PORT ANGELES — Mark Peloquin had one rule for the kayakers as they shoved out into Port Angeles Harbor.
“Smiling and laughing is mandatory,” said Peloquin, head judge and sponsor of Sunday’s inaugural Port Angeles Rescue Skills Championships at Hollywood Beach.
The rescue contest — part of the 11th annual Port Angeles Kayak Symposium — tested the paddlers’ ability to rescue themselves or another person from danger in a sea kayak.
Four competitors performed the rescues with volunteer mock victims who braved the 48-degree water.
Peloquin, of Blue Water Kayak Works of Vashon Island, awarded an electric kayak bilge pump to the two winners.
“I got the pump, by gosh,” said Pamela Powell of Graham, after winning the self-rescue event.
Assisted rescues
Hamp All of Seabeck won for the assisted rescues.
“That guy right there, next time I go paddling, I want him with me,” said Bill Walker of Oak Harbor, director of the Port Angeles Kayak Symposium.
Powell said she practiced self-rescue techniques for three weeks leading up to the event.
“It’s something that I have been pretty adamant about practicing anyway because I often paddle alone,” Powell said. “Paddling alone isn’t the most intelligent thing to do, but if you’re doing something that you know is not the best idea, you want to weigh the factors in your favor.”
Coming back mandatory
Powell used a mountaineering quote to convey her philosophy: “Going up is optional, coming back is mandatory.”
“Same thing for paddling,” she said.
“Going out is optional, coming back is mandatory.”
In self-rescue, competitors had to exit their kayak, get back in, pump water out of the bilge, reattach the spray deck and paddle 100 yards around a buoy.
Powell won the self rescue with a time of 3 minutes, 41 seconds. She was the only competitor who wasn’t assessed a five-minute penalty for having more than three quarts of water in her kayak when she finished.
Assisted rescues
Three assisted rescues — the “T” rescue, Hand of God rescue and towing — were combined into one score.
All said his favorite was the Hand of God, where an incapacitated “victim” gets stuck upside down in the cockpit.
“It’s probably most useful when you’re in a situation where you have a real victim in the water,” All said. “A bunch of us teach kayaking, and it’s really good practice for us.”
All gave his Bluewater kayak pump to his friend and runner-up, Bruce Monro, because he said the pump would not fit in his smaller surf kayaks.
The pump, which Peloquin invented, cuts the time it takes to pump a flooded kayak from about three minutes to one minute.
Peloquin said he was pleased with how the first-year event unfolded.
“Hopefully we’ll have more interest in subsequent years,” he said.
Peloquin said kayakers who learn rescue skills in a swimming pool usually find it more difficult in the open water.
“The point of it is you need to practice these things,” he said.
Chris Smith, a sea kayaking instructor from Gig Harbor, helped Peloquin judge the competition.
“People really had a varied technique,” Smith said. “Some of them worked much better than others.”
Mock victim
Mock victim Ryland All of Seabeck braved the 48-degree water for about two hours. She and the competitors wore drysuits.
“The God rescue was pretty exciting,” Ryland All said. “I did all four of those. When you flip over and you stay under the water the whole time the rescuer has to flip you over and you can’t do anything.
“It was pretty intense.”
In the “T” rescue, competitors lifted the victim’s boat on top of their own, forming a T shape, and drained the water while instructing the victim.
“People did it differently,” said Jennifer Peloquin of Blue Water Kayak Works.
Smith said he expects next year’s rescue competition to draw more kayakers.
“We wanted to get some ground rules and kind of start this year, but next year there will be 20, 30 people that want to do this,” Smith predicted.
3-day symposium
The rescue skills competition was held at the end of the three-day symposium.
“To me, it’s a great way to have fun building all these skills that people really need,” Walker said.
Walker said the classes and keynote speeches at the symposium were well-received, but the numbers were down this year because of the cool weather. The symposium drew an estimated 200 kayakers.
Attendees could test one of about 60 kayaks at the symposium for $5 or a donation to the Port Angeles Food Bank.
“I was here last year, and I’ll plan to come back next year,” said Powell, the self-rescue champion. “It’s pretty well run, and it’s small enough that you get to meet a lot of people again and again.
“You have a lot of really excellent sea kayakers, right in your area, who are unusually generous in sharing their knowledge and in mentoring people such as myself who are still learning a lot about sea kayaking.”
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
