Teen kayaker rescued on Willamette River

I took my son down to the river (by George Rogers park and down where the Tualatin dumps in) a couple of weeks ago during the high flow just to look at the water. At GR park I saw these recurrent whirlpools. The water was swirling and churning but would occasionally form an actual whirlpool  that looked to be 5-10' across and dip down a couple of feet while making sucking sound.  I think if you hit one of this in a yak that it might pull you under. Of course I assume you and your yak would re-surface, but honestly I was wondering how deep one might be pulled down by one of those things.

Whirlpools that size will not pull you under.  They will make you spin and kick out though.

There was an episode of the Mythbusters that covered whirlpools.  But I'm not basing my input on that.  I've gone through whirlpools of that size with no issues whatsoever.

-Allen

My BIL and I put in the Willy at Rodgers Landing in Newberg and went upstream and around Ash Island. We did encounter some big boils and eddies out in the river, and they did push my yak around, but they are there at lower flows too, just less powerful. What was more concerning though was all the water straining through the brush on the bank. To get upstream at all, we had to find the slower water out of the main flow, but that is on the edges, and the protected water on one side would be the fast water on the next bend, and you didn't want to be in the fast water up in the tree branches. We had to cross side to side several times, going through the seams where the boils and whirlpools were. It was a lot of work, and there were some wobbles, but I don't think we ever were close to real trouble. I do have quite a bit of experience with reading water, from river rafting, canoeing, and surf entries while scuba diving, and I think that helped a lot.

a slightly submerged log or root wad could be a game changer