alcoons Posted June 2, 2009 Share Posted June 2, 2009 We were walking around Pleasure Bay (on the causeway-Castle Island-South Boston) on Sunday afternoon. Winds were a constant 25 knots?? More? Whatever, they were strong. CRCK's truck was in the parking lot and we saw a group of kayaks (5 singles) in the distance apparently returning along the Causeway to the beach. We discussed how difficult the paddling would be with the wind. As we got closer we realized there was a tow with a situation we had not seen before. It was very controlled, and all paddlers seemed very safe. They were making reasonable headway given the conditions (read they were not in over their heads). The lead boat towed the second boat normally. However, another kayaker was rafted up on the starboard side of the towee and leaning on the towee's back deck. The towee was paddle reasonable strongly, normally to port, and by reaching across the raftee on startboard side. The towee did have the paddles extended a bit further to starboard. While this sounds unstable, they were very stable and making good headway. We conjectured on what was going on. Our best guess was that the raftee was stabilizing the towee by leaning on his stern. Any other ideas? I do want to repeat that while our first reaction was concern and without seeing this set-up, it does not sound stable, this group was clearly in control, seemed to know what they were doing, and was in no apparent danger. In fact, at least from my vantage point, they had solved some sort of problem effectively and were finishing their paddle successfully. So. Anyone know about the tow situation? Al Cetus Red/White Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jason Posted June 2, 2009 Share Posted June 2, 2009 We were walking around Pleasure Bay (on the causeway-Castle Island-South Boston) on Sunday afternoon. Winds were a constant 25 knots?? More? Whatever, they were strong. CRCK's truck was in the parking lot and we saw a group of kayaks (5 singles) in the distance apparently returning along the Causeway to the beach. We discussed how difficult the paddling would be with the wind. As we got closer we realized there was a tow with a situation we had not seen before. It was very controlled, and all paddlers seemed very safe. They were making reasonable headway given the conditions (read they were not in over their heads). The lead boat towed the second boat normally. However, another kayaker was rafted up on the starboard side of the towee and leaning on the towee's back deck. The towee was paddle reasonable strongly, normally to port, and by reaching across the raftee on startboard side. The towee did have the paddles extended a bit further to starboard. While this sounds unstable, they were very stable and making good headway. We conjectured on what was going on. Our best guess was that the raftee was stabilizing the towee by leaning on his stern. Any other ideas? I do want to repeat that while our first reaction was concern and without seeing this set-up, it does not sound stable, this group was clearly in control, seemed to know what they were doing, and was in no apparent danger. In fact, at least from my vantage point, they had solved some sort of problem effectively and were finishing their paddle successfully. So. Anyone know about the tow situation? Al Cetus Red/White Al, Your talking about a rafted tow. Rafted tows are standard kit and used for many reasons including sea sick paddler, dislocation etc. -Jason Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Allen Posted June 2, 2009 Share Posted June 2, 2009 Al- Except for the fact that the towee was paddling, this sounds like what one would do with seasick or injured paddler. One or more providing propulsion as tower(s), and someone interacting to calm, observe and or stabilize the debilitated paddler. Except in your description the towee was paddling, so I'm not sure. Also sounds like what a group of us did to KevinB when he was nice enough to tow the Mrs the last 100yrds to the putin (in fun). We all piled on G's boat in various connected contact tows such that Kevin was towing a raft of 6+ boats. Phil ps -Jason beat me too it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pintail Posted June 2, 2009 Share Posted June 2, 2009 Al, as Jason wrote, it sounds fairly straight-forward: the one in difficulties was most likely the kayaker rafted-up and leaning on what you call "the towee" (I don't think this is a real word?) (If that kayaker was even in difficulty? Perhaps it was purely a demonstration excercise?) It is a timely reminder that we should all practise our tows and rescues, isn't it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alcoons Posted June 2, 2009 Author Share Posted June 2, 2009 Thanks for the responses. I have done rafted tows before, but not by leaning on the rear deck. In one bad situation, we had a raftee on both sides (someone was so sick they could not maintain stability in a light sea). What surprised me was (as was noted in the responses above) that the towee was paddling so well, so strongly, even able to lean a bit across the raftee to get the right blade in the water. It did not make sense that the raftee needed to apply that much support. Ah, but perhaps, as said above, the raftee was in distress? Hard to believe that someone in real distress would be in such a strained position (twisted, leaning on the rear deck) but then I have never been sea-sick. Anyone remember if we had two raftees with the women on the sit-on-board that we double? trippled towed? to shore from near Thackers last summer? The women had trouble keeping the boat from flipping since it was an inappropriate boat for the load. I think the raftees were paddling backwards just to make us towers work harder? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Allen Posted June 2, 2009 Share Posted June 2, 2009 Al, as Jason wrote, it sounds fairly straight-forward: the one in difficulties was most likely the kayaker rafted-up and leaning on what you call "the towee" (I don't think this is a real word?) (If that kayaker was even in difficulty? Perhaps it was purely a demonstration excercise?) It is a timely reminder that we should all practise our tows and rescues, isn't it? OK Christopher, help me out here. What's the plural of "one who tows"?? Tower = tall structure, often columnar in nature. Phil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EEL Posted June 2, 2009 Share Posted June 2, 2009 Tower = tall structure, often columnar in nature. I don't know if this qualifies as a thesaurus entry, but .... http://qajaqunderground.com/2009/05/15/day...rsday-14052009/ Ed Lawson The devil made me do it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bob budd Posted June 2, 2009 Share Posted June 2, 2009 Perhaps instead someone wanted to see how difficult it would be to conduct such a contact tow over a distance in a strong headwind. Once it was determined that pointing the boat was making the maneuver too difficult they agreed to a tow to keep the raft moving in the right direction. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djlewis Posted June 2, 2009 Share Posted June 2, 2009 Go ahead and shoot me, Christopher, but the purpose language is to communicate, and towee, raftee, tower all communicate quite nicely in this context. Maybe some hyphens would help a bit -- hyphens give the ordinary, non-linguist leave to invent words, I believe, according to the official rules of the Universal Linguistic Police (ULP). Anyway, perhaps it was something like this... the raft-ee was tired and needed help against the wind. The tow-ee wanted to contribute by paddl-ing, to help to tow-er in a situation requiring lots of stam-ina and pow-er. If the raft-ee (tired paddl-er) were tow-ed directly by the tow-er, then the tow-ee could not ass-ist in the paddl-ing. Yes, they could have done an in-line tow with the original tow-er plus the tow-ee becoming a second tow-er, but that's more complex and has its own prob-lems. The few-er lines in the wat-er and the few-er hard clips-on, the bet-ter. In oth-er words, contact tow-ing is preferable to lin-ed tow-ing, if it works. Just a guess -- make any sense? Did anyone recognize the CRCK-ers so we might in-quire? --Dav-id. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin B (RPS Coach) Posted June 2, 2009 Share Posted June 2, 2009 We were walking around Pleasure Bay (on the causeway-Castle Island-South Boston) on Sunday afternoon. Winds were a constant 25 knots?? More? Whatever, they were strong. CRCK's truck was in the parking lot and we saw a group of kayaks (5 singles) in the distance apparently returning along the Causeway to the beach. We discussed how difficult the paddling would be with the wind. As we got closer we realized there was a tow with a situation we had not seen before. It was very controlled, and all paddlers seemed very safe. They were making reasonable headway given the conditions (read they were not in over their heads). The lead boat towed the second boat normally. However, another kayaker was rafted up on the starboard side of the towee and leaning on the towee's back deck. The towee was paddle reasonable strongly, normally to port, and by reaching across the raftee on startboard side. The towee did have the paddles extended a bit further to starboard. While this sounds unstable, they were very stable and making good headway. We conjectured on what was going on. Our best guess was that the raftee was stabilizing the towee by leaning on his stern. Any other ideas? I do want to repeat that while our first reaction was concern and without seeing this set-up, it does not sound stable, this group was clearly in control, seemed to know what they were doing, and was in no apparent danger. In fact, at least from my vantage point, they had solved some sort of problem effectively and were finishing their paddle successfully. So. Anyone know about the tow situation? Al Cetus Red/White Al, Just a thought, but you didn't mention the wind direction relative to the direction the paddlers were traveling. In any (rafted or not) tow it's standard to not leave the "towee" unattended. In this case, the "towee" could have been having directional control issues on top of exhaustion issues. Since the "victim" could still paddle, the person stabilizing positioned their boat in such a way as to minimize impeding the forward stroke. Having played with this type of thing before, it is pretty stable and although the stabilizer's boat gets in the way a little, it is still possible to make headway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
subaruguru Posted June 2, 2009 Share Posted June 2, 2009 a demonstration excercise?) Demonstration what? "Excercise"? My curiosity arroused, I tried Googling it: http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2359785/excercise_ball_idiot/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MPARSONS Posted June 2, 2009 Share Posted June 2, 2009 People with more experience than me have answered this well, but I'll just add that by having the person leaning over the back deck, the towee would only be reaching over the narrow part of the bow of his kayak, making it much easier to do than if they were cockpit to cockpit. That is how Kevin led the rescue of the two 12 year old kids in Salem Sound last summer. One towee who was still paddling with two kids leaning on the back deck. They were far enough back that the towee didn't have to reach much to plant his paddle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djlewis Posted June 2, 2009 Share Posted June 2, 2009 People with more experience than me have answered this well, but I'll just add that by having the person leaning over the back deck, the towee would only be reaching over the narrow part of the bow of his kayak, making it much easier to do than if they were cockpit to cockpit. That is how Kevin led the rescue of the two 12 year old kids in Salem Sound last summer. One towee who was still paddling with two kids leaning on the back deck. They were far enough back that the towee didn't have to reach much to plant his paddle. Ah, a case where the towee is part of the helping team, and the raftees are being helped. I think that may be what Al saw. In any case, this is a good scenario to keep in mind. We are so accustomed to towing the "victim" that we might miss this useful reversal when it makes sense. Actually, it's a bit like towing the rescuing boat away from rocks or surf, while the rescue proceeds. (And, sounds like nice work by Kevin.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alcoons Posted June 3, 2009 Author Share Posted June 3, 2009 People with more experience than me have answered this well, but I'll just add that by having the person leaning over the back deck, the towee would only be reaching over the narrow part of the bow of his kayak, making it much easier to do than if they were cockpit to cockpit. That is how Kevin led the rescue of the two 12 year old kids in Salem Sound last summer. One towee who was still paddling with two kids leaning on the back deck. They were far enough back that the towee didn't have to reach much to plant his paddle. Absolutely. The bow of the raftee was near the forward hatch of the towee. Al Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pintail Posted June 3, 2009 Share Posted June 3, 2009 Phil, <OK Christopher, help me out here. What's the plural of "one who tows"?? Tower = tall structure, often columnar in nature> The plural of "one who tows" would, of course, be "ones who tow". Despite what David says about the purpose of language...oh, never mind: my words fall on deaf ears. (Please don't complain when I accidentally add a zero to what you owe the taxman, will you, David?) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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