The one option at you didn't mention is the method I've used/seen used the most. That is with the boat next to shore, flip it away from shore, but not by lifting from shore. Rather, flipping as if you're in deep water by standing on the boat and pulling it away from shore. If it's a really heavy boat having 4 people on top of the boat gives a lot of leverage and if that's not enough, people on shore can lift and help push it over. So basically a combination of methods you discussed here. Granted it requires people to 'swim' but if you were on the boat when it flipped it shouldn't be a big deal to get back into the water. Having willing volunteers means you have a good boating crew, and the only way to go on advanced rivers. It also requires conditions that are compatible i.e. deep enough water to plunge into safely and limited current, however you're holding onto a flip line when you re-flip it.
Here in much of Alaska... most of when I get the calls for raft recoveries; wood hazards tend to be 80% the mechanism of flips. Often it is caused by inexperience, overconfidence, indecision, inattentiveness, mental/physical fatigue, and lack of respect or understanding for power of water. When I do these recoveries solo or in tandem teamwork; the issue is lack of manpower, plus fly-out transportation for recovery is big time cost. Therefore, a premium is placed on creativity/ingenuity/strategy to be efficient, safe, and effective. My goal is to use the river's available energy as the downstream vector of force with objectives of controlling the boats angles (position) through vectored anchoring and applied traction placed on those anchors. I line up the sequence to eventually pull traction from 1 upstream point. Here your frame is your friend and not tugging on D-Rings. The mainline traction pull runs over the bottom of upside down raft...the raft is secured underwater at mid frame... raft slowly goes perpendicular to current and held steady... traction is pulled in on main winching line. What happens is as the downriver end gets lighter meanwhile the upstream side drafts deeper draws current and boat flips by simulating same mechanism as the accident flip. Basically you are artificially repeating/recreating the same forces in a controlled/calculated way that flipped the raft in the first place.
Great idea when manpower or river conditions don't allow a more leisurely re-flip! On our last Grand Canyon trip, all boats carried a piece of webbing (forgot the length, but we had fine-tuned and tested it beforehand) with a carabiner attached so everyone had an easily accessible flip-line. We had two flips, a 14' and a very heavy 18'. We either girth-hitched or binered each end of the webbing to opposite ends of the frame, got 4-5 folks on top and easily got both boats over the first try. So much easier and cleaner (and we all know Zach is all about "clean!") than traditional flip lines. It seemed that by all holding onto the same line, people were able to feel and instinctively adjust the force they were applying to complement the rest of the flippers rather than having 2 or more lines where it's harder to coordinate efforts. We ran across a group that was rigging a 3:1 to re-flip and boat and we politely helped with their plan, but we could have easily had their boat back up with our method much quicker.
two guys comfortably sitting down in a dry place talking about how to theoretically deal with a river emergency pretty much describes how river rats feel about dealing with a flipped rig
I'd be interested to see a photo of Aaron's re-flip set-up, with the laced line as he was describing. Sometimes there aren't enough folks around to re-flip a loaded raft and there are no available anchor points on land to set-up a z-drag for re-flip purposes. Therefore, one must remove most of the gear first before attempting to re-flip a raft. Zach, do you have any suggestions for safely and more easily getting heavy and bulky gear out from underneath a flipped raft?
First of all I wouldn't suggest using a z-rig for re-flipping since it's too complicated. A 2:1 system is more manageable. Next, having enough people with your to reflip is an important safety consideration. If you're going to have a big, heavy gear boat you'll want to have enough people with you to flip it back over in order to be safe. Finally, there is no safe, easy way to get gear untied from an upside down raft. Every time you remove that gear it's different depending on the current, boat size, how it's tied in, and how deep the water is. It's also a bit sketchy sometimes and not a technique you can always depend on.
I personally don't think it's a good idea to bring dogs on river trips. It's something that I have done so I'm not against it - I just don't think it can be done responsibly.
The one option at you didn't mention is the method I've used/seen used the most. That is with the boat next to shore, flip it away from shore, but not by lifting from shore. Rather, flipping as if you're in deep water by standing on the boat and pulling it away from shore. If it's a really heavy boat having 4 people on top of the boat gives a lot of leverage and if that's not enough, people on shore can lift and help push it over. So basically a combination of methods you discussed here. Granted it requires people to 'swim' but if you were on the boat when it flipped it shouldn't be a big deal to get back into the water. Having willing volunteers means you have a good boating crew, and the only way to go on advanced rivers. It also requires conditions that are compatible i.e. deep enough water to plunge into safely and limited current, however you're holding onto a flip line when you re-flip it.
Thanks for sharing
Here in much of Alaska... most of when I get the calls for raft recoveries; wood hazards tend to be 80% the mechanism of flips. Often it is caused by inexperience, overconfidence, indecision, inattentiveness, mental/physical fatigue, and lack of respect or understanding for power of water. When I do these recoveries solo or in tandem teamwork; the issue is lack of manpower, plus fly-out transportation for recovery is big time cost. Therefore, a premium is placed on creativity/ingenuity/strategy to be efficient, safe, and effective. My goal is to use the river's available energy as the downstream vector of force with objectives of controlling the boats angles (position) through vectored anchoring and applied traction placed on those anchors. I line up the sequence to eventually pull traction from 1 upstream point. Here your frame is your friend and not tugging on D-Rings. The mainline traction pull runs over the bottom of upside down raft...the raft is secured underwater at mid frame... raft slowly goes perpendicular to current and held steady... traction is pulled in on main winching line. What happens is as the downriver end gets lighter meanwhile the upstream side drafts deeper draws current and boat flips by simulating same mechanism as the accident flip. Basically you are artificially repeating/recreating the same forces in a controlled/calculated way that flipped the raft in the first place.
Great idea when manpower or river conditions don't allow a more leisurely re-flip! On our last Grand Canyon trip, all boats carried a piece of webbing (forgot the length, but we had fine-tuned and tested it beforehand) with a carabiner attached so everyone had an easily accessible flip-line. We had two flips, a 14' and a very heavy 18'. We either girth-hitched or binered each end of the webbing to opposite ends of the frame, got 4-5 folks on top and easily got both boats over the first try. So much easier and cleaner (and we all know Zach is all about "clean!") than traditional flip lines. It seemed that by all holding onto the same line, people were able to feel and instinctively adjust the force they were applying to complement the rest of the flippers rather than having 2 or more lines where it's harder to coordinate efforts. We ran across a group that was rigging a 3:1 to re-flip and boat and we politely helped with their plan, but we could have easily had their boat back up with our method much quicker.
The big question is what’s for lunch after all that effort and energy?
Thank you for the great comment!
Do you have a picture of your re-flipping set-up?
Great flipping demonstration.
Thanks!
two guys comfortably sitting down in a dry place talking about how to theoretically deal with a river emergency pretty much describes how river rats feel about dealing with a flipped rig
Your third method has the flavour of 'parbuckling' which is a marine salvage technique. Do you used this term in rafting?
Iv always thought about using the oars as leverage. If you have 9.5 to 10' oars. That's a mechanical advantage...
I'd be interested to see a photo of Aaron's re-flip set-up, with the laced line as he was describing.
Sometimes there aren't enough folks around to re-flip a loaded raft and there are no available anchor points on land to set-up a z-drag for re-flip purposes. Therefore, one must remove most of the gear first before attempting to re-flip a raft. Zach, do you have any suggestions for safely and more easily getting heavy and bulky gear out from underneath a flipped raft?
First of all I wouldn't suggest using a z-rig for re-flipping since it's too complicated. A 2:1 system is more manageable. Next, having enough people with your to reflip is an important safety consideration. If you're going to have a big, heavy gear boat you'll want to have enough people with you to flip it back over in order to be safe. Finally, there is no safe, easy way to get gear untied from an upside down raft. Every time you remove that gear it's different depending on the current, boat size, how it's tied in, and how deep the water is. It's also a bit sketchy sometimes and not a technique you can always depend on.
I like to tie the boat to shore Via the bow and stern, then flipping in deep water. Seems most safe, and the boat wont float away
Zack, maybe a video on how to bring your dog rafting with you, and how that can be done in the safest manner possible:
I personally don't think it's a good idea to bring dogs on river trips. It's something that I have done so I'm not against it - I just don't think it can be done responsibly.
turbothrobulator