"Wayne.B" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 18 Oct 2009 14:56:47 -0500, "KLC Lewis"
wrote:

No problem. I'll just lobby Canada to require everyone to wear a safety
harness and helmet in the shower,

I thought most accidents occurred in the bedroom ?


You've been doing something wrong. ;-)
--
KLC Lewis

WISCONSIN
Where It's So Cool Outside, Nobody Stays Indoors Napping
www.KLCLewisStudios.com

"Wayne.B" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 18 Oct 2009 14:56:47 -0500, "KLC Lewis"
wrote:

No problem. I'll just lobby Canada to require everyone to wear a safety
harness and helmet in the shower,

I thought most accidents occurred in the bedroom ?


Back seat of the car?

"Vic Smith" wrote in message
...
Of course the first "prevention" is to avoid getting knocked down.
Now you don't have to say that.
This discusses a inflated masthead bag for the F-27, and also examples
of righting procedures for the F-27.
The F-27 is a trimaran, which affords it huge advantages for righting.
Maybe my favorite boat.
Right up there with the Mac 26X/M, but for different reasons.
http://www.f-boat.com/pages/backgrou...zearticle.html

Monohulls can be so equipped too, but if hatches aren't sealed, most
will just sink like a rock when knocked down unless equipped with
positive buoyancy foam.
Like the Mac 26M/X is.

Don't know if anyone else has pitched in on this. A ballasted keel mono hull
sail boat wants to right itself the more it heels due to the ballast and
leverage. Monohulls get knocked down at sea and stand back up on thier own,
unlike thier multihull counterparts. I guess if a sailor is real lucky and
the hull is lying across the wind and you get a good gust it could push the
boat upright but if the sails are still set, it might just keep going over
and back into the same predicament.
The flotation at the masthead is an idea that Hobie came out with way back
when, necessary to keep the boat from "turtling" when the mast fills with
water. With a Hobie, turtling would be a huge PITA, with a larger multi
nothing short of a crane is going to make things right (or upright haha).
There's a thing called "righting moment" when talking about mono hulls which
is the point the hull has to attain in order for the boat to recover from
turtling. On my Traveler 32' the righting moment was 165 degrees, meaning if
the boat completely capsized, it would recover on its own once the hull
rotated 16 degrees from exactly upside down. Like when the next wave pushed
the boat sideways and the resistance offered by the rig caused the hull to
rotate on it's long axis.
"Righting moment" is a good button to push when talking to a multi sailor
with an attitude. The argument over comfort and speed (multi) vs. crappy
weather survivability (mono) is an old one.
Thanks for a boat related post Vic!

Sure, some owners have retro-fitted their boats with foam, but those
aren't properly engineered and tank-tested.
Amateur stuff and probably just more food for Davy Jones.
But it's skiffs that got me thinking about this, because open boats
are easily swamped, whereupon they are prone to rolling over
Sure, a bit of hull sticks out of the water when the boat is
constructed with positive buoyancy.
Doesn't mean you can roll it back over, or that it's a good platform
for survival.
The NFL players lost off Tampa a while back are a good example.
Four very strong men couldn't right that boat, which was well
designed, and level floating when capsized. They tried.
Had they been able to, they could have bailed and survived.
So for typical open powerboats which might be subject to swamping and
capsize, I'm thinking inflatable airbags on both gunnels..
Activation could be manual and/or automatic upon immersion.
Keep that boat from rolling over when swamped.
The engineering is straightforward and easily accomplished.
The system would be lightweight and not affect boat performance.
What's the problem? A number.
1. Cost. Might add a couple/few grand to the boat cost.
2. Cosmetics - some bulkiness or bumps on the gunnels.
3. Liability - if you sell it, it has to work - every time.
Maybe there's disclaimers for that - I'm not a lawyer.
4. Safety ain't no fun.
5. But the biggest problem by far - I don't have my own boat
manufacturing company.
Somebody could market these systems to clamp onto the gunnels
of any boat. Add some cupholders to ensure sales. Maybe an iPod
option. Be creative.

--Vic

Wayne.B wrote:
On Sun, 18 Oct 2009 13:49:56 -0400, Jeff wrote:

Since most un-powered
boats are not registered, its not easy to determine their relative
safety. We'd have to look at hours spent in various types of boats, etc.

There were statistics published sometime in the last couple of years
which showed that deaths in canoes and kayaks were way out of
proportion to their overall numbers. Canoes and kayaks are usually
unregistered of course.

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.

On Sun, 18 Oct 2009 20:05:02 -0400, "mmc" wrote:

On my Traveler 32' the righting moment was 165 degrees, meaning if
the boat completely capsized, it would recover on its own once the hull
rotated 16 degrees from exactly upside down. Like when the next wave pushed
the boat sideways and the resistance offered by the rig caused the hull to
rotate on it's long axis.

Once the mast of a monohull gets rotated past horizontal, i.e. well
into the water, it usually breaks.

"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.

On Sun, 18 Oct 2009 15:36:33 -0400, wrote:

On Sun, 18 Oct 2009 15:17:30 -0400, Wayne.B
wrote:

On Sun, 18 Oct 2009 13:49:56 -0400, Jeff wrote:

Since most un-powered
boats are not registered, its not easy to determine their relative
safety. We'd have to look at hours spent in various types of boats, etc.

There were statistics published sometime in the last couple of years
which showed that deaths in canoes and kayaks were way out of
proportion to their overall numbers. Canoes and kayaks are usually
unregistered of course.

That's not surprising. Seems like an awful lot of people with very
little boating knowledge are buying or renting rotomolded Kayaks and
blithely heading out into dangerous situations. It's become as big a
fad as hula hoops, but a lot more dangerous.

I would be surprised if hula hoops sold fewer than a hundred times as
many as kayaks. Pretty much every family I knew had at least one. They
made the news regularly for a while.

Casady

On Mon, 19 Oct 2009 09:52:40 GMT, (Richard
Casady) wrote:

On Sun, 18 Oct 2009 15:36:33 -0400, wrote:

On Sun, 18 Oct 2009 15:17:30 -0400, Wayne.B
wrote:

On Sun, 18 Oct 2009 13:49:56 -0400, Jeff wrote:

Since most un-powered
boats are not registered, its not easy to determine their relative
safety. We'd have to look at hours spent in various types of boats, etc.

There were statistics published sometime in the last couple of years
which showed that deaths in canoes and kayaks were way out of
proportion to their overall numbers. Canoes and kayaks are usually
unregistered of course.

That's not surprising. Seems like an awful lot of people with very
little boating knowledge are buying or renting rotomolded Kayaks and
blithely heading out into dangerous situations. It's become as big a
fad as hula hoops, but a lot more dangerous.

I would be surprised if hula hoops sold fewer than a hundred times as
many as kayaks. Pretty much every family I knew had at least one. They
made the news regularly for a while.

Casady

Oi!

Edgar wrote:

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.

It certainly feels like that would be the case, but in fact its not very
common. From a major study:
"The extent to which other vessels contribute to
canoe and kayak fatalities is harder to determine.
In its review of narrative accident data, the ACA
found only a few fatal accidents positively
identified as involving another vessel."
The study goes on to point out that there are a number of fatal capsizes
that are un-witnessed and thus we can't know if another vessel is
involved. We'll certainly never know how many deaths are caused by
wakes from passing boats. But, isn't that simply one of the implied
risks of padding? Certainly, no one should paddle a canoe or kayak
across a busy harbor without wearing a PFD.

The study also points out that the low profile of touring kayaks does
not seem to be a factor in accidents or fatalities. In fact, touring
kayaks were only involved in a small number of fatalities, about one per
year.

http://www.americancanoe.org/atf/cf/...7D/SEI_CJ2.pdf

About 15 years ago, when kayaking took off, there was a belief amongst
paddlers that the rules implied that the "smaller boat always had the
right of way." While there is some truth to that in many state rules
that cover inland lakes (i.e. not covered by the ColRegs or Inland
Rules), that is certainly not the case in most cruising waters.
Fortunately, safety education for paddlers now teaches the real rules
and the prudence of avoiding busy waters.

I would have guessed PWC's often run over canoes, but in fact the
generally run over each other:
"70% of PWC accidents are collisions and 70% of these are collisions
with other PWC."
http://www.ridetechnology.com/accident.html

On Mon, 19 Oct 2009 08:05:41 -0400, Jeff wrote:

"70% of PWC accidents are collisions and 70% of these are collisions
with other PWC."
http://www.ridetechnology.com/accident.html

And it's easy to see why when you watch the promotional videos. They
are always shown as toys being ridden in circles, in close proximity
to each other. People buy them thinking that is normal behavior on
the water.