there has been a couple times we were over a 100 miles out and the boat starting taking on water in one of the hulls, cat. fitting came lose in ruff seas. the new guys would be freaking out the rest would keep fishing keeping an eye on it, the when we knew we had to go we would get underway and the water the water would get sucked out. had one of those guys call the coast guard once.
God bless Texas----------------------- Old 300 I will remain what i am until the day I die- A HUNTER......Sitting Bull Its not how you pick the booger.. but where you put it !! Roger V Hunter
So what’s the best thing to do once in that situation?
I figure both sit on the bottom of the canoe as close to the middle as possible.
Most people sit on the thwarts instead of on the bottom like you should.
Tough call. My conjecture would be mom was in the stern, strong offshore wind caught them and she couldn’t get the bow into the wind. In that situation she would need to turn herself 180 and paddle for all she was worth (stern first, into the wind, towards shore).
Another (poor) option would be to abandon the canoe and try to make it back to the beech. This would need to be executed quickly and without hesitation - tough to do with an 8 year old. Water temps were in the mid 40s, so this would need to be done very near shore.
One additional option would be to try to create a water anchor using anything available to keep the bow (or stern) into the wind and hope help comes quickly. A rope with a bailing bucket, etc. Problem being as they drifted further from shore the wave height would rapidly increase and quickly swamp your typical canoe - going to be steep faces and a very short period.
There are a lot of sandbars there. The waves start to get closer together and break on the bars. Probably about 17' deep, going up to about 5. Easy to see how she got overwhelmed.
It's downright embarrassing to see people making fun of the death of a child.
Come on James , really?
Yes it is. I am no fan of the Kennedy family. There was no worse of an example of a man than Ted Kennedy. Had I been Mary Jo Kopechnes father, I would killed that azzhole the day after her funeral. But, innocent victims, such as this little kid and the mother, get a pass in my book. It’s always good manners to not speak ill of the dead.
On the list of things to care about, how does this even deserve a mention?
Some cold hearted ,sorry people here on the campfire nowadays. I always thought the hunters campfire was a place to discuss just about anything. A mother and her 8 year old son perished in an avoidable, but tragic accident. No compassion for that?
I try not to read or post a whole lot in this sub forum, .
As I said, hopping in the canoe and going out without life vests is something I might have done. The soccer ball is only 20 feet from shore and the life jackets are back in the house. Paddles are at the boat. As I said I have been in conditions similar to that in the Quetico Park in Ontario. Waves nearly breaking over the canoe. Scary.
Of course that was a mistake for her to hop in the boat, we can see in hindsight.
So she is in the back and the kid is in the front. But, they don't get the ball at 20 feet, by the time they get to the ball they are at 50 yards, very strong offshore winds. At that point, she needed to forget the ball. She turns the canoe around and in a minute, they are 60 yards off shore.
This is her second mistake. At this point, she needed to realize they couldn't beat the wind. The Kennedys are are always swimming and I assume they were good swimmers. At age 7 I could swim like a minnow and probably could have outswimmed my mom. She needed to abandon the boat and start swimming to shore. Cold as hell but a woman and a kid could cover 60 yards in a matter of a few minutes. Cold as hell but they could have gotten to shore and gotten in to the house and warmed up. Bye Bye to the boat and the ball.
She screwed up but, easy to do the Monday Morning Quarterbacking. Very sad story.
My girlfriend still talks about the time we crossed that 2 mile long lake in the Quetico in 25 mph winds and one foot waves, one little slip and we could have been dead. Air temp 45 and water temp 50. Sad story about this gal and her child, they are together in heaven now.
Well, we know they were on a lee shore, might not have looked that bad from where they were. Prob'ly not their first time in the canoe either. Just a horrible accident is all, resulting from a lapse in judgement.
"...if the gentlemen of Virginia shall send us a dozen of their sons, we would take great care in their education, instruct them in all we know, and make men of them." Canasatego 1744
I had my arm around a stabilizer on a 42' fishing boat when it ripped out of the boat in a storm in Alaska. It went shooting across the deck and hit the other side. The other one came loose soon after. The Loran went out and we were bobbing around out there 80 miles off shore when they found us. Scared the living sheit out of me. No desire to die in the water. Feel bad for them.
_______________________________________________________ An 8 dollar driveway boy living in a T-111 shack
Body of Maeve Kennedy Townsend McKean discovered days after canoeing accident.
Authorities announced Monday that the body of Maeve Kennedy Townsend McKean was discovered in about 25 feet of water and recovered, authorities said.
McKean’s body was located about 2.5 miles south of her mother, former Maryland Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend’s house in Shady Side, Md., about a week after vanishing. The canoe was launched from the home, a Maryland Natural Resources Police news release said.
The recovery came after a days-long search that involved aviation and underwater imaging sonar technology. On Saturday, the US Coast Guard reported the search for survivors had gone from a rescue mission to a recovery mission, a family member reported.
Both McKean and her son were seen struggling to return to shore during a canoe trip near Herring Bay, Washington, D.C.’s FOX 5 reported.
The mother and son had gotten into the canoe to chase a ball that had gone into the water during a family gathering, McKean’s husband, David McKean, told The Washington Post.
“They just got farther out than they could handle and couldn’t get back in,” he told the newspaper.
The gathering was at the home of Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, 68, a daughter of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and his wife Ethel Kennedy who served as Maryland’s lieutenant governor from 1995 to 2003.
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