on
Coast Guard Rescue Boats
The picture below shows a Coast Guard Rescue Boat with Large Sponsons
Please wear your lifejacket or PFD.
"Release No:071-01
May 24, 2001
BOSTON -- The Coast Guard Atlantic Area commander formally announced the beginning of a four-year operation aimed at reducing the-more-than 700 boating fatalities each year... Canoes and kayaks have by far the highest fatality rates per million hours of exposure (.42) as any other boat type. Most of these are due to drowning."
Dear First District USCG Headquarters:
Your initiative regarding instruction for canoes and kayaks must understand that such instruction is misleading and unsafe.
"Canoes and kayaks have by far the highest fatality rates per million hours of exposure (.42) as any other boat type. Most of these are due to drowning." US Coast Guard release # 071-01
This is over 15 times the fatality rate of Ford Explorer vehicles per million hours of exposure, in the Ford/Firestone scandal with 178 US lawsuits now pending!
Most deaths now indicate that drownings occur After a paddler, wearing a PFD, becomes unconscious due to hypothermia, because they can't get back into a canoe or kayak. Sponsons are a PFD for these craft, transforming them into a "LIFE RAFT". Capsized paddlers (unwisely) not wearing a PFD compare to swimmers able to crawl out of deep water onto a swimming raft. If they can get out of the water, they will not die of hypothermia and drowning.
Please read below:
Re: Paddle Smart and Proposed Massachusetts Legislation
I thought you might want to know about the terrible fatality record for canoes and kayaks using "traditional" safety such as expecting everyone to "Eskimo" roll, paddlefloat, "canoe over canoe" etc. As described below:
Re. Misleading Canoe and Kayak Safety/Deceptive Marketing
You can see below that canoe and kayak instruction actually increases the risk of injury or death, simply because such instruction neglects commonsense emergency sponsons (12 different models to adapt to all safety requirements).
Any public exposure to this issue, like exhaustive CBC radio coverage regarding the 2 schoolchildren dying on a school trip, would be helpful. Few sports have killed as many people as "traditional" canoes and kayaks, per numbers of craft, due to instructor profits.
I have covered the Coast Guards for years, CPSC, FTC and all departments of the Attorney General in all states. This is simple "bait and switch" criminal fraud at best. Or a scandal killing over 5 times Ford/Firestone, in the same time frame, since 1993. All to the profit of instructors.
The best-selling kayaks by a long way (sold at retailers like Costco and Walmart) are sit-on-top kayaks, used on both rivers and the sea. You may not know that these types of kayaks far outsell traditional decked kayaks, but have a much lower fatality rate, despite being taken by novice and expert, far offshore or down rapids.
These kayaks look like fat, thick surf board with recesses for seat and legs. They are so user friendly, novices use them immediately. They are the preferred boat at all major resort hotels around the world: Cheap and inherently safe. They go far offshore. Divers use some models to carry heavy scuba tanks, then perform as a dive platform. Some are as fast to paddle as conventional decked kayaks.
The reason for the far superior safety record is the built-in sponsons on the sides of the craft. They are less likely to capsize and allow people to simply climb back on if they tip, like a surf board.
In contrast, expert paddlers in "traditional" canoes and kayaks have a death rate AT LEAST equal to complete novices, due to misleading and deceptive instruction described below.
In contrast, traditional kayaks trap people with sprayskirts or they hit rocks on rivers upside-down. Far from shore without sponsons, kayaks and canoes are flooded and are almost impossible to rescue in the same capsizing conditions that have not disappeared. They simply flood and recapsize, even tipping a rescuer alongside, without the emergency stability of sponsons.
Ironically, since there are no canoe and kayak instruction programs for the sponsoned kayaks (they are so user-friendly), the fatality rate for those taking instruction is many times higher than those without instruction, paddling with either built-in or emergency sponsons described on www.sponsonguy.com
Instructors at the YMCA and other reputable organizations know that rolling and paddlefloating instruction is unreliable and dangerous to their kids.
Check the above website and you will see that "traditional" misleading instruction is a big money maker, causing far more needless deaths than you would expect from such a small paddlesport industry. (Over 5 times the numbers of the Ford/Firstone scandal since 1993, when the first tire deaths were brought to court, and sponsons were first available and advocated in major magazines.)
The story potential is very large. Canoes and kayaks are familiar boats around the world. I receive complaints from Europe to Australia about the ridiculous, misleading and deceptive selling of paddlesports.
I hope you can suggest some ways to alert the public to this issue.
Thank you.
Yours truly,
Tim Ingram
231 Gordon Drive
Penetanguishene, Ont. L9M 1Y2
----- Original Message ----- From: oldguy (Tim Ingram) <mailto:oldguy@csolve.net (Tim Ingram)>
To: emailago@atg.wa.gov <mailto:emailago@atg.wa.gov>
Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2001 1:18 PM
Subject: Misleading Canoe and Kayak Safety
Dear Sir or Madam:
Re: Misleading Safety Information/Deceptive Marketing: Canoe and Kayaks
This public safety issue has resulted in hundreds of needless deaths in the US recently.
It speaks for itself, since the American Canoe Association in its' magazine "Paddler" acknowledges that fewer than 20 % of the public can "Eskimo roll" in a swimming pool.
I am registering a complaint with your department regarding the 2 major canoe and kayak magazines, and the American Canoe Association.
1. Canoe and Kayak Magazine
Primedia Inc.
10526 NE 68th Street, Suite 3, Kirkland WA 98033
www.canoekayak.com <http://www.canoekayak.com>
2. Sea Kayaker Inc.
7001 Seaview Ave. NW, Suite 135, Seattle WA 98117-6009
www.seakayakermag.com <http://www.seakayakermag.com>
3. American Canoe Association
7432 Alban Station Blvd., Suite B-232, Springfield, VA 22150
www.aca-paddler.org <http://www.aca-paddler.org>
Both magazines and the ACA have been misleading the public with regard to canoe and kayak rescues since 1993, when both magazines first published articles acknowledging the superior safety of kayak sponsons. Please see www.sponsonguy.com <http://www.sponsonguy.com> regarding the 1993 reports. I have original copies.
After the sponson reports these magazines were attacked by manufacturers, instructors, and advertisers who wished to continue teaching Eskimo Rolls and Paddlefloat Rescues in kayaks, that do not work reliably for most of the public, expert or novice.
The fundamental problem was that sponsons were so simple that most of the public could rescue themselves without much instruction or practice. There are now 12 different 20 second models, closed-cell foam, oral and gas cartridge inflatable sponsons.
These models adapt to the differing safety needs of all paddlers, and quickly fit to all of the different canoe and kayak designs. They offer differing levels of stability, ease of deployment and ease of re-entry. They can be as inexpensive as $5 for foam sponsons.
These magazines and the ACA refuse to teach use of these sponsons and advocate instead: rolls, paddlefloats and other rescue ideas that are not safe because they do not provide emergency stability.
The instructors and manufacturers think they will lose income. However, it is obvious that weather reading, realistic paddling skills, and risk management are more appropriate subjects than rescues that don't work.
As an example of misleading safety information, Canoe and Kayak Magazine states in Kayak Touring 2001, p.53: "There are many solo rescues available to kayakers, the Eskimo roll being the most famous and effective. It's also the hardest...An outrigger rescue with a paddlefloat..."
This is an obvious untruth. The "hardest" rescue is not the most "effective" since it is obviously is the least reliable. Few "expert" kayakers claim to have a roll reliable enough to trust their own lives. The ACA teaches this as a rescue, intended to save human life.
The paddlefloat rescue is extremely misleading and deadly, even to physically fit and very experienced kayakers. For example, in a recent issue of Seakayaker:
"However Reimer was an experienced sea kayaker...His Eskimo roll was not strong, so there was only his paddlefloat."
"Hanging on to his upside-down boat, he lifted his paddle over his head. In spite of the rough seas, he waved it back and forth..." (Sea Kayaker, June, '01, p.54)
If he were able to wave his paddle so easily, he could have easily clipped on sponsons in 20 seconds.
This man was killed by paddlefloat instruction, like hundreds of others, around the world since 1993. The ACA teaches this as a rescue, intended to save human life.
From the website www.sponsonguy.com <http://www.sponsonguy.com>
20 Second Sponsons
These are simply sponsons pre-inflated and secured on the back deck of kayaks.
So after capsize you simply clip on the nearest sponson (each Fastex clip near a sponson end, then shove the remaining sponson under the boat and clip it on.)
A 10 year old child can turn any ACA instructor into a FOOL in 20 seconds.
Clip, clip, the Fastex buckles and any kayak or canoe is stable enough to paddle fully flooded, to safety. The paddler gets warmed immediately. And the body core is out of cold water in 20 seconds. Plus Re-capsize protection.
1. The Instructor is still in the water.
2. The instructor denies the public re-capsize protection, even in a fully flooded canoe or kayak that can be paddled in 20 seconds.
3. The instructor kills people this way.
I have communicated steadily with both magazines and the ACA since 1993, pleading with them not to continue this misleading safety approach, that has such deadly results.
Recently a YMCA camp took a grade 6 class from Elliott Lake, Ontario in kayaks. Most were capsized in a sudden wind. Only by chance was a large powerboat alerted nearby. It radioed ahead so 3 ambulances were waiting at the nearest road to treat the children for hypothermia, shock etc.
Without sponsons no group of guides can safely rescue clients because they simply recapsize with no means of emergency stability. There are many deaths in canoes and kayaks in Canada and the US, as a result.
Twenty schoolchildren were rescued in Tampa Bay, Florida by the US Coast Guard, and treated for hypothermia. In the UK, 4 schoolchildren died, resulting in convictions for manslaughter.
YMCA camps and Boy Scout troops acknowledge their children are not safe with canoe and kayak safety instruction. However, majority use of misleading and deceptive safety instruction forces them to follow, despite reservations.
Please contact me as soon as possible since the numbers of deaths are growing.
Sincerely,
Tim Ingram
231 Gordon Drive, Penetanguishene, Ontario, Canada L9M 1Y2
Coast Guard Rigid Inflatable Rescue boats, with sponsons above, are now the rescue safety standard in the world. Super-high secondary (or final) stability is due to big air sponsons. Rescue safety on the slopes of big breaking waves is created by the buoyancy power of air sponsons. The Coast Guard rescue inflatable slides sideways on the wave slope due to the FORCE of GRAVITY (i.e. surfing). Without sponsons the lower gunwale would dip, catch, and capsize would occur.
Unfortunately some Canoe and Kayak "experts" are confused, interpreting the above images incorrectly because they forget THE LAW OF GRAVITY. Canoes and kayaks are shallow-bodied craft, that easily slide sideways by sculling or draw strokes, let alone the powerful Force of Gravity!
Sponsoned canoes and kayaks slide down steep wave slopes Sideways, with capsize much less likely than with narrow kayaks.
Warning 1
The popular sea kayaking FAQ (Leigh, Aug. 6/00) states:
" Final (or secondary) stability is the ease with which the boat tips
all the way over. High final stability is desirable for any boat, but it
may take some time to develop the balance and skill to take advantage of
it."
This is ignorance on a grand scale: secondary or final stability defined as a lack of stability when leaning a kayak or canoe! This is the exact opposite of the secondary stability of Coast Guard Rescue Safety Sponsons, and basic science taught in elementary schools and universities throughout the world!
Ignorant FAQs on stability of canoes and kayaks kill people. Todd is a nice guy but his contributors sometimes become a little crazy in their enthusiasm.
A breaking wave hits sideways, to force sponsoned canoes and kayaks sideways, and surf down the wave slope under the Law of Gravity. Like Coast Guard rescue boats. Kindergarden kids can understand the Law of Gravity. Boats are not filled with helium to reduce the Force of Gravity. Naval architecture recognizes that canoes and kayaks are shallow bodied vessels, like Coast Guard Rescue boats, and behave differently than deep-keeled vessels on the slope of big breaking waves.
(Sculling and draw strokes move canoes and kayaks sideways, easily, like the Force of Gravity.)
Please be careful if some "expert" says "wide sponsoned kayaks and canoes" are less stable in waves than "narrower, unsponsoned ones". They don't understand the Force of Gravity and twist reality toward their own religious beliefs (that may also have commercial benefits, making money by teaching such dangerous ideas.) This kills people.
Ignorance is common in the commerce of kayaks and canoes, where the idea apparently is to make as much money as possible by mysterious instructional beliefs, even if a few schoolkids are killed.
Warning 2
Some instructors mislead paddlers to think that canoes and kayaks must
always be leaned over in order to turn, and sponsons therefore prevent
turning and normal paddling. Of course this is ridiculous and infringes
on the U.S. patent " Kayak Safety Sponsons", by misrepresentation. Any
canoe or kayak can be turned by sweep strokes and steering strokes without
leaning. Sponsoned canoes and kayaks can be turned more easily in
emergencies because bracing strokes to prevent capsize are not needed,
thanks to sponsons.
Warning 3
Gear-centred rescue safety equipment like PFD's are safer, i.e. more
reliable than swimming to remain afloat, or get to shore.
Likewise sponsons are more reliable because flooded capsized canoes and kayaks are stabilized enough to paddle to safety.
It is noted that Coast Guards of all countries favour gear-centred rescue
safety that is much less likely to fail than skill, technique, or human
strength in emergencies. Inflatable PFDs over swimming, for example. Sponsons
stabilize unique Coast Guard Rescue Boats. All lifesaving organizations
follow gear-centred rescue safety, instruction logic.
"Unlike ships, sea kayaks
depend to a great degree upon the crew's efforts to maintain an upright
condition and therein lies one of the problems with extremely narrow boats
- the risk of capsize increases with fatigue, injury or lack of attention.
To avoid this problem the boat must have enough stability to forgive paddler
lapses when temporarily inactive or physically unable to remain upright."
J.W.
Rescue safety confusion is extremely dangerous, as I explain in a letter to three companies below.
August 7, 2000
David Bookbinder
General Counsel
American Canoe Association Inc.
Dear David:
Thank you for your kind threat of a lawsuit. Please advise the ACA committee that truth is not libel. However it would be interesting to watch your best Harvard team challenge the LAW OF GRAVITY as well as common sense. I repeat that the ACA advocates unsafe ideas, however unintentionally, as rescue instruction, instead of sponson rescues for canoes and kayaks. ACA failure to teach this honest safety to the public is negligent and hurts people.
Please Read Carefully the Formal Legal Announcement Below, To: Canoe and Kayak Magazine, Seakayaker Inc. and Paddler, Affiliated with American Canoe Association Inc.
The buoyancy power of sponsons means stability in rescues of flooded canoes and kayaks. Without sponsons they re-capsize in capsizing conditions. Look at the recent Coast Guard rescue of 20 schoolkids and 6 instructors capsized on an outing in Tampa Bay, Florida. In the U.K. 4 students died. Trained guides cannot stabilize groups reliably without sponsons.
ACA instruction has no mention of sponson stability in rescues, during re-entry of open canoes and kayaks, or during the process of paddling or towing to safety in capsizing conditions. Your notion of paddling flooded canoes and kayaks to shore is tragically misleading. Victims simply recapsize the unstabilized craft. This idea has killed hundreds over the years.
Your rescues that lift loaded canoes over the gunwales are not only impossible for most people, but threaten to kill the unstabilized rescuers by capsizing them, adding to the numbers of victims. Many Experts are among the victims, dying in cold water while packs are removed from capsized canoes, that are then theoretically emptied over the gunwales, then the heavy packs are retrieved and reloaded, all in capsizing conditions. Would you trust your family's lives to this safety?
Kayaks are notoriously ill-served by ACA paddlefloat ideas:
"The Paddlefloat is not really a rough water rescue. During trials I found the SEA WING (sponsons) ... very comforting. I paddled out to sea in rough, windy conditions...I was able to sit on my rear deck-not something I would normally do at sea...The rescue potential is obvious." (D. Hutchinson, The Complete Book of Sea Kayaking, pp.104-111)
"I have seen enough people floundering with paddle-floats in even one-foot seas that..." G. Ruta, Atlantic Coastal Kayaker, Oct.'98, p.4
The paddlefloat is dangerous to paddlers after capsize because they have no paddle to brace with, to remain upright while struggling to retrieve the paddle, which is behind them in the capsizing conditions. They simply recapsize.
Sponsons permit re-entry into a much more stable boat, ( belly-up on kayak after deploying sponsons, rotate into seat, and paddle to safety.) No capsizing while trying to pump out, fit sprayskirt, or other risky tricks in capsizing conditions. Paddlefloat retrieval from behind the cockpit risks unacceptably dangerous recapsizes.
"...using the paddlefloat...it's much harder than it sounds..." (D. Stuhaug, Kayaking Made Easy, 1st ed., p.114)
"...paddlers debate its' (paddlefloat) effectiveness in rough conditions." ( K. Ford, Kayaking, p.85)
"Hand pumping a narrow kayak after a capsize presents some practical balance problems, since it requires the use of the hands both for pumping and balancing. Tricks such as using the pump with one hand while bracing with the paddle across your shoulder and down the other arm cannot be relied on in rough conditions. Emergency sponsons deployed early in the emergency make far more sense." p.38 (J. Dowd, Sea Kayaking, 3rd edition)
"Basic ocean equipment (sponsons) in view of the significant safety margin..." U.S. Military Evaluation.
"SEA WINGS (sponsons) are simply the best and easiest-to-use self-rescue
device on the market...Once you have the Sea Wings fitted and adjusted,
its' advantages over a paddlefloat become clear. To use a paddlefloat,
a certain amount of instruction and practice is needed.
But with Sea Wings, I simply told my volunteer how to snap the four
buckles, inflate the sponsons, and climb back aboard...without any problems.
Even my larger, less agile friends were able...
whereas a paddlefloat, even in calm conditions, is not...something
everyone... How often have you seen...only to capsize again...trying to
free their paddle from the bungies..." (B. Huszar, Seakayaker, Winter
'93, p.34)
Dave Harrison spoke out first in Canoe (Now Canoe and Kayak), July '93, (see site instructions "Safety#1"), 6 mos. ahead of Seakayaker in Winter '93, and he was the first West Coast reviewer: "I thought these were a better idea, and have turned my old paddle float bag into a camera case."
Later, in his book "Sea Kayaking Basics": "There are two advantages of the sponsons over the paddlefloat: first, you have support on both sides of the boat, not just the paddlefloat side; and second, you have a paddle to use and a stabilized boat once you are back in the cockpit...The deflated sponsons are kept under the rear deck lines with one corner attached to the hull. To put into use, a second corner is attached (by means of male-female fastex clips), the other sponson is passed under the hull, and the two other corners are attached. The tubes require about ten puffs to inflate them-and now you have a kayak you can stand up in."
George Gronseth and Matt Broze mentioned sponsons in "DEEP TROUBLE" in 1997 out of legal liability. The legal risk disclaimer in that book is the largest ever seen.
Legal Risk Warning
Canoe and Kayak Magazine, Seakayaker Magazine, American Canoe Association Incorporated, and Paddler Magazine are here notified of negligence toward public safety and common sense rescues of canoes or kayaks. Canoe and Kayak, and Seakayaker magazines at first endorsed sponsons as superior safety, then responded to industry pressures to libel my idea of sponsons, that created a perceived threat to instructors, sales of paddlefloats, expensive drysuits, and expensive paddles broken by paddlefloats.
On a humourous note (Seakayaker, June 2000, p.5), Ralph Diaz warns Kevin Whilden about "dangerous" use of his $400 drysuit. Kevin replies defensively that capsizing without his dysuit closed is dangerous, but he obviously is more worried about dying of heatstroke, "cooking himself", if he wears it properly. If both Ralph and Kevin used sponsons properly, they would be much safer, without risking heatstroke. But they would miss their names in magazines debating specious points that cannot save schoolkids at a YMCA camp. Kids cannot afford $400 drysuits and kids don't want to die of heatstroke either. The industry model sells an endless range of so-called safety products, while libelling sponsons, the simplest means to make canoes and kayaks safer.
Not only are the magazines and the ACA apparently endangering kids who
could never afford $400 drysuit "safety", they are confusing the public
about a host of unreliable safety options. Patented sponsons can use economies
of scale to equip every 40,000 kayaks and canoes with sponsons (including
a model with twice the righting arm of the below-pictured kayak sponsons),
at a cost of $20 each boat. A child's life is worth $20 to the ACA I hope,
and to the magazines.
This is the point of U.S. patents: knowledge to benefit society,
assuming ethical behavior in industry.
The industry sales of inappropriately narrow kayaks in particular, to
the general public who are not in top physical health, immediately requires
new sponson models with more stability power and safety, as well as the
famous SEA WING model, with many human lives to its' credit.
Stow pre-inflated on rear deck, to attach in 20 seconds!
Paddle Normally to Safety with a flooded Cockpit.
More steering and propelling strokes are possible, and Fewer Bracing Strokes are Necessary, Due to Sponson Stability in Emergencies.
(A stable canoe with a "ton" of water sloshing inside).