Cape Fear River 2.62 Ft/1500 CFS
| River: | Cape Fear |
| Skill: | Intermediate |
| Trip Date: | 06/27/2020 |
David Freeman, Bryce Linacre, and myself paddled the popular section of Wildlife Rd(Lillington) to Erwin on the Cape Fear River. We were the only whitewater paddlers out there amongst probably 50 to 60 recreational kayaks and canoes that we ended up intermingled with during the entire stretch, 35 or so were from one group and the rest from Cape Fear River Adventures rentals. Right away as we were putting in we could tell the large group had some very experienced paddlers and some that were first time on the water as one almost flipped near the boat ramp and shortly after was getting towed. I was paddling my river runner and pulling a Big EZ to play on the little rapids with and ended up giving them my homeaide tow bar(a piece of pvc pipe with carabiners on either end) which I was using to tow the Big EZ on flatwater portions so they could tow her a little bit easier. After taking a break at the Lunch Break Island we heading torwards Stewart's Falls where I fully expected to see some carnage from that group but instead as we approached I saw a guy sitting on a rock in the middle of the rapid as if he was performing safety for the rapid but as I went over the fall and passed him I realized he had actually pinned his kayak on the top of the rapid. After all three of us got to the bottom of the rapid we went back up to the rocks to help them get the kayak un pinned. The "un pin crew" ended up consisting of me on the rock with the kayak, David, Bryce, one of the group leaders from the 35 person group, and my buddy Andrew who was paddling along in his recreational canoe with a few others. The following is the sequence events for the kayak extraction.
I positioned myself on the rock with the pinned kayak and the rest went to the big rock. I secured the throw rope to the kayak on the stern and up around the seat area from the inside to try and get 2 good contact points as his was a recreational kayak and not really any good spots. David found the best suitable crack in the rocks to use a rock climbing wallnut/stopper for an anchor point and at first just hook up one pulley and tried to move it with no luck as the stopper kept coming loose. After getting the anchor in better he used a prusik for a 2 pulley system but his prusik was wrong size and kept slipping from the rope. As I sat there waiting to see if they would get any movement out of the pinned kayak I watch the water go into the cockpit at full force and starting thinking of what I could do to slow it down. My first thought was something flat like plexiglass or would but we obviously had none of that, the possibly using float bag but did not think I could inflate it under that pressure, then getting my 6'6" giant of a buddy along with myself to wade in front of it and create an eddy but didn't look safe at that spot to do so I started thinking of what we had to use and I remembered we were towing the Big EZ so I had them send it over to me and I was able to stick it right down in front of the cockpit and it worked pretty good at creating the eddy but the rope team was still unable to move it.
After a couple attempts with it that way I decided to see if I could get the Big EZ down sideways in front of it to delect all the water around the kayak but as it was about 60 percent in the water it did what its meant to do and squirted right out and ran the rapid without me in it which its another story but I have a nice history of kayaks running rapids without me. After the Big EZ left the sudden re surgence of water into the kayak bent it around the rock more and I decided to try something else and stepped down to the bow and lifted it and it started to move up and was able to eventually lift the bow over the rock and push it down into the rapid. The rope team pulled it up and it seemed to have survived no major damage, only some dents which we were able to pop out right there on the spot.
Lessons learned from this extraction:
Since the kayak wasn't ours we should have had a to the point conversation with the group leader about what could happen while trying to extract their kayak. He was there helping us but we never had an actual conversation about it prior.
We need better prusiks and cross talk about what we have. During the operation we used my throw rope and I had pursiks, pulleys, and carabiners with me and so did David but he had never tried his gear on my rope and that proved to be different combination that we had not practiced.
At all times I was near the pinned kayak even during them pulling so I put myself at risk if something snapped but at the time I didn't see any other safe options so I just protected my face and vital soft spots as best I could.
We had no upstream safety to warn off other boaters but we did have a good mile visibility upstream and were actually successful at waving off another group coming down. There was a couple boats at downstream safety for gear as we had not swimmers in the water but still good because one of us could have fell in.
After the kayak was loose and going down the rapid we let the group leader end up on the downstream side of the rope that was still attached to the kayak but that was not an issue here due to it being flatwater right after the rapid so after it went through there was no pressure on the rope but definetly something to watch in the future.
We had 2 people helping with ropes that were recreational boaters so they did not have helmets on which could be a concern but we had no other whitewater paddlers out there so we had no choice.
There are a couple more techniques that I have learned and/or remembered since then, mostly from the Facebook post that I could have used to get a better hold on the kayak that might have produced better results during the rope pull such as wrapping the boat with the rope or using the rope/webbing to create a sling over the bow and stern to get better grasp on it.
We have have both since bought a few more pieces of gear to add to our kits and are already looking at getting back out just to work on rope drills and interchanging the pieces of equipment back and forth to see whats compatable and whats not.
Overall the trip was a lot of fun and we got some good practice in on our skills plus me and Bryce got some good combat roll practice in on glassy wave so it turned out to be a great day on the water.
William
