Safety and Your Canoe
By Mick O'Shea
Imagine you are out canoeing you get excited about some rare wild animal you see on shore and – oops – you flip your canoe. Do you have another canoe along to help you? Are you close enough to shore to swim you and your canoe to shore? Do you know how to self rescue in the water? Are you floundering around in the water trying to put your lifejacket on because you didn’t have it on before you flipped? Lets assume you are smart enough to have your lifejacket and you want to try an on-the-water rescue.
Provided you decide to stick with canoeing after this experience you now have a few things to think about! Being safe in a canoe is all about planning ahead and using your commonsense. The most important thing is to make sure the swimmers are not in any danger.
Generally it’s a good idea to have at least one other boat along for support if a boat gets in trouble. On trips with significant whitewater or multi-day wilderness trips consider more than two boats.
If a second (upright) canoe is along it is possible to recover a flipped or swamped canoe without going to shore provided there are no potential dangers for the rescue canoe or swimmers. Start with the second canoe upside down in the water. Pull the bow (or stern) in towards the side of the first canoe so that they form a T shape as shown in the first diagram below. Then lift the bow of the upturned boat up onto the first canoe. This can be difficult. Usually the person (or people) in the second canoe will do most of the lifting. The swimmers can support the upright boat on the far side.
As the boat is pulled up (second diagram) it clears the water. Once it is completely out of the water it can be flipped upright (curved arrow) by the paddlers in the first canoe. Then it can be slid off back into the water.
If you are paddling by yourself and you flip there are some things you can try to improve your situation. The first step is to get your boat upright. If there is a significant amount of water in your boat you can try sloshing the water back and fourth by periodically pulling up and down on the gunnel. When the water sloshes back and fourth some of it slops over the side and the boat is slowly emptied. The amount of water you can get out of your boat depends on your boat design. If you have a deep boat with mostly vertical sides this technique will not work as well as for a boat with a shallow and curved cross-section. Once you have got as much water out as you can by ‘sloshing’, start bailing. I usually carry a gallon milk jug with the bottom cut off – this works great as a bailer. Small water pumps also work well.
If you think you might need to use the above techniques, practice them in a benign situation. Also, don’t forget the basics- wear a lifejacket and have another boat along.
- Mick
© 2005 Chris Collins, All Rights Reserved