I was out rowing my new Wintech 24 explorer in Salem harbor this morning around 10 AM. Beautiful day, dead calm. My row started at the Village Street Dock heading towards the dead end of the harbor (South West). It's somewhat of a minefield of buoys to begin with. After negotiating all of them (or so I thought) I stepped on it, picking up speed. Then at the very end of the drive (the stroke) my port oar struck a large buoy, forcing the oar under water and parallel to the scull. This force was more than plenty to flip the scull instantly.
I did not go into panic mode, but definitely into a high alert mode because the water is cold. I turned the scull right side up, and tried to get back in. I did this trying to slide in from the rear of the boat. However, to have a stable boat the oars needs to be perpendicular to the boat, which I was not able to achieve in the process. Further, the water in the cockpit of the scull makes it very unstable as well. . After my second attempt I decided that I was using too much energy and I needed to come up with another solution.
Crying out for help entered my mind, but nobody was around. (I forgot that my newly purchased CO2 inflatable Stormy Seas life preserver has a whistle, but I don't know if anybody was close enough to hear it. Amazing how that works, when you need people they never seem to be around). I had my cell phone in a zip lock bag, but decided against using it for now.
So my solution to the problem was to slide my upper body over the scull, getting most of my body out of the cold water, and to use my legs to swim towards shore which was only about 150 yards away. It actually took a long time to cover the distance.
Back at the rocky shore line, I was able to empty the scull of water and to get back into it. And yes, I continued to row, but closer to land.
Here are a few comments to my ordeal:
1) The gasp effect (the body's involuntary reaction to cold water) is definitely present. (This was part of the Coast Guards presentation a couple of weeks ago) However, I did not suck in any water.
2) The cold water sucked the energy out of my body at a very fast rate.
3) I will purchase a water proof floatable VHF radio that will be tied to the scull
4) I will come up with a small bailer that will be tied to the boat
5) I obviously need to figure out how to get back into the scull, and I should probably have tried getting into it from one of the sides in stead from the rear.
I know that the club rule is that nobody using club boats row alone. However, if this flip had happened at the end of a row (i.e. tired), in windy conditions and in rough sea, I am not sure how one rower can help the other rower getting back into the scull. So some training and procedures would go a long way.
I obviously are not writing this to scare anybody away form the sport. Further, the Echo's are very stable boats and easier to get into. But if you haven't tried to get back into a scull, you should go behind Brown Island and train until you can master the recovery of a flip. I know I will.
Happy Rowing.
Jon Hancke
Viking Construction LLC.
153 Village Street
Marblehead, MA 01945
O: 781-631-5444
C: 781-771-2189
M: Hancke@comcast.net
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