HMB distress call on Sunday 11/3

I can read your lips 

CDM, I agree that if you already are proficient at self rescue, it’s less risky. I believe that wearing a wetsuit prolongs survivability in the water as well as offering additional flotation. Fit and thickness are also factors in that equation.

While I do not believe Jim or his video are “full of shit”, a properly fitted wetsuit of sufficient thickness is a better choice for the original post scenario IMO2

I would kind of prefer to find a way to argue with Antonio instead of mostly agreeing with him, but Spiffy has that handled! - Game On, winter approaches.

The biggest challenge when I take people out is that I cannot have them perform a self-rescue before we do our trip - it's too impractical to have someone get soaking wet first thing in the morning.  Instead, I go through a series of questions with my guests and evaluate their levels of fitness and experience.  Even if I were working with a 25 year old triathlete I wouldn't ever consider having them in waders for our trip if they lacked experience in that gear.

That said, if I have an experienced guest who has always used waders and has a system devised that meets their own standard for safety while fully immersed I let them wear what they prefer.  The key is experience.  We may well find out that waders aren't as good of an idea as my experienced guest thought they were, but I'm confident that we won't have a tragedy in the meantime.  This has much to do with the equipment too.  If I had a 200 pound plus person on a Scupper Pro or other skinny yak I'd have to give more consideration to the plan.

When it comes to newbs, many have NEVER done self-rescue.  That is your number one recipe for disaster - regardless of what they're wearing.

I came up in diving, and by the time I got kayaks (over 20 years back) I was regularly diving from them.  Self-rescue, or "getting back on the kayak", in a full wetsuit with a weightbelt on is a skill that must be practiced - it's obvious from the history on this site and others that this is true.  Much like what I described above though, it's likely often not seen as practical for a newb to the sport to put on all their gear and perform a self-rescue.

When you come up in diving, practicality isn't considered - you're already doing self-rescue with gear on just as a matter of doing the sport.

When you are a very thorough and dedicated practitioner and very safety aware, maybe you wouldn't even consider going offshore or even on a lake without first performing self-rescue with your gear on.  To each of the members of this club who fit this description:  you are the role model everyone needs to look up to.

When you are a newb, and you put convenience ahead of proper preparation (by NOT doing self-rescue with all of your gear on), you have failed to adhere to the basics of the sport.

We dress for immersion, and that doesn't mean the same thing for everyone.  In order to qualify for this standard you must be able to survive hypothermia AND get back on your yak.

Let's step this up and make it clear to everyone - newbs and experienced - that complacency regarding immersion and self-rescue with gear on is unacceptable to the kayak angling communities.

I'm glad there was a good outcome at HMB.

It’s a circus

Great advertisement for waders

For the life of me I can’t figure out what people see in those

Probably safer to just wear street clothes


Ichiro

When the guy came back out to thank you was he wearing the waders?