PFD on a kayak- laws

[gim]

On 4/14/2022 at 11:01 AM, Choporoz said:

Never thought about that, but it seems unlikely where I fish.  However, I have gotten rather anxious

Post deleted.

[A-Jay]

Happened nearly every day somewhere ~

https://fb.watch/cvV611Vc_8/

A-Jay

[Darth-Baiter]

2 hours ago, gimruis said:

This happened to me once on a small lake where people could rent kayaks.  My wife and I were in the bass boat and from a distance I saw someone hanging on to an over turned kayak and waving an one hand.  They weren't yelling or anything, so I just ignored it.

 

We continued to fish for a while and then my wife said "Do you think that kayaker needs help?"  In my head I thought "if they needed help, they would be yelling and waving frantically."  Plus I could tell they had no PFD, which is a blatant disregard for MN state law here.  My wife persuaded me to motor over there anyways.  When we got closer, I could see it was a very large female and I was extremely worried about her overloading my boat.  When we got closer she said "oh thank you for coming over here."  I asked her where her PFD was and she just stared right back at me in amazement.

 

I told her to grab the gunnel of the boat and I would use the bow mount to bring her back to the dock by the rental house, which I did.  Then she asked if I could bring her kayak back too, and I respectfully said "No, that's your responsibility.  Next time wear your PFD."

 

That was the end of that.  I don't think she was in any serious danger of drowning and it was July, so the water was very warm.  I just don't have a lot of empathy for someone who takes that kind of risk and isn't obeying the law either.  As we started fishing again, my wife started scolding me about my attitude towards someone who is in need of help.  That conversation didn't last very long.

People do dumb things all the time. The trick is to learn from them. I would have moved heaven and earth to help that lady.  What’s your boats capacity where a big woman would push you over the edge?

 

”that conversation didn’t last very long”.  Ouch. 

[NYWayfarer]

On 4/12/2022 at 9:08 AM, dgkasper58 said:

State laws around me do not require me to wear a PFD while kayaking and am debating if I need to wear one 100% of the time or not. *in any situations where I feel uncomfortable or ina dangerous situation I would wear one no doubt.

If you would wear one no doubt in a dangerous situation I would like to throw out there that entering a floating plastic bathtub and paddling around in it is a dangerous situation.

 

Wear a PFD while kayaking, always.

[dickenscpa]

I've said it 1000 times and maybe 980 times on this site -  I'm a really, really good swimmer. But when I swim I get into the water on MY terms. When I'm in a vessel, there's about a 100% chance if I leave that boat or kayak it's not on my terms. If I hit my head and get knocked out I want to float and at least have a chance.

 

A month before I got into kayaking in Sept 2019 I bought an autoinflate and decided to start wearing a pfd on my boat full time. I was wearing it on the kayak when I started kayaking. When Hook1 went out of business their stuff hit 75% off. Those brand new NRS pfds were 75% off. I bought all four of us brand new top-o-the-line NRS vests for pennies.

 

On a whim I went out to the pool and just rolled over the side and went limp in my auto vest. It didn't inflate. The NRS brought me back up and face up. I decided to go with the NRS all the time. At first it was more bulky and kinda bothered me but now I've gotten used to the capacity of those pockets and feel awkward in the auto inflate.

 

I don't want to be "that guy" and start an auto vest argument but I do feel a bit more secure with a sure thing. I did buy a four pack of CO2 refills for the auto and burned two of them testing and both the refills inflated and worked flawlessly. I'm not so sure I could swim to safety with it on though.