My story about the disaster at Gerstle Cove with Sid Taylor's boat was published in "Bay Currents", the newsletter of the BASK club. Ken Kelton (who was the editor of the next newsletter) invited Eric Sores (Tsunami Ranger and master kayaker) to write an analysis of the incident. Eric frequently publishes analyses like this about kayaking disasters in "Sea Kayaker" magazine. Eric wrote an article that was apparently so scathingly critical of Sid and I that Ken rejected it and asked Eric to write a more constructive article. In Ken's words, Eric "removed most of the swear words" and re-submitted the critical article. Ken rejected it again and asked Eric to write a more constructively critical article which Eric decided he could not do!
Lacking a feature article for his newsletter Ken decided to gather some real data and write his own article about how to deal with a swamped boat. To gather data he invited people to come to a relatively safe place, Horseshoe Cove, and practice swamping boats in a controlled situation. At first I was not going to be able to attend this workshop, but a class I was supposed to attend the same day was canceled and I met seven other people on a cold day with an overcast sky threatening to rain.
First we tried towing boats in various different configurations. Most people tow boats from the bow toggle, but we thought this didn't give the towee the option of disconnecting in a pinch. With my new Narpa, towing from the deck bungee cords in front of my cockpit worked fairly well and I could disconnect if I wished. With other boats it was suggested that some sort of system could be constructed in advance, a cord that went forward to the bow and back to the cockpit which could be released. It would have to be designed and installed in advance however.
Next we opened the rear hatch of a Sportee (kind of sort of like a Coaster) and it immediately sank to a 45 degree orientation (with the paddler still in it with spray skirt attached, no flotation in the stern). We tried pulling the tail up from another boat and were unable to re-attach the rear hatch. Then the paddler (John Bates) exited the Sportee and let the cockpit flood. The floatation in the nose was still in place and the boat sank to a steeper angle. Don Fleming was able to do a T-rescue from his Coaster on this boat with a lot of help from John in the water pulling up on the stern and swimming around to pull down on the bow. Derrick Hutchinson's book shows a technique for draining the water from a completely swamped boat but we didn't try that.
I filled the front and rear compartments of my Narpa half way with water and left the hatches on loosely without the beret seals on. I found the boat to be reasonably maneuverable like this. Then I paddled into some mild wind waves blowing in the mouth of Horseshoe Cove and the waves started filling up the front compartment. With a 10 meter tow rope, John Bates was able to tow me 100 meters to shore as the nose dipped lower and lower into the water. We tried towing from the deck bungees first but discovered that a swamped boat turned sideways when towed from there and we had to switch to towing from the bow toggle.
Then we tried various different ways to carry a swimmer on deck. Moving the swimmer to the FRONT deck on the Sportee made a world of difference, especially if the swimmer faced forward and wrapped his feet behind the paddler. (With his butt pointing at the paddler, a position referred to as "romantic"). This would probably have made it possible for me to paddle Sid to shore the day he lost his boat at Gerstle Cove. But when we tried the same thing on Ken's Extreme it did not work! That boat has such a high front deck that having a swimmer on top of it made the boat too tipsy. The Extreme had enough volume in the rear, unlike the Sportee or a Coaster, that putting the swimmer back there worked OK.
Marvin Feldman found that the best position for a swimmer on his sit-on-top Spike was in the bow facing backwards with the swimmer's head between the paddlers knees. (A position referred to as "giving head"). The lesson here is that you should try different swimmer positions on YOUR boat in safe calm conditions BEFORE you need them in an emergency. Then you will know what works and what to tell a swimmer to do. Another lesson we learned is to invite some women along next time in the hopes that this will keep the jokes from getting too raunchy.