Driving home I was re-thinking the BowRollRescue. At the end I concluded that the technique is not yet finished and could need some finetuning.
Not about the turning-technique: that's perfect.
To my opinion, there is one weak point in the technique. Better said: at the end of the technique.
I think that the victim, once turned up again, could be very, very instable and is very likely to capsize again because of 6 possible reasons:
- Having panicked or being unconscious, he/she will be not very aware from what´s up or what´s down.
- Being upside down, it can happen easily that he or she will have lost knee-contact in the cockpit partially or at the whole. Because of that the victum will hang in the cockpit; probably with the center of gravity far aside.
- I assume there will be waves around; let´s assume 3ft waves.
- It is likely that the victim, if he/she still has a paddle around, does not use it at first: So not being able to make low braces for stability.
- Having turned the victim up, the rescuer pushes himself up again using the bow of the victim. Because of this the bow will sink a bit, making the victim´s kayak less stable.
- The rescuer has at the end of the rescue only hold on the bow from the top: this is not an easy position for stabilizing a kayak.
Therefor I think this beautifull rescue-method needs some finetuning with introducing a last stage: "stabilizing the victim".
I think this last stage should start BEFORE the rescuer pushes himself up again.
Having his kayak edged very much in the last stage, he has good grip on the bow for stabilizing and the kayak is very manoeuvrable in this edged position. So, before pushing himself up, he should grap the perimeter-line of the victim´s kayak somewhere halfway the foredeck and pull the 2 kayaks together until they lay next to each other. The "pushing up" of the rescuer can be done while pulling or just after that.
Finally it will be easier to grap the perimeter-lines at two sides of the kayak and stabilizing the victim´s kayak.