7  Wet skills

Like the dry skills, the wetter skills can only be acquired with practice. It’s critical for safety that everyone can perform basic rescues, and we’ll begin covering these early in the course. We’ll let you know when we’re planning a wet session, so please come dressed for immersion (e.g. wetsuit/drysuit) . We’ll try and plan those sessions so that the time you’re wet and cold for is minimized. It helps a lot if people can bring some enthusiasm in return! Remember that the club has warm showers - bring shower gel, a towel and some dry clothes.

7.1 Brace

7.2 Self rescue

This video shows the general idea of a ‘scramble’ type self rescue:

This longer video goes into more detail and includes some exercises:

Getting onto the back deck can be challenging - the video below has some useful tips:

7.3 Assisted rescue

Whist slickly executed sea kayak rescues can look simple, there’s a lot of steps to follow. With practice, you’ll be able to execute a rescue quickly and effortlessly.

Here’s a list of the key steps as a reminder:

  1. Victim turns boat upright and moves to the bow of their boat, holds onto paddles

  2. Rescuer brings their bow to the victim and paddles forward to bring boats parallel

  3. Transfer victim to the rescuer’s boat, rescuer places paddle under decklines, moves boat square to each other

  4. Rescuer edges towards victim’s boat, slides it over deck, bringing it as far as the front hatch

  5. Rescuer turns the victim’s boat over - rolling towards them by holding the deck lines and keel

  6. Rescuer edges away from victim’s boat to empty, lifting if needed

  7. The rescuer slides the boat off their deck, bring the boats parallel to each other and facing in opposite directions

  8. The victim comes round to the cockpit, passes their paddle to the rescuer and re-enters the boat. There are several possible approaches - heel hook, bellyflop onto back deck as for the self rescue, or work along from the back of the boat (ladder)

If boat and paddler are separated, fetch the boat and bring it to the paddler (perhaps after emptying it). It’s much easier to move a boat than a swimmer. The victim keeps hold of their paddle and holds one blade high to make it easier for the rescuer to keep an eye on them.