Teens missing on Kayak trip

[John Bell]

Prayers for all involved...
And let's be careful out there!

Georgia teens missing on Fla. kayak trip

Associated Press
Published on: 02/28/05

SUWANNEE, Fla. — Rescuers searched for two teenage Georgia boys after they became separated from their school group during a kayaking trip off the northern Florida peninsula, authorities said.

Coast Guard crews, wildlife officers and police were expected to continue searching Monday for Shawn Wilkinson and Clay McKinney, both 14, of Rome. They were last seen Saturday in a green kayak in an area about 100 miles northwest of Tampa, and they were thought to be wearing blue life jackets.
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The boys have not been seen since they set out with eight other people who traveled to Dixie County from Darlington High School, a private school in Rome, for a kayaking and camping trip.

The group had headed north in the Gulf of Mexico and intended to skirt the coastline for 4 1/2 miles until arriving at Coon Island, where they planned to spend Saturday night, said Capt. John Burton of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. The group, which included several kayaks and canoes, was led by a motorized catamaran raft.

During the trip, the choppiness of the water and the inexperience of the kayakers led some boats to get separated from the group, Burton said.

As the catamaran neared Coon Island, a chaperone on board began circling back to try to round up some of the lagging boats. But the boat's motor quit as it began to get dark.

All but one of the kayaks tied up to the raft, as 2 to 3 foot waves developed in the gulf amid scattered rains and high winds, Burton said.

About 9 p.m. Saturday, one of the chaperones, with a teenager, began searching for the missing kayak because they thought they saw a light in the distance.

But they became lost as well, and the two paddled for three to four hours until the chaperone was finally able to use his cell phone. He called his wife in Georgia, who then called the Coast Guard.

A Coast Guard helicopter located the six kayakers tied up to the raft at about 3 a.m. Sunday and a rescue boat brought them to shore. About an hour later, the helicopter located and hoisted the kayak with the chaperone and teenager aboard.

Included in the search Sunday for the missing kayak were Coast Guard boats, helicopters and airplanes, and several airboats from the wildlife commission.

"The weather, that has hampered some of our search efforts," Burton said. "We're doing everything we can."

On Sunday, the rescued children huddled in a circle at Suwannee Baptist Church, eating food brought by local residents.

"Overall they're tired and worn out, but they're holding up good," church pastor Fred Edwards said. "They're in that state where they're full of hope and scared to death, too."

[cs]

Thoughts and prayers for their safe return.

Chad

[P.I. Stazzer-Newt]

Ditto.
Shades of Lyme Bay. Doesn't pay to jump to conclusions.

[George Roberts]

4.5 miles is less than 2 hours in a kayak or canoe.

Around here it is well past dark at 9pm.

"separated from the group."

An example in incompetence.

[John Bell]

Latest report is that the Coast Guard recovered their bodies about 8 miles offshore. Their overturned kayak was found about three miles away.
:(

Prayers for their families, friends, and teachers.

Years ago when I was an active whitewater kayaking instructor we'd study these incidents to examine the root causes. Then we'd incorporate what we'd learned into our lessons. Hopefully someone will evaluate and publish what went wrong here so that some good could come of this tragedy.

I think it's pretty certain that this was a case of not understanding the conditions and underestimating the ability of the group to cope with them. There may also be some training issues as well.

[uncas]

It is still hard to believe...I canoed through Quebec...without raods etc...for a month...All of us were careful and everyone kept an eye on eachother...
Guess I don't understand.
Training....Those in charge should have had more obviously...
Everglades....not like the Quebec outback....Calm waters etc...

[Ian McColgin]

They were out in the Gulf in boisterous conditions. Those that rafted up did well. It appears that the group was overly dependent on the motor boat to round up strays and that things really snowballed when it lost power.

It is amazingly easy to get too seperated to really help each other. I sometimes think that training in formation paddeling would go a long ways.

Very sad.

[ssor]

This is terribly sad. It was so avoidable with some careful planning. Allowing the children to get so separated and not keeping track of everyone and appearantly no contingency plans. There has been no information concerning the number of adults in the group or their experience.
The best we can do is learn from this so that another group will not suffer from this type of inadequate planning.

[Jack Heinlen]

I don't know much about sea kayaking. Would it make more sense to have an adult who is a strong paddler batting cleanup rather than a motorized raft out front?

Sad story. :(

[Alan D. Hyde]

Improper supervision of inexperienced people who probably shouldn't have been where they were.

What were the parents thinking?

A tragic price to pay for a stunning lack of prudent conduct by the parents involved.

Alan

Every man who sails the sea must care for himself, for the sea in her horrible beauty cares for no man, but only for the fickle ways of her waters.

[ 02-28-2005, 05:44 PM: Message edited by: Alan D. Hyde ]

[P.I. Stazzer-Newt]

Alan has given as good a summary of this tragedy as we are likely to hear, this side of the accident inquiry report.
A group of mixed ability beginners in kayaks is a horrible thing. The variation in paddling performance and complete lack of understanding of the hazards can spread a group over a horrendously large area in a very short space of time.

Why does anybody take a group of newbies out on open water?

In the Lyme bay tragedy referred to earlier this was compounded by inept instructors - who allowed beginners to go to sea without spraydecks because "some of the kids were nervous of becoming trapped by the decks" - a disaster waiting to happen.

[Mike Vogdes]

This is truely heart breaking, prayers for the families. Three foot seas in a kayak or canoe is definetly not for the beginner, as a matter of fact the whole trip sounds a little much for an inexperienced group, what where they thinking? Another bothersome point is the blue PFD's, definetly the wrong color for a beginner....

[ion barnes]

I am just angry! I think it must be human nature to diss the guidance that is offered to us. Is it cool? I was talking to a kayaker who obviously had not enough of the right gear onboard and tried to comment on his lack of preparedness. He shot back that he was a cancer survivor and knew what it was like to be at death's door. I was taken back and just walked away. But I was mad too because he would be one of those to call for help as long as he was alive.

Kayaking is going to get a bad name before there are more restrictions or proof of compency required, and there will be a big cry about that. Too many people think that this is the cheapest, quickest, closest way to experience nature, but its also the nearest way to death to for the raw novice who undertakes an afternoon paddle and ends up an overnight casualty.

I dont know what else to say.

[uncas]

ion...can understand your anger...But, this too shall pass and those who think about the incident will realize that this one incident caused by negligence etc. is not going to give the sport a bad name...overall.
It happens in most sports...

[Bruce Hooke]

How terribly sad...

Having lead groups on outdoor trips I know how easily things can go wrong. Most of the time nothing happens. Occasionally things go horribly wrong. With a group, when things start to go wrong they go wrong much faster because you've got more people to deal with. Sadly, many adults who manage to get around in the outdoors appear to themsevles and others to know what they are doing, but when things start to go wrong they do not have the experience to know what to do or more likely because they did not have sufficient experience they got themselves into a situation where there was no good solution.

When I am leading a group my margin of safety goes WAY up, because I know that some of the people in the group may do what appears to me to be very dumb things. Even so, I've been "caught" a few times and learned from the experience that I needed to increase my safety margin.

- Bruce

[ion barnes]

I had some stats issued by your USCG, and that kayaks and canoes had a higher deathrate than PWCs by almost double! And the public wont connect? Even a rowboat, perhaps, is safer!

In this case I would say that it was the guidance that was at fault. Poor planing, no Plan B.

[uncas]

Perhaps the misconception is a small boat is a small boat...what can go wrong? Anyone can jump into a canoe and paddle...although I wouldn't try it...So small, so simple...as dangerous as a large boat without a lot of the lines etc.. they just don't look as though they could possibly be dangerous...
Weather...what weather...? Waves, what waves....?

[ 02-28-2005, 11:20 PM: Message edited by: uncas ]

[hikingchrs]

Every spring I see lots of new Kayaks on the water around here as soon as the ice breaks... no wet/dry suits there are many accidents waiting to happen very scary... This group metioned above had a couple of problems... they had no radio to contact the CG all they had was a cell phone that was useless untill the lost guide came within a cell... to indanger yourself is one thing to bring a bunch of children into the open sea is criminal. The kayak club that I am a member of allways pairs people up like a buddy system most experanced paddlers get buddied with least exp. middle exp people get buddied up toghether... always have a couple of strong paddlers at the back to act as sweeps... I have been paddling for over 10 years never had near death exp except when I was driving to the boat launch smile.gif
Chris

[uncas]

hikimgchrs...
What you outline is the way it should be but I am afraid to say, rarely so...

[Tristan]

We had some hellish wind and rain over the weekend down here in Naples. I imagine that same storm system blew through the Fla. panhandle a bit earlier. I just feel sick when I think of those kids out in the Gulf in kayaks in that kind of weather. My own 14 year old son asked Sat. if we could take the outboard (15 foot Payson Diablo) out and I pointed out to him that the weather report was not good. On Sunday, as he was plug casting for bass in a nearby canal, with the wind blowing 20 to 30 mph, I nudged him and said, "Hey, let's take the boat out." He just grinned. Even if we had stupidly decided to go out, we would have felt the force of the wind and turned back long before we reached Wiggins' pass where the surf must have been really breaking across the bar. Jeeze, didn't the leaders of this expedition notice the wind when they left the mouth of the Suwannee?

[George Roberts]

Most groups I have seen show the same lack of ability and lack of concerns for safety.

Most of the time they get lucky.

[htom]

:(

The Sea doesn't know, it just rolls on. Those in charge, hopefully, will take the lesson that better preparation might save future lives. A raft is not a chase boat, and they needed both, in addition to plans and practice for separations from the group.

[km gresham]

:( Too sad - and unnecessary. Deaths that can be prevented with minimal effort and preparation are doubly tragic. The "we should haves" will haunt the survivors.

[cs]

This is to sad. It was on the morning news here. A tragic loss of life.

Chad

[dmede]

I love how you guys all seem to instinctivly know what happened out there and who or what is to blame.

You weren't there and you don't know the people involved. By the way "knowing" a person takes more than reading someone elses 5 paragraph news report on the incedent. Slow down with your "they should haves". Not a single one of you knows with any certainty what would have happened if you had been out there instead.

[ 03-01-2005, 01:39 PM: Message edited by: dmede ]

[Todd Bradshaw]

George is right. You can go to any of the popular kayak launch areas on the Great Lakes on any summer Saturday morning and see a group or two loading up their boats and preparing to go island hopping with absolutely no training at all. For many of them, the first time they've ever been in a kayak is when they launch. They'll be church groups, scout groups, school groups or college rec program groups with a couple of "guides" and a fleet of boats hired from some local outfitter. They load the boats, spend about 20 minutes paddling around the harbor, running into the breakwaters and fifteen minutes later they're out over 600 feet of 55 degree water, half a mile from shore and wearing a sweatshirt.

In pursuit of trying to make a living in a tough business, the outfitters have made the sport very accessable and most parents don't have a clue that little Billy's trip has the potential to kill him. These groups have no boats at home to train in and the schedule they set up for the trip has no training time alloted for. They arrive Friday night and have a reservation for Saturday night on a campsite three miles out in the lake. If they don't get there, it screws-up the entire trip schedule, so if needed they'll often push their luck and head out in any weather that isn't obviously deadly. As George said, most of the time they get lucky, but in far too many cases, luck is the only thing that they have going for them. Sometimes they're not going to get lucky.

We paddle mostly out of Little Sand Bay on Lake Superior. I've seen a lot of groups heading out over the years. I can remember many that struck me as foolishly under-prepared and only a couple where I remember thinking that they had their act together. I'm not sure what the answer is, but these types of incidents aren't likely to stop any time soon.

[ 03-01-2005, 02:25 PM: Message edited by: Todd Bradshaw ]

[alteran]

They were not in a kayak it was an open canoe. 58 degree water, 3 to 5 foot waves and rain. Wearing T shirts and shorts. Doesn't sound like they had much of a chance.

http://www.stpetetimes.com/2005/03/01/Tampabay/Trip_paddled_into_dan.shtml

[George Roberts]

dmede ---

In paddling with beginners on open water the following should be true:

Two boats with the most experienced people paddle off the back and watch. Everyone else stays ahead and within whistle/sight distance.

Being safe is not hard. It is also not a lot of "fun."

[Steve Paskey]

dmede wrote:
Slow down with your "they should haves". Not a single one of you knows with any certainty what would have happened if you had been out there instead.
Sorry, but it's clear that they shouldn't have been out there at all.

Here's what they were paddling:

http://www.stpetetimes.com/2005/03/01/images/large/A_6_6acanoe__0301.jpg

And here's the weather conditions BEFORE they left:

Early Saturday morning, the National Weather Service had broadcast an alert for small craft to exercise caution in the waters around the Suwannee. The winds, the alert said, would be blowing from the northeast and creating 2- to 4-foot seas.

Incidentally, there were two more of those canoes on the water.

That's all I need to know. The trip should have been cancelled, period.

According to a press release issued by the school, Steve Hall, the 48-year-old English teacher who led the trip, is a "licensed outdoor tour guide" (licensed by who and for what?) with 25 years of experience in "outdoor education."

Either he listened to the weather service broadcast, or he didn't. (As of yet, no one's saying publicly.) Either way, he was grossly negligent.

[ 03-01-2005, 07:13 PM: Message edited by: Steve Paskey ]

[Mike Vogdes]

Very sad.

[dmede]

I don't think I'm defending these people as much as I am cautioning against the quick judgement of many posts here.

I like people to offer up something similar to what you just did Steve, before making comments on the situation.

[John Bell]

If the photo above is representative of the boats they were using, it's easy to understand what happened. Canoes like that don't go _over_ big waves, they go _through_ them. A skilled paddler can keep a canoe dry in big waves by quartering them, but it would be difficult to do for a long time. Exhuastion, darkness, fear, and cold will conspire against you, causing you to make a mistake. Once you get the boat swamped in a big wave, it's very difficult, if not impossible, to bail and reboard in open water. Cold water and darkness only makes it worse.

I agree and disagree with dmede in that we don't know exactly what went wrong. I don't think it's too hard to see that someone made a bad decision to press on regardless of the weather. There were other mistakes that made it worse that we don't know the details of, but the fact that they either ignored the forecast or misunderstood the implications of the forecast remains clear. There's a big difference between paddling a canoe around the local reservior and being out on the big ocean. What they might get away with on the Coosa River will kill them on the Gulf of Mexico.

[ssor]

The most interesting places from a paddlers point of view are in those thin pieces of water around the edges. Why any outdoor life teacher would take a group off shore is beyond my comprehension. Much more can be learned in two feet of esterine water,in on afternoon, than can be learned in twenty feet of water a mile off shore in a month, except that it may not be the place to be if you are cold and inexperienced. That can be learned in about ten minutes!

[ion barnes]

I am of the mind that the group did not follow a plan of safety first. If the weather is changing, wait! And to use an open boat in open water (unsheltered) is foolhardy, but to take out novices to boot is real stupid. I can oly imagine that there was pressure to get the tour done, which is the basis for alot of accidents. I can not count the number of times I have pressed myself to go when I should have stayed. Only scared myself a couple of times, and that contributes to the next time, ie. a cascade of events.

Reminds me of the phrase, 'There are old pilots and bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots'

[Bruce Hooke]

Originally posted by ssor:
The most interesting places from a paddlers point of view are in those thin pieces of water around the edges. Why any outdoor life teacher would take a group off shore is beyond my comprehension. Much more can be learned in two feet of esterine water,in on afternoon, than can be learned in twenty feet of water a mile off shore in a month, except that it may not be the place to be if you are cold and inexperienced. That can be learned in about ten minutes!Given that they were on the ocean when there was a sea running, and off a coast where I believe the water is relatively shallow fairly far out, they may well have been well out from shore just to stay clear of the breakers and the steep waves that preceed breakers. Or they might have been trying to cross from one place to another. However, one could question why they were anywhere near open ocean to start with and maybe that's what you meant.

I have no idea of the following played any part in the tragedy, but one of the hardest circumstances to judge in canoeing is whether to set out downwind across a body of water. In the shelter of the land things can look just fine, and by the time you get out far enough to find out that things are not just fine it can be pretty near impossible to turn back and fight the wind and waves to get back to where you started.

[L.W. Baxter]

Required viewing before any canoe excursion on open water should be the footage of Bill Mason capsizing less than a hundred yards from shore and almost not making it back.

Impressive, sobering stuff.

--Lee

[John Bell]

What went wrong on canoeing expedition
Even with experienced guide, teens' canoeing excursion undone in unpredictable weather

By BRENDEN SAGER
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 03/02/05

SUWANNEE, Fla. — No weather radio. No way to communicate between boats. Not enough safety equipment.

All of that, Florida rescue officials said Tuesday, points to a lack of adequate preparation for a seven-day boating and camping trip in a remote wildlife area under uncertain winter weather conditions.

The outing ended with the deaths of two North Georgia teens — members of a group of students and adults from the Darlington School in Rome. The paddling and camping trip was an annual spring break vacation for students at the private school.

"Unfortunately, these people weren't prepared for the conditions," said Capt. John Burton of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission.

The bodies of Sean Wilkinson of Acworth and Clay McKemie of Rome were found floating in the Gulf of Mexico on Monday, still wearing their live vests.

Burton said no laws were broken, and investigators are treating their deaths as an accident.

The trip was led by Steve Hall, a Darlington English teacher who owns an outdoor adventure company and had conducted many such trips. Hall could not be reached for comment Tuesday. His wife, Chris, said he had not returned from Florida.

Billy Miller owns a Suwannee marina from which rescue operations were launched Sunday morning after officials learned the Darlington group was in trouble.

When the survivors were found, Miller said, rescue helicopters flew them in one and two at a time, paralyzed by cold and fear.

"They were all scared cold," he said. "A couple of the young ladies were on the border of hypothermia."

Miller said the area is growing more popular for such excursions. Yet, the churning water and uncertain weather conditions can make it unsafe for small watercraft, he said.

"I know I wouldn't venture out in a canoe, not even on a good day," Miller said. "In the 35 years I've been here, something like this has happened only two or three times — most of the time due to error of the individual."

Warning issued

At 4:30 a.m. Saturday, the National Weather Service issued an alert for small craft to exercise caution in the waters around the Suwannee River. The winds would be blowing from the northeast, whipping up 2- to 4-foot seas.

The Darlington group left in three kayaks, three canoes and a motorized catamaran Saturday afternoon.

It is not known whether they received the weather warning.

Around dusk, the canoe carrying the two 14-year-olds, the youngest students on the trip, became separated from the group.

As the leaders tried to use the catamaran to find them, the boat's engine died. Hall lit a propane lamp as a beacon, tied all the other boats to the catamaran and set out with another paddler to find the boys.

He became lost, but was eventually able to call his wife in Rome on his cellphone. She called the Coast Guard.

"They had an actual powerboat, but the engine failed," Burton said. "And conditions pulled them out to sea."

Hall and his fellow searcher were found early Sunday.

Late Monday morning, Sean and Clay's bodies were found in the Gulf more than 11 miles from where they had set out.

There is no explanation yet of exactly what happened to the boys.

Hall, an experienced guide, runs an outdoor adventure company called Orr-Treks and has led vacation trips for Darlington students for several years. He has been a professional guide on the Chattooga River in North Georgia.

Tannika King, director of media relations at Darlington, said Tuesday the school does not pay Hall for the trips. "He teaches here and the kids know him as their teacher," she said.

Austen Risolvato, a student at Darlington five years ago, said Tuesday she had gone on three trips with Hall as head guide and chaperone.

"He really connects to kids," said Risolvato, 21. "He was adamant about safety. He was always thorough on the way he would describe safety precautions. He had no tolerance for anyone who wasn't paying attention. He wanted to be sure we knew what to do, no matter what came up."

"I remember on the rafting trips, he was always in a kayak patrolling up and down the river, trying to keep everybody at the same speed, keep everybody together," said Georgia Tech graduate Charles Lumpkin, who graduated from Darlington in 1999.

Guides unregulated

There is no state regulation of outdoor guides in Georgia or Florida mandating minimum skills or experience. But there are standards.

The first is to be prepared for things to go wrong, said Gordon Black, director of safety education and instruction for the American Canoe Association, a national organization for paddlers of all types.

When crossing open water, Black said, everyone should be close enough to communicate with signals using the paddles.

Essential safety gear for such a trip includes flares, lights and a sounding device such as a whistle or small air horn. "When I say a sounding device and a light, that's for each paddler, not each boat," Black said.

The water temperature Sunday around Suwannee was 58 degrees, according to the Coast Guard. Such temperatures can lead to hypothermia quickly, exhaustion in less than two hours and death in six.

"I think I would have been recommending at least a wet suit," Black said. The boys who died were dressed in T-shirts and shorts.

There is risk in any outdoor adventure, Black said.

"You're there for the adventure, you're reveling in the adventure, so you reach for the adventure," he said. "The way to compensate for that is to have the right training and equipment."

Friends eager for trip

Samantha Farist, the spokeswoman for the Wilkinson family, said the funeral for Sean will be 11 a.m. Friday at the Wildwood Baptist Church in Acworth.

"Sean has seven or eight cousins," she said Tuesday. "It was really sad to see them without Sean. He is about in the middle in age and was the center of the group emotionally as well. "

Farist said Sean had worked at school to save money for the trip. "He did other kids' laundry for $5 a load. He and Clay were excited to be paired up to go with each other on the trip since they are best friends."

Members of the McKemie family and families of other students on the trip could not be reached Tuesday.

[Tristan]

[/QUOTE]Given that they were on the ocean when there was a sea running, and off a coast where I believe the water is relatively shallow fairly far out, they may well have been well out from shore just to stay clear of the breakers and the steep waves that preceed breakers.

The breakers would have rolled them, but once they got out beyond the breakers I believe they were being blown away from the shore. We fish off the beach here in N. Naples, and have to be aware that a strong offshore wind will produce flat water inshore and a very unforgiving situation a little further out. I always worry about folks in canoes, kayaks, and powerboats in those conditions. It can be very disarming till you realize you're being blown offshore, the sea is picking up, your motor won't start (or you are exhausted from paddling), and there's no anchor.

[Bruce Hooke]

Tristan -- Yes, that's very close to the situation I described in the second part of my last post...

[Alan D. Hyde]

As a boy, I did a lot of canoeing, off the beach at Muskegon, thru the breakers (depending on the wind, up to four or five feet high) and out.

A swamped canoe (mine was a 17' Grumman heavyweight square-stern) is one awkward thing to deal with in the water: bulky, heavy, hard-to-bail (even using all the approved Boy Scout tricks). Surf only makes it much worse. It can be frightening, drifting downshore and out into the Lake pretty fast with a water-filled canoe.

In my case, I was lucky, and was never dealing with really cold water, and always managed to get back in and clear out enough water to paddle ashore, chastened but perhaps a little wiser.

It must have been a cold death for those boys.

God rest their souls.

Alan

[ 03-02-2005, 04:27 PM: Message edited by: Alan D. Hyde ]

[John Bell]

Turns out one of the boys was friends of several of the youth in our church. His funeral is just around the corner from here. One of the ladies in our choir is aquainted with one of the leaders of the trip. This was not fun to talk about this evening.