I'll repeat two safety stories I've told before, but first I'd like to add to the good general principles already advocated.
Generally, I will avail myself of a safety measure even when danger is unlikely if that safety measure doesn't really "cost" me anything important. I'm not talking about financial cost. For example:
- Even when I'm paddling in safe and shallow water, I'll almost always use a life jacket because wearing one doesn't really bother me (except in very hot weather). I'm so used to it that I don't even notice it. Hence, no "cost."
- Similarly, I became so used to wearing a helmet for serious whitewater day canoeing that I would often wear one in easy whitewater. I even used to wear one in my vehicle occasionally on the principle that driving to and from the river was the most dangerous aspect of canoeing.
- I rarely need painter lines for any safety or performance reason, but I put them on my canoes because there's no "cost" to having them there. And I usually use them for my vehicle bow/stern tie downs.
Stories:
1. I was once floating along on class 0.5 riffles while sitting on top of the high back of my Perception Saddle, rather than kneeling on it, meaning my center of gravity was very high. I was relaxed, unconcerned, chatting with the boat next to me, and not paying much attention to the easy river. Then, a small sub-surface rock flipped my boat over. As I fell into the shallow water my hip bone hit a sharp rock and became seriously bone bruised. Painful for weeks. If my head had been hit that hard by that sharp rock, I could have died. I did have on my helmet.
2. "Always sit on a pedestal or saddle in whitewater so your legs can't get trapped under a seat or kneeling thwart." That's good advice, but I used to frequently ignore it in my kneeling-thwarted Millbrook ME.
One day, while demonstrating to trainees how to paddle upstream over the top of a big river rock in class 1 water, I again missed seeing a sub-surface rock on the upstream side of the big river rock. It flipped me upstream and the canoe began to fill with water. As the hull crumpled against my calves, I couldn't extricate my legs from under the kneeling thwart. I asked for help but the audience thought the "expert" was just kidding or still demonstrating. Just before my head sank beneath the water, I was able to rip the epoxied kneeling thwart completely off the hull and floated free. My then young, weight-trained body strength and the old, weakened epoxy allowed me to do that.
I vowed never again to paddle rapids other than on a saddle or pedestal, and had John Kazimierczyk replace the kneeling thwarts in that ME with foam pedestals and hip blocks. I've violated that vow only very rarely in the past 35 years. Having several canoes helps to pick one that is properly outfitted for the expected waters.
