Kayaking Fog and current

Willbd’s problem was exacerbated by following rawkfish’s well intentioned suggestion to “follow the sun” in order to get to the shoreline. That is because the sun doesn’t follow a track from dead East (90 degrees) to dead West (180 degrees) with noon dead overhead (no bearing.) The path it follows changes with the Earth’s relative angle to the sun – or in other words, by season. At this time of year, the sun rises in the NE, traverses to somewhat South at noon, and sets in the NW. Since we are close to the Summer Solstice, the Sun is as close to straight overhead as it is going to get, but it is still to the south.

These are the angles for Saturday, June 16th for Newport, according the Naval Observatory.

http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/AltAz.php

The first column is the time of day, the second column is the angle of the sun from the horizon (altitude) and the third column is the bearing from true North (azimuth).

09:00       44.8       101.1
09:10       46.5       103.3
09:20       48.3       105.5
09:30       50.0       107.9
09:40       51.6       110.3
09:50       53.3       112.9
10:00       54.9       115.7
10:10       56.5       118.7
10:20       58.0       121.8
10:30       59.5       125.2
10:40       60.9       128.8
10:50       62.3       132.7
11:00       63.5       136.9
11:10       64.7       141.5
11:20       65.8       146.3
11:30       66.7       151.5
11:40       67.4       157.1
11:50       68.1       162.9
12:00       68.5       169.0

As you can see, at 10:00am, which is aproximately when Willbd got rawk’s suggestion, the sun was at 115 degrees, which is 25 degrees south of dead East. This pointed Willbd a bit south, which compounded with the southern flowing current, pushed him even further South.

Another factor is that it is very hard to steer a course without reference points. Try closing your eyes and walk in a straight line sometime. Several people told me that they were going in different directions than they intended in the fog on Saturday – I know I did. My sonar/GPS is back at the factory, so I was using compass only, and a couple of times I found I was pointed about 90 degrees off target. I kept it in my cup holder and referenced it often – it is easier to use than GPS for determining direction, IMO. 

Saturday provided experience for EVERYBODY out there. Being at sea in dense fog in a small boat is a little above Seamanship 101 course level. The great thing is that Willbd is home safe & sound. Rawkfish, polepole and IHop - thanks for staying with Willbd and giving best efforts. I want to emphasize I am criticizing Rawkfish's advice only for educational purposes - the strategy of getting close to shore before worrying about getting north was correct, but putting the sun at 3 o'clock would have been better than toward the sun.

I think Rawk's advise was spot on.  Priority one was to keep him from wandering aimlessly in any direction or heading farther offshore out of VHF range.  Heading in the general direction of the sun would send him in the direction of land at the time of day Willbd was lost.  Did he end up further south due to drift and sun angle?  Sure, but once land came into view all that would have been needed is to turn left and grind north against the current.

One concern I had was Jeff's suggestion to "peddle toward the sun". From our latitude the sun was south-south-east at that time and Brian may have moved further south instead of north. I kept the sun on my starboard side or astern to move east or north.

I hear you guys on the sun issue, but the advice given was correct.  If you had a general understanding of navigation, you would have known immediately that the sun should be east that early in the morning, and that you were drifting south.  Without being told, you should have immediately put the sun to your front right. 

Being told to head directly towards the sun was 100% good advice in the situation.  Don't fault someone for advice just because you don't understand it.  Like Ron said, the sun would get you to the coast, then you could just paddle paddle paddle til you got home. 

Others have alluded to it already, but let me put it clearly:  If you can't move your boat at 3-4 mph for at least an hour, you aren't in good enough shape to be out in the ocean.  Stay in the protection of a bay.  There are plenty of fish there   

Any criticism of the advice to head toward the sun leaves out an important factor. You have someone that needs simple straight forward instruction to get them headed in the direction that will bring them to relative safety as soon as possible. "head into the sun" accomplishes just that. anything more overcomplicates a potentially dangerous situation.

Look at the map.  At one point willbd was heading directly West.  When he radio'd that he was in 151 feet of water and his coordinates put him way way offshore.  Heading towards the sun was definitely a better option than that.

-Allen

Thank you for bringing this topic up.  It is healthy for us to talk about it, both the bad and the good.  And like Lee says, if we're to learn, we should be straight forward and honest with our assessments, thoughts, and opinions.

-Allen

Thanks willbd for starting this topic!  I'd like to stress Allen's point.  A thorough review of the failure mode and the response are necessary to fine tune our processes for avoiding and responding to this sort of situation.

The willingness of members to share their failures for the benefit of others makes NWKA special. 
 
In my opinion, Allen managed the situation extremely well, both in making the call to get Coast Guard assistance before willbd drifted out of radio range and in relaying information slowly and clearly over his VHF.

-Spot-

@lee - that is a great benchmark.  In your opinion, is that speed of paddle/pedal in calm water? For clarity - you take "bob" to the lake on a nice day and set a pace of 3.5 mph. He stays with you for an hour. Are you ready to take him with you to the salt?

In my opinion, the advice to follow the sun was spot on at that time.  Once you find land, you have the option of gritting out the slog back to your port of launch or use the wind and current to push you to your next landing point.  In this case, Otter rock or Beverly Beach would have been a strong option.  It's important to know your options before you paddle out. 

-Spot-

@lee - that is a great benchmark.  In your opinion, is that speed of paddle/pedal in calm water? For clarity - you take "bob" to the lake on a nice day and set a pace of 3.5 mph. He stays with you for an hour. Are you ready to take him with you to the salt?

On a calm lake, 4mph and still needs to have some go in him afterwards.

Others have alluded to it already, but let me put it clearly:  If you can't move your boat at 3-4 mph for at least an hour, you aren't in good enough shape to be out in the ocean.  Stay in the protection of a bay.  There are plenty of fish there   

In fact I might suggest more than an hour at 3-4 mph.  If you were out on the water for 6 hours on Saturday, you would have been paddling for roughly 1/2 that time, 3-4 mph for 3 hours.

-Allen

I have noticed that some kayak tournaments, especially those going offshore have rules requiring partners of all participants.  When events like this happen it is a great learning experience not only for those involved but for the event itself.

Honestly, thick fog scares me a bit in a kayak.  Not because of the navigating but the fact that power boats really cannot see us when running in thick fog.  I do have rules that define a go/no go day kayaking and thick fog is a no-go for me in most spots (and living where I do it causes some missed fishing days).  Of course, rules are often broken when it comes to groups and I cannot say for certain if I was at the tournament that I wouldn't have gone out due to being with others, cost of attending, etc.  In many outdoor sports, safe decision making often gets worse when there are group dynamics involved.  I honestly have no idea the circumstances of this particular event, but I believe thinking about how we would make decisions under the same circumstances is always a good mental exercise.   

Glad everyone made it home safe because that is the true goal of the day.

Chris

One piece of equipment that we should add is an anchor or kelp clip. Willbd could have peddled to shallower water anchored and rested and waited for the tide to change and ride the waves to DB. I made the comment to Rawkfish and the two guys fishing with him that if I needed to call the Coast Guard that could you please drowned me, because I'm a retired/disabled CG vet. Our motto is always ready. Did Wilbd get the name of the BM of the boat that got him. I want to ask Him/Her why they were not at the base before the 47 footer went out on the tow, never while I was at Umqua River SBS did we ever not have a boat crew at ready unless all boats were out working.

I do agree that we need to have a way to plan our trips and use our equipment better. Also knowing our own abilities better could help us stay out of trouble. I would like to help with the navigation training.

Good job to all except the CG. Willdb thanks for keeping a cool head I've had to deal with people in less trouble that were hard to communicate with.

Stephen Ret. CG QM3

I think I saw an episode of Man vs Wild like this. Bear Grylls was dropped 10 miles offshore by helicopter in the ocean without any form of navigation. He only had a Swiss army knife, a bag of Cheetos and some dental floss.

His first task was to find a piece of driftwood and whittle himself a kayak with a propulsion system which he did within about an hour (I thought it was funny though how the drift wood had a Hobie sticker on it after he was done whittling). After a few more minutes adrift the courageous adventurer spotted a seabird. Recognizing it was a reticulated northern blue footed booby and because it was May it could only mean that the bird would be flying on a bearing of approximately 35 degrees on its way to its summer feeding grounds in a wildlife preserve near Des Moines Iowa, bear decided to give pursuit.  Unfortunately he could only stay with the bird for half an hour or so before the the head winds became too strong to follow. Luckily the bird was having a hard time too so when it flew down to take a rest Bear quickly caught up to it and humanely bit off his head.

Because it had been almost two hours since Bear had eaten with his crew at the IHOP "all you can eat breakfast buffet" he was concerned about loss of energy so he eat the bird and then used its feathers and the dental floss to fashion a ford fender like trolling device that the natives had used for millennia. He whittled a bone from the bird into a hook and used a Cheetos as bait. It was not long before he had a small greenling at the boat but he had to feed the crew too so he sent it back down to see if he could pick up something bigger. It wasn't long before he had a peacock bass but realizing that would only feed them for an afternoon he sent the bass and greenling back down and wouldn't you know it he picked up a salmon. Realizing it was too big to get into the boat safely he used the birds beak as a fish grabber. So not only did they have enough for lunch but Bear was able to sit some of the meat out on top of the reflective Cheetos bag to make jerky.

Now fed he knew he had to navigate towards land and ultimately salvation. If he just followed the sun as it would be at a bearing of approximately 115 degrees at 11:30 he would be within eyesight of land within a few hours. He just had to adjust his course every hour to account for the suns angle of repose schedule. But what was to be his salvation was also his tormentor.
He was starting to look like he had rubbed the Cheetos all over his face and arms but No it was the dreaded sunburns calling card. So to keep the suns deadly rays from cooking him alive he wrapped himself in sea weed.

All was good again and he was peddling towards shore when he thought he could hear a familiar sound? Well just as he realized what it was and started to turn around he was nearly run over by a fishing boat called the Kadaho. It seems the captain had mistaken him for some kind of hybrid Sasquatch/mermaid and figured there might be a bounty to bring it in. Upon seeing Bear strip off all the seaweed and thinking it was just a kayak fisherman the Kadaho captain decided to just drive by him real fast creating as big a wake as he could manage and use it as a diversion to make a getaway.

In the run in with the boat Bears propulsion system had been broken. Luckily for bear he soon drifted upon a herd of harmless jelly fish. He was able to use there tentacles and some of the salmon bones to sew the jellyfish together and make a sail to catch those strong winds. So he sailed to shore, and with the video from his trip as proof placed second to a man named Michael in a local fishing competition.

Luckily all ended well for Bear. Glad the same happened for all involved with ORC. And yea I know I had too much free time on mu hands today.

Can anyone tell me what major city Bear would have more than likely ended up in given the boobies trajectory and final destination?