wrote:
Mothra wrote:
It was 8 years ago.
[...]
"We lost Scott at Great Falls today."
[...]


Apparently Scott could not roll upright and so he exited the boat and
was pulled down into the hole. Makes me wonder why ww kayaks could not
be fitted with snorkels.

Actually, from seeing the video of his attempts to get out of Charlie's
hole, Scott was tossed around in the hole quite violently. I can only
assume that he realized that he couldn't escape the hole while still in
his boat, so he bailed out. A snorkel in his boat probably wouldn't have
made a difference, since Scott and his boat went their separate ways
shortly after he bailed out.

Having seen the hole up close, and realizing how the currents and rocks
there are located, I doubt that anyone with a snorkel would have had any
better chance than he had. It's not a place where you want to be as a
swimmer!

Dragorossi has added a special tube to the rear compartment of their
latest kayak, which, according to Corran Addison, could give someone
five to ten minutes of spare air. I'm not sure what good that would have
done in this particular situation, where the boater was separated from
his kayak... :-(

--
Wilko van den Bergh wilkoa t)dse(d o tnl
Eindhoven The Netherlands Europe
---Look at the possibilities, don't worry about the limitations.---
http://kayaker.nl/

Exactly, Wilko! I'm not even sure Scott chose to exit the boat. As
you'll remember, the video showed him getting violently cartwheeled and
then it seemed the hole just sucked him under and all we could see was
his helmet bobbing. From all reports his boat and paddle came out
shortly thereafter, and after about a minute or so, the helmet too. I
for one am not convinced that he wasn't torn out of his boat. Either
way, I can't see him sucking air from a snorkel in that hole - would
work in a heads down pin perhaps, but I'm with you - not in that hole,
not ever. I think Bobby (who was there and saw it firsthand) said it
best: "I always knew Charlie's was bad, but I didn't know how bad
until I saw Scott in there."

Wilko wrote:
wrote:
Mothra wrote:
It was 8 years ago.
[...]
"We lost Scott at Great Falls today."
[...]


Apparently Scott could not roll upright and so he exited the boat and
was pulled down into the hole. Makes me wonder why ww kayaks
could not be fitted with snorkels.

Actually, from seeing the video of his attempts to get out of Charlie's
hole, Scott was tossed around in the hole quite violently. I can only
assume that he realized that he couldn't escape the hole while still in
his boat, so he bailed out. A snorkel in his boat probably wouldn't have
made a difference, since Scott and his boat went their separate ways
shortly after he bailed out.

Having seen the hole up close, and realizing how the currents and rocks
there are located, I doubt that anyone with a snorkel would have had any
better chance than he had. It's not a place where you want to be as a
swimmer!

Dragorossi has added a special tube to the rear compartment of their
latest kayak, which, according to Corran Addison, could give someone
five to ten minutes of spare air. I'm not sure what good that would have
done in this particular situation, where the boater was separated from
his kayak... :-(

It certainly seems you are much, much safer if you can stay in the
boat, and to remain motivated to stay in the boat some form of
snorkel/air tube could certainly help -- and this is just an obvious
and trivial $3 bit of plastic. It could be standard equipment on ww
kayaks.

wrote:

It certainly seems you are much, much safer if you can stay in the
boat, and to remain motivated to stay in the boat some form of
snorkel/air tube could certainly help -- and this is just an obvious
and trivial $3 bit of plastic. It could be standard equipment on ww
kayaks.

We're talking class V white water in this case, with a pretty decent
volume of water in the case of Charlie's hole at that day. I don't
believe for one moment that you can stay upside down in your boat in
that hole and still breathe through a snorkel. You're being tossed
around violently and there is a lot of water being poured on top of you.

I can think of plenty of similar situations where the water is moving so
violently that even being able to hold the pipe of the snorkel above the
surface is not possible. Besides, considering that it's probably not
possible for your buddies to get to you (without taking an enormous risk
themselves) and with you being unable to see what they are doing, a
rescue effort from shore can be a daunting challenge.

IIRC a very good U.S. boater swam out of Charlie's hole shortly before
Scott died there... He obviously didn't see an alternative, if he wasn't
forced out of his boat by the water. Staying in your boat isn't always
an option!

I've yet to come across a situation where having a snorkel would make a
difference on someone being in trouble on whitewater. That definitely
makes me skeptical about always carrying one around for such a very rare
eventuality. I think that the Dragorossi approach might work better, but
even there one can question the effectiveness of such a device in
violently moving whitewater.

--
Wilko van den Bergh wilkoa t)dse(d o tnl
Eindhoven The Netherlands Europe
---Look at the possibilities, don't worry about the limitations.---
http://kayaker.nl/

Wow! This thread degenerated into a rather tangential subject!!

Just wanted to add another remembrance of Scott Bristow from the old
RBP days. I remember! I still have my old and worn RBP tee shirt with
the emblem of Scott hand paddling his 007 too! And an RBP sticker on
the back of my Grateful Heads helmet too, cause it's oval, and a bit
smaller than the Grateful Heads logo sticker. Every once in a while
someone notices it and asks me about it too, and I let them know that
there *was* an internet presence for boaters before the WWW and
Boatertalk days!

And Scott was among the creme of the crop in those bygone days.

Happy Thanksgiving all! :-)

John Kuthe...

wrote in news:1164401063.689912.215920@
45g2000cws.googlegroups.com:

Wow! This thread degenerated into a rather tangential subject!!

Just wanted to add another remembrance of Scott Bristow from the old
RBP days. I remember! I still have my old and worn RBP tee shirt with
the emblem of Scott hand paddling his 007 too!

I still have two of them, one of each design.

And an RBP sticker on
the back of my Grateful Heads helmet too, cause it's oval, and a bit
smaller than the Grateful Heads logo sticker. Every once in a while
someone notices it and asks me about it too, and I let them know that
there *was* an internet presence for boaters before the WWW and
Boatertalk days!

And Scott was among the creme of the crop in those bygone days.

Then there was the Rat. I've only seen one person with a rat attached to
his helmut.

John Fereira wrote:
wrote in news:1164401063.689912.215920@
45g2000cws.googlegroups.com:
Just wanted to add another remembrance of Scott Bristow from the old
RBP days. I remember! I still have my old and worn RBP tee shirt with
the emblem of Scott hand paddling his 007 too!

I still have two of them, one of each design.

I also still have some RBP T-shirts, both designs. Some sweaters too.

And an RBP sticker on
the back of my Grateful Heads helmet too, cause it's oval, and a bit
smaller than the Grateful Heads logo sticker. Every once in a while
someone notices it and asks me about it too, and I let them know that
there *was* an internet presence for boaters before the WWW and
Boatertalk days!

And Scott was among the creme of the crop in those bygone days.

Then there was the Rat. I've only seen one person with a rat attached to
his helmut.

I still have that plastic Rat... After it was "kidnapped", it literally
went all over the world!

Interesting character, that Rattso. One of the few kayakers almost my
size. Pretty good boater too! He used to spend some time on BT, but
rarely surfaces there nowadays.

--
Wilko van den Bergh wilkoa t)dse(d o tnl
Eindhoven The Netherlands Europe
---Look at the possibilities, don't worry about the limitations.---
http://kayaker.nl/

"Wilko" wrote in message
...

I still have that plastic Rat... After it was "kidnapped", it literally
went all over the world!

There were actually two of those rats. After it was kidnapped and sent
around the world, someone introduced a second rat into the mix... One of
them spent some time with me, and went on holiday with my family. I hope
one found its way back to its master.


-Paul