Rescue and Towing Clinic at Crabfest 2013

I know a bunch of us have talked about it in the past and I figured this would be the perfect opportunity to get together and practice rescues without a ton of fishing gear on our boats. Rescue Clinic will meet on the beach near the Day Use Area at Doran Beach at 10:00AM Saturday Jan 26th. I will go over some basic rescue, and towing techniques on the beach before hitting the water. We will cover, buddy rescues, gear management, swimming with your paddle, self rescues, and towing. If people feel adventurous we may also do some close to rocks rescues where you have to swim yourself and your boat out of danger. Once we are done with the open water stuff we will have a chance to go play in the surf a little bit and practice launching and landing through breaking surf. 

This clinic should take around 3 or 4 hours so eat a good breakfast and don't party to hard on Friday Night. Also if you want to participate you must have proper clothing. Dress for immersion! Drysuits, Wetsuits and paddling tops, of full wetsuits.

We want to keep the class as open and low key as possible, but please let us know if you are going to come so we can plan to have safety boaters and co instructors as necessary. I should also add that this is a free clinic for anyone who wants to attend. It's all about being safe and having fun! We hope to challenge everyone and educate those who are new to the salt.

So lets be safe and have an EPIC Crabfest 2013!

Awesome idea, I will be there for sure.  But no promises on not partying hard Friday night.  I'll try to take it easy on the rum, yeah right, sure I will.  Party at my rig.  Just look for the white NCKA flag that will be flying above my rig.

Great of you guys to put this on. 

Awesome idea, I will be there for sure.  But no promises on not partying hard Friday night.  I'll try to take it easy on the rum, yeah right, sure I will.  Party at my rig.  Just look for the white NCKA flag that will be flying above my rig.

Hey it is a 10:00AM start time. To most fisherman that might as well be late afternoon. See you on Friday night 

I will be there, as soon as I set up camp. after my swim in Albion made me realized that getting back on the kayak is not as easy in the ocean than in the lake.

Great class

Luis that day is why I decided to offer this class. I want everyone who's fishing cold water with us to be able to rescue themselves and be assets while rescuing others. More than that I want to turn a "rescue" into simply putting someone back on their yak. Look forward to working with you.

That sounds like fun Dan! Count me in for sure. Thanks for posting this up. You da man.

That sounds like fun Dan! Count me in for sure. Thanks for posting this up. You da man.

+ 1 


Kiel

We arrive Saturday. I'd like to attend if we get there and set up early enough.

Al


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This is great Dan!!!!!!! I don't know if I'll make it to the event but if we do, I look forward to getting my new pfd wet. I can bring a couple throw bags with if you like. Mike

What really piques my interest here is two things Dan. First and most important for me is learning how to get a larger guy back on after they are cold and numb. Im thinking that would take more than one man after Albion this year. Second is learning the ways around rescue in the rocky areas of the kind where we had an incident at GS6.

Great job putting so uch together in a weekend. After our visit, my wife and I will be warm and dry!!! Its a good thing your shop isn't closer, I would be there all the time!

+1 thanks dan.

What really piques my interest here is two things Dan. First and most important for me is learning how to get a larger guy back on after they are cold and numb. Im thinking that would take more than one man after Albion this year. Second is learning the ways around rescue in the rocky areas of the kind where we had an incident at GS6.

No doubt getting a big person back into a kayak is hard especially if they are cold and don't have much strength. Thats just another reminder to dress for the swim when paddling the ocean period. However the fact is there will be times where you will run into someone who is under dressed, or has been in the water for a few minutes. I will show you guys some ways to support yourself by using the victims kayak, and how using the edges of your kayak and body mechanics can help hoist the cold swimmer out of the water and on to their yak. Over the years of guiding and instructing I have horsed some pretty big folks into kayaks, and I'm excited to pass on what works for me.

In regards to rescue in Rocky areas. We will touch on that a little bit just outside the Jetty, however its almost a second class all together. We call it a rock garden safety and rescue class. Usually in Rocky situations, you do everything you can to get the swimmer to swim out of harms way. If they can bring their boat with them by pushing it through the water than great, if not have them swim to your boat and then have them hug your bow and paddle them out of harms way. At this point you will have to figure weather to call the Coasties, or go in after the boat to tow it out. The most important thing to remember is that you (the paddle) are number one. You don't want to put yourself in a position where you become the problem instead of fixing the problem. In my experience with teaching rock garden rescue and having real life situations, 90% of the time the paddler is able to swim out with their boat and get to a rescuer's bow. On occasion we use contact tows, or short tows, but for the most part people are able to swim out of harms way. From there a simple tow into calmer water where we can put the paddler back into the boat is all that is necessary.

I should mention that when I say tow it does not always mean rope and biner. In fact that is the exception. Most rescues can be done by simply having the victim hold onto the bow handle with one hand, and their boat with the other. Only pull out a line when absolutely necessary. It only complicates the rescue, and makes more things to get tangled in. The most important thing I can teach is to think on your feet, and fix the problem without becoming the problem.

Like I said we will touch on the basics of this, and I will have Victor or someone rescue me from some rocky situations. If time permits maybe we could spend some more time focusing on this in the afternoon.

thanks for the questions Craig.

I'm in Dan . This is what I've been  waiting for a hands on rescue/self rescue class .

Thanks,
Tim.