Boat pinned on the Cooper
Printed From: ProfessorPaddle.com
Category: General
Forum Name: Whitewater Forum
Forum Discription: Open Discussion Forum. Whitewater related subjects only
URL: http://www.professorpaddle.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=11086
Printed Date: 14 Jun 2024 at 10:34am
Topic: Boat pinned on the Cooper
Posted By: Eric
Subject: Boat pinned on the Cooper
Date Posted: 24 Jul 2011 at 12:14am
There is a large, red Pyranha Burn pinned underwater in Shark's Tooth rapid on the Cooper. It's pinned horizontally in the center left side of the river, below the upper left eddy. I gooned the move to catch this eddy and washed sideways against an upstream facing rock. The boat pinned solidly and I immediately had water over my head and pushing me back to the rear deck. I felt the boat flexing which motivated me to get out as fast as possible, which required a big ab crunch to get at the grab loop. Swimming shark's tooth - yuck - but I had a good line and didn't get too beat. After a few minutes, part of my throw rope washed out of the boat and was visible at the bottom of the run. This rope is not clipped in, so it could be loose if you encounter it. We tried for several hours to get this gear out, but had no luck.I know that there are plans afoot to head back in to take another shot at retrieving the gear. The pin spot is just upstream of where the rapid pinches down in the middle, and the pinned boat is tough to see from above, because it's fully underwater. It's pretty close to the main line as you run the drop. We think the cockpit is facing upstream. The end of the rope was briefly visible in the runout just below the shark's tooth rock, but disappeared from view after several attempts to grab it. ------------- Bellingham Whitewater |
Replies:
Posted By: JayB
Date Posted: 24 Jul 2011 at 12:50pm
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Thanks for posting the heads up, and best of luck to the guy in his efforts to get his boat out! If they can't get the boat out they should really do everything (without seriously endangering themselves) possible to locate the rope and extract it, even if they can't get the boat. Even cutting it as close to the boat as possible would be a dramatic improvement. I know I'm restating the obvious here but that rope is a severe hazard to everyone else who passes through this rapid, particularly because it won't be obvious or even evident to anyone who doesn't happen to check this boards. Having said that I'm sure everyone did everything that they could to get the rope/boat out that day and I can *totally* appreciate the fact that it was probably impossible to do more than they did at the time. Thanks again for posting this info, best of luck to your friend with the recovery efforts, a and please post an update on the recovery efforts when there's some news. ------------- -Jay |
Posted By: James
Date Posted: 24 Jul 2011 at 5:58pm
| Saw the boat and a few folks slide over the top of it. Good luck that thing looked like it was well wedged in there. Gonna need some low sept . flow to get that out of there if at all this year. |
Posted By: Eric
Date Posted: 24 Jul 2011 at 6:07pm
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------------- Bellingham Whitewater |
Posted By: JD_G
Date Posted: 24 Jul 2011 at 9:56pm
| On our third lap today Scott was able to attach a rope to it. We tried 2 different angles with a 3 to 1 system and had it moving. Thought we were going to get it until the grab loop broke. Didn't see the suspect rope today. |
Posted By: warlickone
Date Posted: 25 Jul 2011 at 5:09pm
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Durn, that's crazy a that a Burn grab loop broke with only a 3:1. Y'all must have been yarding on it pretty hard, eh?
Funny, I had been looking at that eddy thinking about grabbing it but didn't want to tangle with those rocks if I blew it...kinda glad I was a wuss and skipped the cool eddy move. I'm super glad you're ok. That's a really serious pin. Jim |
Posted By: jP
Date Posted: 26 Jul 2011 at 12:36pm
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No sh*t- I thought I glimpsed another post several days back about another pin in Shark's tooth prior to this one...
Definitely the junkiest rapid on the run, worthy of caution. The paddler's exit from the situation sounded grim. Glad he's ok. ------------- 🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋 |
Posted By: Dirk
Date Posted: 07 Aug 2011 at 10:31pm
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I am happy to report that we extracted my boat on Saturday (August 6), so Shark's Tooth is now free of debris - just in time for low water. Reports are that the rapid, and particularly that rock, has returned to its manky state. No more boat to boof over. Thanks to Ryan and Dufay for the support. Ryan live baited out to it with a rope belay from both sides of the river. He got a sling on the nose and a biner on the front attachment point. A 3-to-1 from river left pulled it off nicely. I've never seen a more busted boat, but with some float bags in it, it had a nice line through Wall of Voodoo. |
Posted By: Jimmy
Date Posted: 08 Aug 2011 at 10:05am
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Posted By: jP
Date Posted: 08 Aug 2011 at 10:26am
Damn that's a long time to leave one's plastic trash in the river 
At least its out now. Don't trash the river, lest the river trash ye... Good on you guys for extracting the offending tupperware. ------------- 🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋 |
Posted By: James
Date Posted: 08 Aug 2011 at 12:10pm
Posted By: James
Date Posted: 08 Aug 2011 at 12:53pm
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Posted By: JayB
Date Posted: 08 Aug 2011 at 1:58pm
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Nice job on the extraction, guys. Kudos.
------------- -Jay |
Posted By: Force
Date Posted: 08 Aug 2011 at 4:11pm
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Posted By: jP
Date Posted: 08 Aug 2011 at 7:19pm
Ya think? Seems about consistant if you ask me. What can I say? Apparently I made a rookie raft guide cry today, too. And apparently it doesn't take much with some of these folks. I call it tough love. 
Peeps are always bringing those dumb little bottled waters along. I try to convince people to at least drink half of the bottle before getting in the raft. I mean, I can gulp one down pretty quick and it won't even do sh*t to keep me hydrated. But half the time people won't even crack the seal on the damn things. Then after the trip I gotta be their person garbage man, soggy paper pulp in the bottom of the boat if it didn't find its way into the river. Wish I had liscense to be straight up nazi about it and refuse to take the sh*t. So they are being wasteful twice. They're wasting water and plastic. I guess they are wasting money too unless they stole it (doubtful). They don't want to drink any because they are afraid they'll have to pee. So then why bring the sh*t in my raft when it can't be clipped in like a nalgene or a clean kanteen or Wtf? Piss in the river for christ's sake. I know this thread is about the Cooper n all, so here's my token Cooper comment: the "Boost-A-Boof" is the sh*t, yo!! And yes, setting safety at Norm's is a great idea. For Sharky's, follow the water over the 'lil plop-didly drop on R. Right at the top. Boogie left there is a fine eddy there. Some peeps eddy out on R. Right, but I consider it out of the way. I pick my way down to the big boulder on the left, almost graze it w/ my bow, then charge left. Eddy out on the left if ya want before the final drop if ya want, or jus bomb on thru. Ok back to my limited edition soapbox about running livestock and dumb wasteful bottled water... some'a yall heard of the Pacific Gyre, right? Its that huge ass eddy out in the middle of the ocean where converging currents corral tons n tons of garbage. It is my job to draw links between this and that. Not just run a raft down the river. Nah, there is a big picture. So, let me bring this sh*t back full circle: dragging your boat unecessarily, seal launching unnecessarily, leaving plastic in these pristine canyons... not cool. So if you can't extract your mess, or can't avoid a mess, maybe you should consider the possibility that you do not belong in these magical places. Maybe you aren't ready to be there. Yeah sh*t happens, but people use that saying like a crutch, too. Just food for thought. Ask me sometime bout the gold dredger I rescued this season on the Wenatchee- fu*ker spilt all sorts of gasoline in the river. Never kicked down any beer afterward either. Got all cut up, poison oak too. (right at Phils Eddy, btw) And BTW I drink Arrogant Bastard Ale. CHEERS MUDDIPHUKAS!!!! ------------- 🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋 |
Posted By: jP
Date Posted: 08 Aug 2011 at 8:00pm
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And, Force- at least I go by the same name in this small online community as I do in this small whitewater community. I ain't hiding, bro. I'm honest like that.
You? You're another one if them "name: not given" folks. It's cool. But if you're callin me out maybe you should do it openly on an even playing field. If you're just joshin' make that clear too. Its cool. I can laugh with you if there's a laugh track to queue me up. Your comment? Could at least use an emoticon or some punctuation. When Ronin got all snotty w/ me and called me out about somethin I requested to know his identity and got radio silence. Pretty lame since I was pretty congenial and just wanted to patch things up. Thing is, I got a pretty good idea who he is since he introduced himself at a campfire one night- just can't remember cuz lots of peeps come up to me n introduce themselves, then when they wanna retort one of my admittedly opinionated comments, they hide behind an alias. Those who can't own their online interactions and transform it into something positive and tangible on the river when they see each other shouldn't stir the pot. So do me a favor when ya see me on the water, Force: love me or hate me just don't be indifferent. Thats boring. All I'm saying w/ this is: careful not to let all these 1's n 0's fragment your thinking too much. We got all these new modes to communicate but haven't mastered to old ones. Kinda like the way newbies pursue boating. Everyone wants to boof but so few can paddle in a straight line. Not suggesting that's your case at all, Force, so please don't misconstrue. ------------- 🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋🐋 |
Posted By: LisaF
Date Posted: 08 Aug 2011 at 8:55pm
| Hey, JP, nice to hear from you again. Where are you guiding these days? (BTW, it's Lisa, but I don't know how to change my screen name here!) |
Posted By: fiddleyak
Date Posted: 09 Aug 2011 at 7:54am
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JP, one lesson I've learned from the river that you seem to have missed is the importance of brevity. You give too much beta and the important point (like which direction you should be going to avoid the hazard) will be easily missed. 2nd As an outside observer, it appears Dirk acted pretty responsibly given the situation and how far he lives from the Cooper. You were a little out of line to call him out and give him a thumbs down. In response to your post you got a witty one-liner. I laughed pretty hard after figuring out the double meaning of that one, Leif! |
Posted By: Force
Date Posted: 09 Aug 2011 at 8:51am
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Leif aka force aka force_leif@ but not to be confused with the other Leif. |
Posted By: Ellingferd
Date Posted: 09 Aug 2011 at 9:31am
| Jesus Christ JP. He swam and his boat pinned, and they got it out when possible. Boaters were alerted via this website, and everyone is just fine. No criticism needed. If you want to start being critical of people swimming and the resulting usage and depositing of resources, perhaps we should look back to a little incident on the Sky a number of years ago. |
Posted By: Monk
Date Posted: 09 Aug 2011 at 9:36am
Posted By: justin
Date Posted: 09 Aug 2011 at 9:47am
Posted By: shrek
Date Posted: 09 Aug 2011 at 4:20pm
| JP. I love your unprovoked rants about nothing. |