"Jeff" wrote in message
...


I'd be curious to see the numbers. Canoe deaths were 80 last year, over
10% of the total; while kayak deaths were 34, or 5%. However, Kayak sales
are about 4 times canoes, so there is a discrepancy. The two together
have been selling about half a million a year recently, though falling off
last year. So its quite possible that the number of "paddle boats" out
there are equal to the number of small open power boats (or at least a
significant percentage of them) which were involved in 350 deaths last
year.

So I could believe that canoes are responsible for a disproportional
number of deaths, but not kayaks. My hunch is that most kayakers wear
PFDs, but many canoe users are actually fishing and don't think they are
at risk.

Although I often wear a PFD while kayaking, I have trouble convincing my
wife to do so, because we almost always kayak in very protecting
fla****er, often only a few feet deep.

I would expect a number of any deaths reported from canoes and kayaks are
due to them being run down by fast power boats in the hands of idiots.