Rescue case study: the boatercross

[Maryanne]

I think everyone would agree that the boatercross was absolutely great fun and a huge success, it was great to see the club mixing in the teams race, the freshers getting their first runs of Jacksons in over the day and the shenanigans (boatercross tactics, interesting lines, close finishes and surprise victories) that went on throughout the day and gave it that memorable spice that'll be the flavour of some excellent war stories for a good while to come.

The venue for the event was the Annamoe river and included the run in to Jacksons and Jacksons itself. This is a stretch that the club doesn't get to as often as the Liffey, Boyne or Avonmore, so I thought it'd be worth opening up a discussion about some of the rescue scenarios that came up, which we might not see that often.

Rescue involves a skill set that is developed by experience (ie getting stuck in and helping out and building up hours of experience spent actively rescuing) but can be helped too by looking over scenarios to think about how they might have been handled more efficiently, more easily or even just faster in future.

Although on the day each scenario had a certain set of rescue paddlers who were involved in rescue directly, at some point in our rescue futures we'll probably all come in contact with similar situations so we should be able to talk about improvements in general terms and not just specific to the rescue paddlers who were involved on the day.

So, what did you see? What did you think worked? What could have been more efficient/easier/faster?

[KatieMcLoughlin]

Hmm I swam pretty early on in boaterx after going over a rock and well the guys seemed to have a bit of trouble getting my boat before it decided to pin itself a bit further down. Rescue was called up to help us and eventually the guys were able to the guide the boat over to river right bank where I had had to swim down to by then. It just kinda occurred to me that there was not a single person along river right to help out or rescue at all which would have helped me at the time.
I'm not sure is that just me being silly or should I have swam across to the other bank or what, as it was my first swim I was unsure of what to do and sort of left to my own devices, swimming down the river until I caught up with the boat and everyone else which in hindsight was probably not the best idea!

[Maryanne]

It just kinda occurred to me that there was not a single person along river right to help out or rescue at all which would have helped me at the time.

Hmm, I don't remember seeing that one, where was this? At Jacksons or further upstream?

I'm not sure is that just me being silly or should I have swam across to the other bank or what, as it was my first swim I was unsure of what to do and sort of left to my own devices, swimming down the river until I caught up with the boat and everyone else which in hindsight was probably not the best idea!

I would think you're best off swimming to the nearest bank, and getting yourself safe first.
Then you can travel along the bank to catch up with the boat.
If the boat was rescued on the other side of the river best practice is to bring the boat to the person rather than have the person swim to the boat.

Banks can be tricky alright, since if there aren't paths you can get stuck and need to cross the river, but as far as possible this would be done in your rescued boat, or if that wasn't an option, on a rope or holding the back of someone's boat. On the Liffey or Boyne sometimes a swimmer gets back in to their x-rescued boat from the water, but on a river with a faster flow with rocks you'd want to just get out of the water asap to avoid hurting yourself.

Now you can start building up swimming experience after your incredibly long dry run

[Maryanne]

Sure I'll get the ball rolling so!

One scenario that I thought was pretty unusual and didn't feel in my comfort zone dealing with was when Eoghan got pinned.
Mark was above him on the water in a boat
Simon waded out to him
Steve Fahy threw him a rope once he was out of the boat
Dave O'R passed a rope with a crab to Mark, who paddled it out to Simon
Simon clipped the boat in, moved it so it came out of the pin
Dave, Steve and I pulled the boat in
Eoghan got it
Simon came back to the bank
all was well.

So, Simon/Mark/anyone else with experience of this sort of situation, what could you do if the water was a bit higher so that you couldn't wade out?
Would it have been possible to clip a rope on to the wader and have them approach the pin from the bank a little further upstream?
Would more boat based rescue have been helpful?
I'd imagine that, depending on the circumstances, helping from a boat would be tricky, since as you focus on trying to move the boat you could become easier to wash downstream.
I haven't come across that many pinnings myself, so I'm not sure.
I think I've heard at a rescue course that the first thing to do is get a person to the boat to give it a nudge and then if that fails to free it progress to clipping it in, or escalating to using a z drag or similar method to use more strength to pull the boat.

But if there's a person still in the boat I imagine you need to get a person close asap to help the paddler get out, or keep their head above water.

I figure if I think through some of that then the next time I see a pinning I'd be able to react faster and more usefully.

[kmck]

Boat pinned centre of jacksons
We had to loosen the system I was using to allow me to to put on a carabiner and sling
We then tried to loosen the boat found it was stuck, so tried a differen angle to pull it out as it went in. Then threw the rope across the river to the guys on the opposite bank, boat was pulled loose and then using the carabiners on the tree hauled up and out.

It was stable so instead of me trying to put the carabiner on we could have used a paddle hook or I could have tried to move the boat out and over.

[Peter O'Sullivan]

In terms of rescue, race days are always different so the boaterX mightn't be the best case study. But my 2 cent for what its worth.

The level was low so more boats that usual were pinned on rocks and pinned more than they ordinarily would be. I thought the pinned boats were all rescued promptly, no issues there.

All the club boats had two airbags which was great.

Many experienced paddlers swam that shouldn't have had( you all know who you are ) adding to the rescue workload. I'm still at a loss as to why some people swam when they should be able to run Jacksons blind-folded by now, perhaps being out of practice is the reason.   

There were a few moments when 3rd and 4th years were spectating and waiting for others to rescue not realising they were best positioned to help. Less chatting in a circle better(far far faster/decisive) awareness needed.

Last thoughts on rescue. Why on earth was everyone bumping down the right over the rocks? It was much easier to run right of centre, centre or left of centre but it was silly sending people hard right. Could have been far less swims if people picked better lines.

Don't worry for next year I will still have plenty more unique tactics to help me!

[Tiny Tim]

In terms of rescue, race days are always different so the boaterX mightn't be the best case study. But my 2 cent for what its worth.

The level was low so more boats that usual were pinned on rocks and pinned more than they ordinarily would be. I thought the pinned boats were all rescued promptly, no issues there.

All the club boats had two airbags which was great.

Many experienced paddlers swam that shouldn't have had( you all know who you are ) adding to the rescue workload. I'm still at a loss as to why some people swam when they should be able to run Jacksons blind-folded by now, perhaps being out of practice is the reason.   

There were a few moments when 3rd and 4th years were spectating and waiting for others to rescue not realising they were best positioned to help. Less chatting in a circle better(far far faster/decisive) awareness needed.

Last thoughts on rescue. Why on earth was everyone bumping down the right over the rocks? It was much easier to run right of centre, centre or left of centre but it was silly sending people hard right. Could have been far less swims if people picked better lines.

Don't worry for next year I will still have plenty more unique tactics to help me!

Dont beat around the bush there pete tell people what you really think... 

[Peter O'Sullivan]

In ...

Dont beat around the bush there pete tell people what you really think... 

You'll have to do better than that.