 recreational boating fatalities and of these, five were kayakers.