How to Rescue a Capsized Boat in Whitewater Rapids

Video Transcript

"In any rescue you’ve got to remember the priorities, number one priority is yourself, number two, the other paddlers who are still okay, number three, the swimmer and last of all the boat and gear. If you’re down to, if you’ve got the swimmer okay, everybody else is all right and you’re feeling like you’re safe and in good shape, go after the boat. When you go after the boat, there are three main ways to rescue a boat. Some people would wear life jackets, rescue life jackets and have tow tethers on them, they’re quick release tethers that allow you to release anytime you need to if the boat starts to hang you up or become a problem. With those quick release tow tethers you take a carabineer on a tether off your life jacket, clip it in the end of another boat and you can paddle that boat over to shore pretty easily and again if that boat starts to cause problems you can always release it by releasing the tow belt. Another way to rescue another boat is to do what’s called a boat over boat rescue and that’s to turn that boat upside down, if it’s not already upside down and bring it up over your boat in a T-fashion, so it kind of makes a T with my boat, uh, if the paddle were the boat, the paddle would, the boat would be across my boat, upside down, that empties it out of the water, turn it back right side up, put it back in the water and help the other paddler back in or paddle it over to shore empty. A final way to get another boat to shore is to bump it and you can kind of bump it with the bow of your boat. Two or three boaters are much better at this than just one. With one boater it’s difficult because the boat tends to spins and tends to get, sort of go the wrong direction. So with a couple of boaters, each working on one end you can often push a boat into an eddy or over to shore and that’s a great way to rescue a boat that’s heavy and full of water in a place where it’s not possible to do a T rescue and where the boater is not around and has already swam to shore. So again, keep the rescue priorities in mind, and those are the three ways to rescue boats. "