Near miss on the Tualatin

My wife and I decided to enjoy the nice weather today by taking a cruise on the Willamette. We had bought new semi-dry tops to break in, and I also wanted to try out my new INSAYN anchor on a Bsteves setup. (Very happy.) We drove over to Bernert Landing in West Linn at the mouth of the Tualatin. We had just set out upriver when coming down the Tualatin was an upside down neon green SINK. Mary and I pedaled on over, got ahold of the yak, got the paddle off of its leash and out from under our yak, and towed it back to the dock. Two teenagers yarded it up on the dock while I got out. There was a bladder in the stern that had kept it afloat, and nothing else.

I put the yak in the back of the Subaru – it was one of those short play boats – and got geared back up. Just as I was about to get back in my yak, two 20-something young men showed up asking if we had seen any kayaks floating by. They had parked right next to me but didn’t notice the bright green chunk of plastic filling the entire space of my Suby. They were happy to see the yak, but bummed to find out the dry bag wasn’t with it.

Anyway, it turned out that they both had dumped at the Lake Oswego diversion dam.They guy whose yak I picked up said that he got stuck in the hydraulics and almost drowned. He estimated that he was stuck in there for at least 30 seconds and couldn’t get to the surface.  He said he finally grabbed hold of his yak and got kicked out. His buddy managed to float over without too much trouble, but his yak was still missing. I was hot and tired from dragging that yak around and moving all the extra junk in my car around twice, so I didn’t spend too much more time talking with them, and got on my way. (We pedaled up to Rock Island - very strenuous workout at that flow.)

Just wanted to pass this along for those who don’t have much experience with river hydraulics. People – those diversion dams are death traps. Any time water goes over an obstruction, it carries straight down on the downstream side. The water downstream of the obstruction runs back upstream to take the place of the water going straight down. The result is to pull anything floating back to the obstruction and possibly trap it there. I saw my BIL get stuck that way for an extended time in a drop on the Deschutes. He got out by the same method – grabbing hold of his boat. It kicked him out to the side. Since diversion dams are straight, it makes an even wall of down –plunging water and subsequent back-pull. Stuff just gets stuck there in the waterfall, with no way to get out to the side. The guy we met could have just as easily drowned today. I am extremely glad he didn’t.

Wow.. That could have ended waaaay different for those 2. Thats good info on the hydraulics. Well, you did your good deed for the weekend.


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Tnx Sherm, nice work.


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Glad everybody's okay.
Deceptively beautiful, like pretty little water features, they are drowning machines.

LOW HEAD DAMS WILL KILL YOU!

 Avoid them like the plague.

http://www.fremontrescue.org/low-head_dams.htm

http://files.dnr.state.mn.us/education_safety/safety/boatwater/drowningmachine.pdf