Saturday, April 2, 2011

Canoe-Over-Canoe Rescue - Andrew Westwood

Rating: ***** So you’re canoeing around this small, out of the way lake with your friend. All of a sudden, their canoe tips over, dumping them out. What do you do? Even though I have a cottage on a lake that I canoe around quite often, I still had no idea. Whenever I tip, I just swim for land, towing the canoe behind me. This isn’t very hard, since the lake is not all that large. But it did make me wonder, how do you flip a canoe back over, and get the passengers back in if land is too far away? In four easy steps. Step one: Make sure that all the paddlers who were dumped out of their canoe are all there and safe. They should be wearing lifejackets. Step two: Line up the boats so that the rescue boat is perpendicular to the flipped boat. Have the paddlers in the water grasp the ends of the rescue boat. Step three: Grab the capsized canoe by the end closest to the rescue boat, lift it, and pull it across your gunwales. This breaks the suction created by the air trapped under a capsized canoe. The canoe can then be placed upright in the water and held next to your canoe. Step four: Hold the gunwales of the two canoes together, and hold it steady so that the swimmers can climb into their canoe. And that’s all there is to it! Although it may sound easy, I have seen that it is not. But it is still a useful tactic to learn if you are going on a canoe trips in the near future. Westwood, Andrew. “Canoe – over – Canoe rescue.” Ottawa Outdoors Summer/Fall 2007: 38. Print.

1 comment:

  1. Mr. Brouwer.
    For some reason, it won't let me form paragraphs. I'll edit it and add in the paragraphs, but when I publish it, it goes back to one massive block of text. Sorry,
    Jacob

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