Surfski Knowledge Base

Reivers Dustin
12/15/06 #2242

LB has some status with local CG due to all those years of chairing
the Ski-to-Sea. He mentioned today about receiving an official notice
of consern regarding kayaker exposure to hazard. Hopefully, he'll be
able to post something about this.

I'm aware of several deaths in the last decade involving sea
kayakers. None of these were Surskiers or even sit-on-top type
boats. However, we are perceived as one of them dang kayaker types.

Due to National news coverage, I suspect that the machine has been
stimulated and feels an urge to respond. If anyone reading this has
ideas about improving our relationship with relevant local agencies,
please help. There is a chance that this might even hamper waterfront
development issues. I'm worried that “they” will decide that small
craft access should be limited as a way of limiting public exposure to
hazard.

As LB said, local paddlers are mostly a highly educated, professional
group. Unfortunately, this isn't quite enough of a ticket to a “leave
us alone” policy. When you get noticed, you get help.

Any ideas?

rd

Jeff Hegedus <jhegedus@…>
12/16/06 #2243

I view this incident as being similar to a typical alpine mountain rescue, where the
participants were responsible, capable and knowledgeable, and where neither negligence
nor recklessness was involved. The incident is an opportunity to review and improve areas
of decision making and preparedness, that will imake us safer, reassure our loved ones,
and improve and evolve the sport.

It is not inapprpriate for the Coast Guard to communicate a level of concern, and I receive
this feedback as being supportive rather than punitive. An appropriate response would be
to thank them, and to describe to them our efforts to improve safety as a result of lessons
learned. Search and Rescue doesn't expect the rescued alpinist to stay off the mountain,
but does appreciate improvements in safety practices that result from an incident and
their work.

This incident will pass, and when it has, I hope that we are left with an improved set of
safety practices, and an understanding with the Coast Guard of who we are and what we
do, keeping it short simple and honest. Meanwhile, it should not be escalated by
defensiveness, which would be natural; I have responded to inquiries by simply providing
facts.

Regarding waterfront redevelopment planning efforts, I am meeting Monday with the Port
Executive Director and Director of Marina Services to describe what the needs are of the
growing paddling community; this incident will not affect these considerations.

It also won't affect my personal experience of being on the water, which I consider to be
very intensely private.

See ya' out there, Jeff.

Larry Bussinger <lbussing@…>
12/17/06 #2249

I plan on contacting the Bellingham Coast Guard Commandant and
starting a line of communication with him. I have business with him
under the auspices of Ski-to-Sea anyway (kind of an ad-hoc committee
of one) and it gives me a opportunity to open a line of discussion.
Mike Hammer's comments echo what I've heard in this forum. The
Coast Guard should be a part of this discussion and we have an
opportunity to establish a healthy protocal with them in regards to
safety and communication.
Larry G. also has an opportunity to work with Stu Smith who is the
Whatcom County Deputy in charge of water. With a little bit of
forethought at this point, we can establish some guidelines between
the sport and agency interaction. Like Eric points out, we're one
of the largest groups for surfskis in the nation. (Sounds pretty
pompus doesn't it?)
Anyway, we can give some background to the Coast Guard of our sport
and try to help them from getting to authoritative. They are our
friends.

Two things,
I plan on using Morris's Wind-O-meter as my personnel criteria for
paddling.
I plan on using Larry G's gage of “if you can't paddle upwind, don't
paddle downwind”.
These two criteria should save me a pile of grief.

By the way, for those of you who aren't engineers, the kinetic
energy of wind is a velocity squared sort of thing. Wind at 40 mph
is four times as strong as wind at 20 mph. not twice.