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Boat Chase

3K views 17 replies 14 participants last post by  Don 
#1 ·
This is from last week. It is GoPro video of me chasing down a kayak on Bailey at the current water flows. The chase went down between 4 Falls and SuperMax. It's in real time. Sorry it's so long. You will notice that the swimmer caught out quickly. Not so much for the boat.

YouTube - ‪1080p.mov‬‏

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73uS1GsT4So
 
#2 ·
That was fun to watch...for a little while. I know you guys are good boaters, but that seemed like a pretty poor recovery effort. Several times in the video you guys are floating through an eddy looking at each other as the boat continued on past. I bet the swimmer had a long hike to catch back up.

How did you get it off the pin rock?

Glad everyone was ok.
 
#6 ·
Several times in the video you guys are floating through an eddy looking at each other as the boat continued on past.
I saw them in the eddy discussing the fact that SuperMax was coming up sometime and not exactly sure when. That's good communication. Screw the boat, when it is bank full and busy you need to stay focused on safety, like they did. All you can do is keep the empty boat in sight until it reaches the flats or gets pinned.

Don stayed on line the whole time through the class IV and didn't do anything crazy. When they were in that eddy, the water the empty boat was flowing in was way too fast to make any kind of retrieval in that spot. An attempt to bulldoze there would have been 100% futile and they knew it.

The second the boat reached flat water Don started bulldozing. The only thing I would have done different is that as soon as Don started bulldozing the orange boat should have hauled ass down the left bank, jumped out of the boat, and grabbed onto the empty boat as it went by. That was the best chance and it was missed. Also, orange boat dude was skinning it in surf trunks on a class IV/V run in Colorado.... minus 10 points.

1 bulldozer, 1 sprinter/catcher... that's how I like to do it when the creek is bank-to-bank full.

Thanks for posting, Don.
 
#4 ·
Chase

Yep, not the quickest recovery. It's been maybe 5 years since I've been in there and we really weren't too sure when Supermax was coming up. The biggest problem was the speed the fully loaded boat was going and the lack of eddies.

The boat pinned about 12ft off the bank. We set up an anchor, tethered swim out, pulled the boat, and did an assisted swim back to shore.

Back in and gone in 15 minutes later.

When we were going down after the boat, the most important thing is to be safe. If you look closely at the video, you'll see that Fred got too close to the boat once and this almost became a much more serious issue. When the boat hit the edge of a tree, bending its top back, and nearly taking off Fred's head.
 
#8 ·
Chase

The boat did have float bags, and that kept everything intact.

Ture, you were right about the boat speed. With the speed and weight factor, it was just safer to stay heads up and be patient. But, if it would have headed around the bend into SuperMax, it would have been going solo and we would have eddied out and discussed a different plan. There is one point were I eddy out on river left grabbed a root and tried to get the Burn to push the boat to me. He skimmed off of it and ended up on the wrong side. I'm not positive I would have been able to stop it even if I got a good grab on it. I would have just been able to hold it until the next boater was able to eddy out, run back up stream to me and dropped a line on it. Till then I would have been Stretch Armstronging it, until he got to me. Even that attempt was sketchy because 20 feet past the spot I stopped was a big strainer.

The good feeling I have looking back, is that we didn't rush in, we kept cool and waited, and everyone and everything made it home safely. Ever if one of the guys was a bit sweaty after his jog. It's all good and the cold beer he bought us later was tasty.

Be safe and in big water expect a bigger challenge all the way around. It's half the flow now and it's still a great run.
 
#10 ·
Nice surf in 2nd falls! Goes to show that there is some play in bailey after all.

Agree that its better to be conservative on the chase and not make another swimmer. Chasing boats can get you screwed in a heartbeat.

I agree with Ture... Having a boaters get ahead and jump out seems to be the best way to stop endless boat chases where you can never quite get the boat to stop. Most boat chases seem to end with the boat pinning or someone jumping out to grab it.

I pulled off a strech armstrong move once on clear creek. Bulldozed the boat to the shore, got downstream of it as it hung up on rocks briefly, but it kept going downstream, I grabbed a solid rock handhold and was able to grab the grab loop as the empty boat came by. Definitely a lot of force, even it slackwater, but the technique can work in the right circumstance, but its rare.
 
#12 ·
No poor judgment there as far as I'm concerned. I wouldn't risk myself for gear, esp. when there's a good trail out. A couple years ago we had 2 simultaneous swimmers at about the same water level in the last of the steeps rapids. I managed to get one boat, but two strong boaters couldn't get the second before Supermax. We found it hung up a little above Deer Creek.
 
#15 ·
Having a rescue vest really helps in those situations once the water slows down. Knowing when to hook on takes some practice. Those waterlogged rigs weigh and pull a lot harder than you think. I have had to quick release a couple of 'em over the years but all in all, its allowed me to get boats to shore in a quick manner. Yall be safe out there.
 
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