Mike Aronoff: Hi, I am Mike Aronoff with Canoe, Kayak & Paddle Company. Today we’re working on self and assisted rescues in touring kayaks. Kayaks are mostly all about fun but occasionally they do capsize and when they do before there is any rescue you need to know how to get out of them safely and thus you’re able to roll it back up. The first part of that is called a wet exit, how to get out the kayak safely and that’s we’re going to take a look at now. This is Eric, the instructor sitting in a kayak with a spray skirt on, and the spray skirt is part of the problem. If Eric tries to kick his knee out of the spray skirt, it doesn’t really work. If Eric touched full on here, it doesn’t really work.
This is what’s very, very important, that’s called your grab loop. Eric got to know where that grab loop is for one thing so we’ll stop there for just a second. This is really the most important thing, it is the head. So if this kayak capsizes, the first thing you want to do is get that head to the extent possible out of the way by tucking. And now we’re upside down under water, gravity is work in force but we’ve still got that spray skirt on. So, there is tuck, then he rightly reaches around to get to his grab loop, pull, that gets it loose, and he stays tuck, lets his hand slide back behind him like he’s taking off a pair of pants and does a push, gravity helps because he is upside down, out he comes out of the boat without beating up his legs.
So, our mantra is tuck, pull, push. And just make sure you understand why that’s important, the tucking part gets the head out of the way, makes it lower, because it was appear so if there isn’t anything roll over on, it’s going to be lower. Also, what he is going to be looking for is his grab loop and it puts it right in front of his head. That’s two reasons for tucking, pull this back off through his head. If you can see that on here, his legs are under these thigh braces, and if he leans back, it just makes them stick and his legs stick under the boat. So, the tucking is also important to loosen the legs so that it makes it easy, now gravities is going to take over and he’s just going to fall out of the boat. So, we think it’s important that you try, this is a dry land drill. With supervision, you make sure that you’re doing it right before getting on the water. But once feel comfortable with that tuck, pull, push, it’s time to do the real thing and get in that low oxygen environment.
Alright, now we’re in the water for our continuation of the wet exit. Wet exit is something that when you practice it for the first time, makes a lot of people a little nervous. So, it always makes sense to have it done with someone there who knows what they’re doing to supervise. So, we always do this one on one with one an instructor standing in the water to support the person trying to wet exit for the first time. We wanted to be comfortable but we wanted to know what they’re doing, which is why we practice it on the shore. We also want to make sure if things go wrong we can take care of it, we can just pull him right back up. So, a big part of this we refer to is under water comfort. What we’re going to demonstrate first is Eric is going to capsize and he is not going to do the wet exit and I’m just going to show what’s going to happen if for some reason he doesn’t do it. Let’s get on with that, this has got a kind of funny name, we call it the hand of god rescue. One, two, three go. It’s that easy, no worries, right?
Eric: Right.
Mike Aronoff: Okay, now we’re going to do the real thing and while you’re watching, why don’t you count, just see how it takes. Eric’s going to do this slowly and under control, that’s the whole point. Whenever you’re ready buddy. Very good, there you have the wet exit. And now that we’ve done the wet exit, we’re going to show you how do the T rescue, which is getting the water out of the boat, the guy back in the boat.
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