How to get back into a Capsized Canoe
Posted: Thursday, October 18, 2007
by Kathy Somers
If you are a beginner at canoeing, there will be a time that you will probably flip your canoe over. It even happens to me after twenty years of canoeing.
I cannot stress enough to always wear your life jackets no matter if you are a good swimmer or not! (safety first, make sure that you and your passenger are OK before trying to save the canoe and your belongings)
This lesson is for two passengers in a canoe.
If you are canoeing in fast water and you capsize, with the water only being knee to waist deep. You are going to have to grab onto your canoe, try to retrieve your paddles and swim your canoe to shore, empty it and start out again. (I always get the paddles first and then swim to grab my canoe)
This is why it is always good to have an extra paddle tied into your canoe just incase you can not catch the paddles while they are floating down the river. (It is possible to canoe with one person paddling)
If you are in really fast water and you capsize. You are going to be moving quickly down river. Keep your feet out in front of you, do not I repeat do not let your body get switched around so that your head is going down river first. If you do get switched around backwards and your head is going down the river first, get back to the position of your feet in front of your body as fast as you can and try to watch where you are headed.
Really fast rivers are full of rocks everywhere protruding out of the water. You do not want to hit your head going down river so swiftly. If it is possible keep a hold of the canoe until you reach calmer water, if you can't keep a hold on the canoe let it go, get yourself to shore first and your canoe will pop up somewhere close by. Once you have your canoe ashore empty it, take a breather and away you go again.
If you are canoeing in a lake and the water is really deep, let's say twenty feet deep. And you are to far off shore to swim the canoe back into land to empty the water out of your canoe do the following:
- First of all do not panic, I just hope that you have your life jackets on. If you don't and they are floating around in the water get them on quickly. You are going to need your strength to do this.
- Get your paddles before they float away, stick them up under your canoe, they should stay in there, they may slip out, but just put them back in again. (Paddles float)
- Now when you are in the water and if the canoe is not upside down, turn it upside down, try to lift it a bit to get some air under it and then I want both people to get under the canoe, there will be lots of air under there and lots of room to breath, you can always use this as a resting spot also if you get tired.
- Here is where the work comes in. Make sure that you have good communication with each other. Untie anything that is tied into your canoe. The canoe is heavy enough without things tied into it; you can retrieve these later if they float.
- Stay under the canoe, your going to have to push the canoe up off the water and give it a flip to turn it back over which is really hard to do. While under the canoe you have to kick your feet really hard and push up with your arms as hard as you can at the same time. Quickly flip it back over. More than likely in the first couple of tries your canoe will still be full of water, but don't get discouraged. Just turn it upside down again, get back under the canoe and try again. Your canoe does not have to be completely empty of water, just as long and most of it is out.
- Now your canoe is flipped back over and it is empty, but you are still in the water. The canoe sides are really high up and as soon as you grab onto one side and pull down it will tip back over again. I now want one passenger to get on one side of the canoe and the other passenger on the other side. I also want both people to be close to the centre of it.
- Now decide which person is going to try to get back into the canoe first. (I suggest the strongest of the two people go first) The person staying in the water will reach up and grab onto the side of the canoe and hang on to it while the other person grabs onto their side at the same time.
- The person that is getting back into the canoe first grabs their side of the canoe and kicks their feet as hard as they can, (don't forget the communication let the other person know when you are going to to try to pull yourself up so they can be ready to hang on tight) pull themselves up quickly and as far into the canoe as possible, and grabbing onto the other side of the canoe. Their body should be half way across the top of canoe with their legs hanging over their side, and their head is over to close to the side of the canoe where the person is in the water.
- Move as fast as you can, turn your body so that your bum lands into the bottom of the canoe.
- The person that has just gotten him/her self into the canoe, I do not want them to get into their seat yet. Just move back a bit to make room for the next person to get in.
- The same goes for the second person. When the second person is trying to get in the canoe, the canoe will lean towards them, so I want the person that is now in the canoe to lean in the opposite direction of the person trying to get in it. This will help balance the canoe some so it will not capsize again.
- The second person will now grab their side of the canoe, kick their feet as hard and they can, pull themselves up and grab the opposite side and also turn their body so that their bum will go down on the floor of the canoe.
- The person that is in the canoe first may help the second person get back into the canoe, just as long as they keep their body leaning in the opposite direction of the person trying to get in.
- Now that you are both back into the canoe, keep low, one person moving at a time and work your way back to your seat. Once one person is in their seat then the next person will move slowly, keeping down low to get into their seat. Move slowly and be careful, you don't want to have to do this again.
- Grab your paddles, take a break and then away you go.
If you are going out canoeing on a sunny day just for fun and you're not scared to get wet, practice this move. Just make sure that you first try this out in water where you can put your feet on the bottom of the river, then try it if you feel like it where the water is over your head. This is really fun to try if you are up to a little adventure. It is really a good idea to try this out before you head out for an all day canoeing trip. Then you will know what to do and what works for you.
Canoeing is a lot of fun! But you have to be careful at all times and think safety first. Don't forget that no canoe is important as yours' or someone else's life, if you have to let your canoe go, let it go it can be found later or replaced. Get yourself to safety first and worry about the canoe later. Canoes are made everyday your not.
A few safety items to bring:
Must have: (minimum) -Life Jackets
-Rope
-Duct Tape (to patch holes in your canoe if you hit a rock, patch the hole on the outside of your canoe, the water pressure against the canoe will keep the tape in place)
Should have: (minimum)
-Wet Bag (extra clothes, matches, food, towel, toilet paper…) -Extra paddle
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Top-level comments on this article: (5 total)Slight misstatement - "no one life is as important as a canoe" should probably read "no canoe is as important as one's life".your right, i miss worded my sentence....sorry about that everyone
Wow what happend was me and my 2 cousins went canoing and we were in the middle of a lake and there was alot of waves and we tried turning around and it wasnt working so we made a rudder on the side of the boat and we all started paddling on 1 side and a huge wave came and tipped us over, and we had are clothes on like hoodies and pants and shoes and a hat and we were trying to get the water out of the canoe and we got it to float by itself but it couldnt hold are wait so we tried getting the water out of the boat with are hands and it still didnt work so we abonded the boat and swam back to shore we had life jackets but it was still realy cold we almost got hypathermia and we had to swim so long it took us a hour to get back to shore once we were on shore we were so glad we were safe i took of my shoes in the lake to swim faster and i ended up lossing my shoes that i just got like a week ago haha lol.HAHA how did you make a rudder on the side of the boat? That's interesting? Did you get your canoe back? Canoe's are heavy full of water aren't they....? Well glad that you all made it to shore with out anyone getting hurt. It's not nice being cold like that though. I never had to swim that far, you must have been exhausted, thank goodness your had your life jackets on. The most I swam was maybe 1/2 hr and I didn't like that to much, hard work. LOL thanks for sharing your story though, hope people read it and realize that it's always important to wear their life jackets.
It was my cousins idea to make a rudder because we couldnt turn around for some weird reason so he said to put a paddle on the side of the boat on a angle sord of and we kinda made a homemade rudder kinda like something to turn easier. Then a huge wave came and tipped us over because are boat was side ways and the waves where coming on the side 2 haha.And yes we got are canoe back i got my dad to get his speed boat and they somehow towed it back,we lost are paddles though but they wernt ares we were actually at a family camp then!!!!.Ya that was the first time I ever tipped a canoe i am only 14 you know it was a scary experience for me and my 2 cousins. I was so scared i actually thought i was going to die because i thought we were going to be stuck there for like all day maybe and get hypathermia and also my lifejacket was kinda too big and it almost fell of but my hoodie kept it above water thank god.The water was so cold i couldnt believe it.Once me and my 2 cousins made it back to shore we saw a house and we asked for a ride back to are camp site !!!!HAHA.....funny, well not funny, but now that every one is ok, it's kinda funny. I first went canoeing when I was young like you to.....well i hope that won't be your last canoeing trip.... :)Thanks for telling me your adventure...Loved hearing about it....
My friend and I just fell out of our canoe today! What an experience!!!! We have some experience and have been canoeing for around 3 years. We were fishing in the Peconic River, Long Island NY. My friend caught a fish and i was turning around in the canoe, he was in the middle of the canoe on the side i was leaning on and we tipped. Fell right into the water. Nobody was around, we managed to find a hunting platform right nearby around 8 ft away. We climbed onto that with the canoe and oar. Getting back into the canoe was not so easy. Our canoe was filled with water 90%. We had to use a bucket and drain the canoe with water. Then we were able to get back into the canoe. We located and grabbed most of our stuff...except my tackle box which is still somewhere underwater. The water wasn't really so cold and only about 4 - 5 foot deep so at least we didn't get hurt. We will be More careful next time!!!I wish I was with you canoeing, I love it, but since I have two little boys now I never got into my canoe for a couple of years. Sounds like you had a FUN day.I never fished out of my canoe because I know how tippy they are, but my father took my boys and I out the other day in his flat bottom boat with a motor and the kids got 7 bass. We are not allowed to keep them, so we put them all back safe and sound, also there are no barbs allowed on the hooks either........Back to your canoeing trip, I hope it was nice and warm outside LOL.....I had to laugh when you said that 'he was in the middle of the canoe on the side i was leaning on and we tipped' I remember that happening to me as well, but we weren't fishing, we were trying to get stuff in our coolers and just moving around etc.Darn canoes are heavy full of water aren't they? They don't look it...SOOOO I take it you didn't have life jackets on.....tsk tsk...but it doesn't matter, your all safe and just be more careful next time. Don't worry about your tackle box you can get another one of those.....pack some dry clothes next time and put it in a water proof something or other....I have a wet pack, but lots of people have buckets with covers for them like the ones you buy corn beef in at the grocery stores...well..thank you for writing your story, I enjoyed reading it and I know it will help other people out as well before they go fishing in a canoe..'what not to do'....I hope to get out canoeing soon too
Capsized today in the Mississippi. Was an idiot not paying attention to the winds that were gusting 28 mph. Strong current and the St Anthony falls not far away downstream...we tried moving the canoe towards the shore but progressing two slowly so just had to give up on that and let the canoe go. Feel a real idiot. had canoed upstream yesterday with no problems but just did not pay attention to the changed weather conditions. The canoe did come in to shore just a few hundrd yards south. Appreciated this article. About letting the ccanoe go. We just could not do the lifting and flipping in that wind and current.Hi...sounds like a fun day to me. Glad everyone was OK and no one got hurt. Also glad you got your canoe back again too.
Don't feel like an idiot !! Look at it as a fun day, exciting day or a learning experience. I'm jealous, I never got out canoeing this summer at all, it rained and rained and there was never a good day to go. I wish I had of had my canoe in the Mississippi !!
Glad your all OK :) and I'm glad you like the part where I said "LET THE CANOE GO" it's true isn't it, safety first, you can always replace a canoe.
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