How to rescue a victim tangled with a buoy?

[edt]

"This HUGE cluster of ropes, leash and log have her encased like a spider in her waist harness. She was NEVER going to get cut out it nor was she getting pulled out."


hook knives didn't do anything they pawed at it for an hour with some hook knives. If you have ever been tangled in your lines like a tightly bound sausage and your leash is tangled in the mess (and in her case a thick nylon buoy rope too) you know just how feeble a weapon a hook knife sometimes is.

I sometimes think about these sorts of scenarios, what if someone is trapped on a buoy, what if there is a death looping kite, what if someone is caught up in their lines and the kite is still pulling.

Hard to say exactly what to do, first thing is you don't want to add another victim to the mess. Sometimes the best thing you can do is just go back to shore, call the sheriff and get help.

Thanks to the rescue crew, the sheriff and everyone involved in saving her life. Good job in a difficult situation.

[William Munney]

We often navigate by landmarks or markers like buoys and seem to have a tendency to ride up to them or near them (at least I have this tendency). I'm not talking about doing it as a daredevil stunt, just that it's natural to ride to and from something. Combine that with performing tricks/transitions at the end of a tack with an object downwind and you have the possibility of dropping your kite or lines over the buoy. Another case where distance is your friend.

[longwhitecloud]

scary shit - seen it twice, once in south of france in about 30 knots + i was liek what teh f##$% am i gonna do? dude was getting yanked so hard against buoy looking at me wanting me to save him.... dive in with a knife...? so risky getting near another kitre with out of control kite. They managed to get out of it after 10 mins or so..

[longwhitecloud]

Distance is your friend unless on a campaign for inclusion of kiteboarding in the olympics, then you simply deny it rather than address it

Interesting that a hook knife couldnt even cut them out i think is a good lesson - reality is better than denial - leads to better education. Needs a croc dundee "you call that a knife" moment lol

[BWD]

to actually address the question in the original post:

Rescue a kiter entangled with a buoy in current WITHOUT being attached to a kite yourself!
Unless you are very sure of yourself, and appraise the situation and your abilities exactly correctly, you could wind up in a bad situation yourself.

Was it bad wind or current that led to the first victim getting stuck on the buoy/lines?
The same could happen to you.

It was crucial imho to the recent rescue in the gorge that several people went for help right away.
Tough choices but you may find a scenario where you either must leave to call for 911 or coast guard assistance, or ditch your own gear and become a swimmer to make a rescue attempt, so you avoid making a bigger kitemare.

Maybe obvious, but I felt it worth saying anyway....

[longwhitecloud]

for sure, so many time i seen someone trying to help and things got a whole lot worse! i thought about ditching kite but couldnt let it go with kiter downwind and if on leash chance it does the old tangled mutli deathloop.

[tomatkins]

Here are some pictures of typical buoy set-ups, showing above the water and below the water, what you will be up against when attempting a rescue. The "can" and the "cap" design of all navigational buoys is meant to discourage boaters from tying up the the buoy or from climbing up onto the buoy... only the "mooring" type buoy has a design to allow a boat to tie-up to it.

Also, keep in mind that it is illegal under USA federal and state regulations to tie-up a boat to a navigational buoy or to climb on it, or do anything to the buoy that might damage it or reduce its channel marking or safety capacity.

The act of attempting to rescue a person who is pinned against or tangled with a buoy, where there exists an underlying current... has a lot, in common, with a "river rescue", which a kayaker or rafter would refer to as a "swift current" or "moving water" rescue of a victim who is tangled up in a hazard on a river. Examples of this would be a kayaker that is "broached" on a rock or piling, or who is caught in a "strainer" or is a victim of "foot entrapment". In all these cases, the standard means of rescue is to position the rescue personnel "upstream" of the victim, and to work from that position on a "belay", whereby the victim can be pulled "upstream", against the current, and pulled free from the hazard.

A technique that river-runners use, involves stretching a rope across the river and belaying a person out into the river and into a position upstream of the victim. The equivalent technique that could be conceived of, in an incident, such as the one described above would be to position a rescuer "on" the buoy, where the person could "drift" a rope downstream to the tangled victim, and pull the victim up to the buoy, where the lines could be unwrapped or cut. In such a situation, the safest "temporary" location for the victim would be "on" the buoy, itself.

This analogy might be a helpful starting point for a discussion on problems and solutions to the development of a successful method of rescuing a buoy-tangled kiter, without the use of a boat and rescue personnel.