NYCkayaker NY Times Sat - Kayakers Rescued Near Waterfall in Harbor (some thoughts....)

[David Gottlieb]

Does anyone remember when they first started kayaking. If you took lessons
you were told to hang on to your paddle and your boat. Never let them go.
Never. Wait until someone comes by and helps rescue you. And perhaps in the
introductory speech, before taking kayakers out on a paddle, a brief
explanation of technique and safety was explained.

That is so easy to say, but for neophytes who have never been on the water,
holding on to a kayak and a paddle does not come easily, particularly in
waves and dark swirling water of the East River and currents that are
pushing you one way and the other. Fear takes over. The adrenaline builds.
And once capsized and in the water, the one-time verbal lessons on what to
do in case of a capsize have long been forgotten. A little water gets
swallowed, wake from a boat makes things confused, another wave crashes
against you. Confusion reigns. Then add the waterfall exhibit falling from a
scaffold attached high above to the Brooklyn Bridge and the fear of being
swept into the machinery below the river, and instinct - whether correct or
incorrect - to save one self takes over.

The neophyte will often abandon the kayak and paddle, thinking that swimming
is a better choice. In protected waters, the lessons learned are quick, and
practice rescues retrain the brain to take over the urge to let go and
instead you learn to hold on to that kayak and paddle. Practicing rescues in
open and rough water and congested waters are more difficult.

Yet this group of novice paddlers, without any experience or real training,
were led out into some potential dangerous waters. The waters around
Governor's island can be confusing and the currents around Red Hook and the
East River can be extremely rapid.

One can only estimate the confusion and fear that swept into the minds and
body of the two capsized paddlers, and it is easy to understand, that
without training and lessons, how simple it would be to let go of the
kayaks.

I am glad no one was seriously injured. But some questions need to be asked.
Were enough experienced paddlers on the trip? Although Eric Baard looked
back often was there someone taking up the rear of the group? Eric does not
have eyes on the back of his head, and there definitely needs to be more
eyes in the middle and rear of such a group of novice kayakers. Was the
group too spread out? Were visual and audible whistle commands rehearsed
before hand in order to help keep the group together as a pod. Were there
any demonstrations of assisted rescues and self rescue techniques before
hand, something that I don't think is done often before taking kayakers out
on an adventure? How did these two kayakers stray too far from the group
without being herded in?

Maybe it is asking too much of people, to put them out in potentially
hazardous waters they are not used to.

Yesterday I had a great time in the Hudson River, playing in rough waters
with swells and waves of four to five feet from trough to crest. These are
conditions that I would have been frightened of when I first started out
kayaking, but which I enjoyed yesterday because of the lessons I took from
friends and from Atlantic Kayak Tours. Without experience and actual
lessons, any verbal talk or demonstration on safety can prove to be
meaningless, once you are out of the boat, most of your body submerged in
unfamiliar waters. 

I can imagine how defenseless the two kayakers felt, how frightened they
were and how susceptible and close to death these kayakers may have thought
they were. They were hanging on for what they thought was dear life, and
until the police appeared they were not going to loosen their grip on the
barrier. I am sure they heard about, or read in the news, the possibility of
being forced under the river, then being shredded and torn apart by the
machinery and spit out as eel food.

I wish Eric much luck on his next outing and hope there are no more
incidents of this kind. Doubtless, being adjacent to an international art
spectacle, when this unfortunate capsize occurred, is just bad luck. But
that is what the paddlers wanted, to see and photograph the 'waterfalls" at
a safe distance. 

Perhaps next time they should charter a speed boat.....

(OK, I didn't really mean that last line, but I just couldn't resist....)

David Gottlieb



On 7/13/08 10:48 AM, "David Gottlieb" <peekamoose at optonline.net> wrote:

>  From the Saturday NY Times (July 12, 2008):
> 
> Erik Baard was 200 yards away from a smooth, placid day on the water.
> 
> The weather was warm, the water picturesque, and Mr. Baard and 26
> other kayakers were just about to finish their trip Friday on the
> Brooklyn waterfront, from Red Hook to Governors Island and finally on
> to Dumbo.
> 
> But then Mr. Baard heard a commotion and looked back, and suddenly,
> his uneventful trip had become a cautionary tale about what goes wrong
> when kayakers mix a little horseplay with a huge art exhibit along the
> East River.
> 
> Two of the kayakers, in one boat, capsized after straying too close to
> a waterfall erected by the Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson
> under the Brooklyn Bridge, the police said. The two, Bert Rosenblatt,
> 36, and Vladimir Spector, 37, were rescued by a police boat and taken
> to a hospital, and released shortly after with no injuries, the police
> said.
> 
> Mr. Baard said the men had been ³goofing around,² and got too close to
> the fall as they tried to take pictures.
> 
> The accident happened as Mr. Baard and two other experienced kayakers
> were leading a fund-raising paddle for the Long Island City Community
> Boathouse, a nonprofit organization of which Mr. Baard is a founder.
> Their charges were 24 members of the Young Men¹s/Women¹s Real Estate
> Association of New York, many of them intent on taking photographs of
> the four cascades of water that were installed last month along the
> vast sweep of New York Harbor.
> 
> Everything had gone off without a hitch. With the falls under police
> protection, the kayakers were warned to steer clear.
> 
> But when the group reached the waterfall that flows from a scaffold
> under the Brooklyn Bridge opposite Pier 17 in Manhattan, two minutes
> from the kayakers¹ dock, Mr. Baard looked back, as he does frequently
> on such trips, and saw two of the novice kayakers flailing in the
> water, their boat upside down.
> 
> At that point, what should have been a routine rescue turned into a
> spectacle that involved dozens of police officers, a swarm of
> reporters and baffled passers-by.
> 
> Before the group had taken off, everyone had been given instructions
> repeatedly about what to do should their kayak flip over or drift into
> trouble, said Mr. Baard, who as a freelance writer occasionally
> contributes articles to The New York Times.Rule 1, clutch your
> paddles, they were told. The men let them go. Rule 2, hold onto your
> kayak. Instead they let it drift away, and clung to the buoys and
> containment barriers that were meant to cordon off the waterfall, Mr.
> Baard said. If the men had followed their instructions, Mr. Baard
> said, they would have drifted to a calmer part of the river, where
> they easily could have gotten back into their kayak.
> 
> ³I don¹t know if they were afraid or what,² he said. ³One issue was
> that they didn¹t know us very well, so they didn¹t have an immediate
> trust of our judgment, which would have helped. But they didn¹t listen
> to what we asked them to do, and so at that point I tried to let the
> police take over.²
> 
> Paul J. Browne, the chief spokesman for the Police Department, said
> that after one of the police boats guarding the waterfall noticed the
> commotion, the waterfall was shut off and a 20-minute police rescue
> operation began.
> 
> When the officers arrived at the scene, they found Mr. Baard pleading
> with one of the men, who were both wearing life vests, to let go of
> the barrier, but to no avail. Eventually, the police ordered him to
> let go, and the man complied.
> 
> ³One of the kayakers was able to swim towards the launch,² Mr. Browne
> said, ³while the other was thrown a line and put it around himself,
> and he was pulled out of the water.²
> 
> Mr. Spector and Mr. Rosenblatt were taken to New York Downtown
> Hospital ³after having swallowed quite a bit of water,² Mr. Browne
> said, but were quickly released. Under other circumstances, the rescue
> may have been routine. But the sight of two men flailing under a
> waterfall under the Brooklyn Bridge left many onlookers baffled. Josh
> Brown, 29, a waiter at the River Cafe who witnessed the rescue, said
> he had seen people jump off the bridge before. This, he insisted, was
> more bizarre.
> 
> But Mr. Baard was unfazed.
> 
> ³In a harbor like New York, where everything is under watch, it gets
> inflated,² he said. ³But it was routine. The only damage is to our
> reputation and our pride.²
> 
> Kareem Fahim, Christine Hauser and Colin Moynihan contributed reporting.
> 
> 
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