COLD HAND OF DEATH AT HOME IN ALASKA Fred Dyson – Dyson's Starboard View – Messing About in Boats   Boating is fun and boating in Alaska is more fun than boating anywhere else.  We have tried to keep a light touch in this column and make it fun to read, but today we are going to be serious and relate the experience of a reader who was involved in a fatal boating accident.   Our reader was operating an unfamiliar boat and he and a friend were thrown out of the boat in a sharp turn.  Our reader surfaced, washed up onto a sand bar and was rescued a couple of hours later.  His companion surfaced briefly and was never seen again.  The reader wishes all Alaskan boating people to learn what he learned the hard way.   KNOW YOUR BOAT AND HOW IT HANDLES   Different boats and different power combinations will affect handling.  The load and trim of a boat will affect how it reacts under hard maneuvers.  I found that adding a cavitation fin to a seventy-horsepower Johnson made it sometimes lurch in hard comers.  Our reader never knew what happened to the boat he was operating.  He may have hit a submerged log.  All he knows is that they were both suddenly in very cold water.   ALWAYS WEAR FLOTATION   Our reader is apparently a very vigorous man in excellent shape.  He says that in two minutes, he was completely incapacitated by the cold water.  He was wearing a flotation vest and he survived to wash up on a sand bar a half-mile down current.  His companion, with no vest, surfaced once and died.  Some commercial fishermen, who got tired of losing shipmates, have designed and marketed some clothing with an inflatable flotation bladder built into the jacket or sweatshirt.  This stuff is attractive and comfortable, so now no one has an excuse for not wearing clothing that can save your life.   USE A DEADMAN THROTTLE   Our reader's boat cruised off at full throttle and grounded a mile away.  No help.  Prudent practice calls for either a spring-loaded throttle that shuts down when you let go, or a clip-on kill switch that shuts off the engine when you go overboard.  This strategy not only keeps the boat handy for you to climb back onboard, but eliminates the embarrassing situation of being run over by your own boat. CARRY SURVIVAL GEAR   Our reader was very cold when he rolled out onto the sand bar.  He had no matches to make a fire out of the driftwood and no flares to signal the aircraft and boats that came looking for them.  His advice is to always have flares, matches and a knife in your pocket.   SUMMARY   High-speed boats cause accidents to happen very quickly.  Be prepared and wear a float coat.                   TOP          MESSING ABOUT IN BOATS          HOME