CAPSIZE

April-May 2006

This is an article from WaveLength Magazine, available in print in North America and globally on the web.
To download a pdf copy of the magazine click here: > DOWNLOAD

by Pete Smith

Although this traumatic event happened over ten years ago, I remember it clearly. For me, one of the ironies of the day was that it occurred on a beautiful, sunny, summer day. My friend Susan and I had arranged to go out for a paddle. At the time I owned two sea kayaks, one plastic and one fiberglass. The fiberglass kayak was noticeably easier to paddle than my plastic boat, so I put her in that one since she was a beginner. It had a small ocean style cockpit and a neoprene spray skirt. I first showed her how to put the spray skirt on, then I explained how to take it off, and how to perform a wet exit and a couple of other helpful tips. For some reason I did not ask her to actually practice a wet exit, which is the first thing I had done with all of my kids before they ever went out in a kayak.

We set out from the Barn Island launching site in Connecticut on a nearly ideal day, and paddled out of the protected Little Narragansett Bay, over to Napatree Point, about 2.5 miles. Just around the point we encountered true ocean swells—long, smooth waves that slid past quickly but were not difficult to paddle. Susan was having a good time, was handling the kayak well, and delighted to be in sea conditions she had never before experienced.

When I thought we’d gone far enough, we turned around and headed back. About a mile from the launch site we stopped for a few minutes at Sandy Point. The water was pretty shallow so Susan remained in her kayak while I beached my boat to rummage around for some item.

She probably wasn’t more than 60 feet away from me, in flat water about 2 to 3 feet deep. Earlier on I had demonstrated some basic low braces, and she was experimentally trying the low brace by tipping the kayak slightly and then pushing down with the paddle.

Suddenly she overturned. I stood up and waited for her head to appear. The bottom of the kayak moved back and forth, and then kept moving. Something was wrong, and she wasn’t getting out. I ran through the water as fast as I could—running in three feet of water is agonizingly slow when you are really in a hurry. Finally I arrived next to the overturned kayak, reached down to grab her, and she caught my wrist, clawing her way up my arm to the surface. She was coughing saltwater and shaking. Some boaters who were anchored nearby and turned out to be emergency medical technicians, rushed over to see how she was. We sat Susan down and let her cough out the water out that she had inhaled.

Eventually she was able to tell her side of the story. She had been practicing braces when she suddenly found herself underwater. She was surprised, but not really concerned. She remembered my instructions to grab the back of the cockpit rim and push the kayak off like a pair of pants, so she tried that. But as soon as she started to come out of the boat, she found herself being mysteriously drawn back into the cockpit again. Puzzled, she tried again, and the same thing happened. She was unable to get out of the kayak. Of course she had forgotten the first part of the instructions about releasing the neoprene spray skirt, which was still firmly attached to the kayak. The spray skirt stretched every time she tried to get out and then acted like a rubber band to pull her back in. That the sprayskirt existed had just disappeared from her mind.

As she began to run out of air, she started to panic. She began struggling and thrashing around, and then noticed that she could bring her face very close to the surface of the water. She made an effort to get her face far enough up to break the surface, thinking she could get a quick breath of air, but missed and inhaled some water. Then my arm appeared and she scrambled up, coughing seawater.

After a rest, Susan appeared to be mostly recovered, and we decided to head back. The people from the powerboat offered to give her a ride, but she decided to paddle back. However, we both agreed she would paddle without the sprayskirt and we finished the paddle without further incident. The EMTs had indicated that there was some risk of having complications after inhaling water, but Susan didn’t feel the need to seek out medical attention, and recovered on her own. When I spoke to her about this day recently, she told me that she felt she had experienced some of the best and worst of kayaking all in that one day.

I certainly made some errors in judgment. My idea to be considerate and let Susan use my fiberglass kayak had backfired. The plastic kayak, which I used myself, had a nylon spray skirt that was ridiculously easy to get off—in fact it would come off all by itself if you twisted or pulled too far in any direction. The neoprene skirt on the ocean cockpit was a great watertight system for practicing rolling and other skills, but it unquestionably demanded more familiarization.

In the years since, I have taken a few first-timers out, but if they have not demonstrated a wet exit for me I don’t even offer them a sprayskirt. If it’s an early paddling experience, I won’t take them into rough water.

There are a lot of lessons you can draw from an experience like this. For me, the key lesson has been: if you haven’t actually practiced it, you don’t know how to do it. The physical memory of having practiced a skill trumps spoken instructions.

Finally, I asked Susan to read a draft of this article and add any comments that came to mind. She said is glad to have the story told if there is any chance that it will encourage people to take the time to familiarize themselves with the essential basic procedures for safe kayaking. She now believes that she had a false sense of security because paddling and handling the kayak were coming very easily to her—she had no idea how much she didn’t know.

I hope that this story doesn’t discourage anyone from paddling with beginners and introducing them to this great sport. Performing a wet exit with a good spray skirt is an easy task that doesn’t require any special skills. But it does demand an understanding of the procedure.

© Pete Smith, of Hamden Connecticut, has been an active sea kayaker for eighteen years. He and his wife Claudine paddle the waters of Long Island Sound and Rhode Island, with regular forays to the Florida Keys, Nova Scotia and Cape Breton.